No, the House Isn’t Finished…

~ Heather Walter ~ Leave a comment

…but we are getting ever closer.  🙂


According to John, our general contractor, they will be done tomorrow (Monday).  I have told him that he must be finished by Tuesday, which would mark 9 weeks since the start of the project.  He seems to have taken it to heart…  The crew actually came and worked on Saturday, which is something they have been reluctant to do thus far.


Here are some progress photos.


Blue ceilings:

Some upstairs shutters, stained posts, rails about to be installed:

Trim-work around the edge of the deck before installing the rails:



Our water heater is back up!  HOORAY!!!  Once you’ve had an instant water heater, you wonder why you ever used a hot water tank…



New shutters!

Front of house with shutters:



Crooked, but you get the idea…  Railings going up!  What a sigh of relief.

Railings:

Staining the deck:


View from the driveway:

Front view of house:

Baby Day!!!

~ Heather Walter ~ 1 Comment

Yes, I need to post about the house and Isaac and visiting with grandparents and…  I am not doing that now.  LOL


Todd and I had our anatomy sonogram this morning.  It’s a:



I made this t-shirt last night as a way of showing Todd’s parents, who are visiting us, what we are expecting in March.


Here are a few of the pictures from the sonogram itself:


Profile:


Profile with her hand up near her face:

Foot!

Another profile:



The baby weighs about 12 ounces (3/4 of a pound).  She looked good from everything they were examining.  In our meeting with the midwife after the sonogram, Todd was able to use the heart rate monitor to find his daughter’s heartbeat and listen!  🙂  It was a pretty awesome day.

1 1/2-Year-Old Explorer

~ Heather Walter ~ Leave a comment

Started this post yesterday and then got tired of waiting for YouTube to upload my videos…
I decided to just follow Isaac around with the camera on a gorgeous, sunny afternoon Sunday.  He had great fun…


We started in the front yard…


Walking around, looking like a big boy!



Short video, but nice to see his smiling face…



Checking out the progress on the front porch…



And then quickly moved to the back yard, where most of the construction equipment is being stored.  This little gem in his hand is a magnet to pick up loose nails and screws.



He LOVED it because the handle had been lowered to just his height.



Then we moved over to the sand table, where some nails were stacked on top.  Isaac sorted some of them into the bird house.



S-t-r-e-t-c-h!



Which nail is next?



In action:



Electrical outlet around the side of the garage



Dad’s lawn mower



Gate on the other side of the yard…



Before heading back to the porch to sit for a second and a half…



Then he decided to carry around this half-full paint can and Jackson came to investigate



I can do it, Mom!



Measuring how high the grill is



Wow!  That’s way up there!



Stephanie, this toy reminds me of the tractor at the Kathy Caraway place.  I thought he was going to fall over pushing it…


Just before Daddy got home and we went back inside…

Isaac worked up quite an appetite.  Here he is enjoying some sweet potatoes with dinner:

Stonework Completed

~ Heather Walter ~ Leave a comment

The stone crew returned in full force on Friday and stayed until nearly 8:00 last night finishing things up.  I am impressed by both the quality of their work and their dedication to doing the job well.  I am VERY impressed.


This was before noon, the crew was working on the columns in the center of the porch:



 And on the other side:

Plastic to protect the cedar posts:

Looking down the porch toward the end of the day:

John, our general contractor, measuring to determine where the railings will go.  They are to be installed on Monday.



Front of the house toward the end of the day Monday:



This is one of the pictures that impresses me most.  When the original porch was pulled down, there was no stone work behind it.  The crew filled in the missing stone.  Can you tell where they did it?  I can’t and I even went up and stood directly in front of the wall!

Windows and Posts

~ Heather Walter ~ Leave a comment

All of the windows have been installed!  We have one small snag that will be fixed next week, but it’s nothing major.  The window company sent us a window with regular glass for our upstairs bathroom and they will replace the sashes next week with obscure glass.  There isn’t really a view in or out of the window, so it probably doesn’t matter, but I will feel more secure knowing no one is going to see me stepping out of the shower unless they are standing on the roof looking through the sky light.  😉


Here are the updated photos from late yesterday and today:


Father and son checking out the house at the end of the day on Wednesday:



New kitchen window.  I can’t tell you how much I love this.  It’s my new favorite window!



