Heaven on Earth!

Here we are today!  The house is closed in (we just need to get the tyvex on).  The framers have one more day, the HVAC guy has been in and is getting things set up, Cody is framing out the faux beams on the interior, my windows and doors are in place, and we will be roofing the house the week after Christmas ... and I am IN HEAVEN!  I drive past and get butterflies (it's like we are dating!)  I stand in the house and just want to stay forever.  I look out the upstairs windows and am in awe of the beauty!  This place has always had a special place in my heart, we would come visit and I would just say, this is my heaven on earth.  This is my favorite place to be and now I get to be there forever!  I get to live the dream and I am feeling VERY blessed!  From a great husband who is letting me build my dream house down to the last board, and to a Heavenly Father who blesses us with good weather, great subs and financial peace.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I promise, we are building a house.

US Bank likes to keep tabs on where we are at in the building process to make sure the money we are taking out is actually going to the subs/materials we say they are.  So~ they have me sending pictures to go along with each draw.  So~ here was the latest draw and the pictures I took (you can get a look at the inside of the home this way.)

Let it SNOW!

We got the house dried in JUST in the nic of time!  Like literally two hours after the roofers left it snowed for two days straight.  Again, BLESSED!

Next stop, closed in ... windows and doors on.  At this point some of our doors were there (one of the french doors had broken glass due to a wind storm that blew it over, thank heavens that was the only thing that broke and Colonial Lumber replaced the glass for free).

Starting to take shape.

I am so lucky to have a great husband who knows how to get things done!  This house is "flying" up (as we have been told by those same people who keep asking us what was taking so long when we were waiting on the county and US Bank).  We have some great framers who are making sure all the details are covered and have been here EVERY weekday getting it done.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Here is the overbuild over the front door.

Dormers built.

Oh I love it :)

Rooms with a view.

Since the 2nd floor is going in the trusses we have BIG dormers that come out (each one of the dormers is a bedroom except for one that will house the stair way).  It was fun to see the house that we had been looking at on paper for almost a year actually start to take shape!

Up to this point we had been really lucky with the weather.  This is December and we had a few snow storms and occasional rain but overall we have been VERY blessed with decent weather.  But look at that mud!  The workers are going home with inches of clay/mud on their shoes.  The cement trucks that poured the foundation got stuck and had to pull each other out!  No wonder we had to monitor our water ... pretty high water table, glad we didn't do a basement.

Sheets of snow!

Our biggest push with the county near the end was to get our house dried in.  PLEASE let us start building our house! We wanted to get started, get going, get building!  So~ when the snow started to come we were VERY anxious to get it "dried in".  Cody had me painting water sealant on the sub floor so that it wouldn't get ruined or squeak (I don't know if Cody hates anything more than a squeaky floor, I am sure there is, I just can't think of it now, lol).  We spent Thanksgiving day as a little family putting tar on the foundation and roasting marsh mellows on the wood pile.

We needed a roof!  Here's some pictures of the framers working in the cold and snow getting the sheeting going.

I have to admit, my favorite part up to this point was seeing the porch posts go up!  I am SO grateful to a husband who despite the cost is letting me have my DREAM of a wrap around porch that goes around the entire house!  It makes me giddy like the little girl inside me who dreamed about it!  I sure love him ;)

Trusses ... The waiting game

The trusses were supposed to be delivered one day ... they came two days later.  The crane for the trusses was supposed to come one day ... it came 3 days later.  Every day I would drive by (I am sure the framers think I am crazy!) and I would check to see ... so I was SO excited to finally see the trusses going up.  The second floor will actually be in the trusses.

HOME!

They say home is where the heart is ... I CAN NOT wait until we are there too!

The framers started ... our first "hired" help!  One story down ... one more to go!

Foundation + Foundation

Because we decided to do a wrap around porch around the ENTIRE HOUSE we decided that the best way to accomplish this was to do pretty much 2 foundations.  One for the house and one for the porch. We could do spot footings for the porch but we worried about critters getting under the porch and dealing with that all of our days, so we spent the extra $2000+ and did a complete foundation for the porch.  Again Cody and his family and friends worked their TAILS off and poured 84 yards of concrete in one day (the house will have a craw space so they not only poured two foundations they poured the subfloor for the craw space so we can use it as storage!)  WHAT MEN!  I can not express how grateful I am for hard working men.  This is a picture of them putting up the forms.  I can't find any of them actually pouring or taking down the forms (which they did in the rain and MUD) ... but you get the idea ~ AWESOME MEN!

The house saga ... let it begin!!!! PLEASE!

Where to begin ... (I by NO means will be trying to go back 4 years and catch this blog up) I will use this blog to post about the progress of our house adventure :)

In August 2011 we started this LONG process of building a new home in Liberty.  It has included 6 months monitoring water with Weber Health, 4 moves, 139 days dealing with Weber County creating a new "subdivision" (every time you divide property in un-incorporated Weber County you have to create a subdivision), and an amazingly long construction loan process including signing our construction loan papers on Sunday at a Wendy's fast food restaurant!  BUT~ we made it!  Hooray and on Halloween 2012 we poured our footings!  Hooray!  Cody, his dad, brother Chad, and some friends did a great job and got 'er done (as Cody would say it).  Best Halloween EVER!

Hey! Look at that!

I was going to make a new blog to post about the home building process but HEY ... look at that ... I already have like 1800 blogs, lol~ why create a new one!?!?