Let there be light!  Finally a usable window in the laundry room!



All new windows across the back.



The lower posts have been “stained” with a clear coat.  They are stunning.  I didn’t realize what a difference it would make and I couldn’t be happier.



The stonework started at the other side of the porch, so you can see what the bases of the columns are going to look like now.  Getting closer!!!



Finally, one more picture of the kiddo.  Still working on self-feeding.  He’s making a mess, but he loves it.  🙂  This was peach/squash yogurt with dinner.

Busy Boy

~ Heather Walter ~ Leave a comment

Isaac had quite a day today!  The windows crew returned to finish installing windows, so he got to watch them work while he ate his breakfast.  He got to have black beans, his new favorite, with lunch.



He is working on learning how to eat with a spoon, so he had a lot of fun making a GIANT mess:



Then this afternoon, we went to see Daddy at work for a little Halloween Spooktacular event at NI.  We had a great time, but, alas, I didn’t get many photos.  Here’s what we did instead:



These are the 2 photos I managed to snap:

Tuesday & Early Wednesday.

~ Heather Walter ~ 1 Comment
The name of the game this week is WINDOWS!  The crew has been really nice and seem to be pretty efficient.  They got the first 4 windows replaced within 2 hours yesterday morning.  They left early today to celebrate a birthday, which I didn’t argue because I HATE to work on my birthday…  They will finish up the last 4 windows tomorrow morning.

Original window on front of house (den):

Bye-bye window!

Replacement window on front of house:



Sliding glass door that we have cursed an unknown, but very large, number of times:


No door at all (already an improvement)!

New door in place (and before Jackson jumped through the screen door a mere 5 hours later):



Original Dining room windows: 

No more windows!  This opening is actually wider than the one for the sliding glass door.  I didn’t realize it until they had pulled all of the windows down.

New dining room windows!  The center is a picture window and there are casements on either side.

A view from the outside:

View of the new windows from the front of the house:

Freshly painted surround for the front door.  I need to repaint the door itself, too.

View of front of house this morning (before new windows on top):

Isaac watching the men work.  Thank goodness his grandparents will be arriving shortly after this project is finished because I am not sure what I am going to do for entertainment!

New windows in the master bedroom.  So much brighter!

Front of the house around noon today (with new windows in):

More new windows:


Windows in the master bedroom:

There is a cold front moving across Texas and we are expecting a 40% chance of rain tomorrow.  Hopefully the windows are going to be sealed enough to prevent the rain from getting into the house.  There are gaps around the windows where new windows are perfectly square and the holes they are in are not…  Fingers crossed…

John, our contractor, came by this morning to walk through the project with the stone guy.  The stone bases for the lower sections of the posts are supposed to be installed this week.  Once that is complete, we can have the railings installed and I, for one, will breathe a huge sigh of relief.  They are also going to stain the concrete on the first floor and they still need to paint all of the ceilings, trim all of the windows, and stain the decking and shutters.  There are various other items, as well, but those are the “big” items remaining.

House & Isaac Updates

~ Heather Walter ~ 1 Comment

Not much noticeably changed on the house on Friday, so I decided not to post an update.  In addition, Friday was the day I finally (nearly) cracked from all of this construction, so I thought a short hiatus might be a good idea.  The roofer kept climbing down and asking me questions I had no way of being able to answer…  Saturday, the roofer came and finished up both the “contract” work and a few extra repairs Todd authorized him to do.  The other crew were doing a lot of little finish work on the upstairs porch and it didn’t look all that exciting.  🙂  Today, however, they made progress even I can see.  They boxed in (with Hardie plank) a lot of the edges of the porch.  They did a LOT of caulking to seal things up.  They also started painting, which is very exciting.


Todd examining the porch progress Friday:

View of the house Friday afternoon:

Windows delivery (also Friday)!!!

Painted back of laundry room/garage this afternoon:

Painted back of house:

Windows!

More windows!  The installer should be here tomorrow morning (and last Wednesday, last Friday, and this morning).  I blame the General Contractor’s scheduling, not the windows guy.  I will just be glad when they get them installed.

Painted side and back of house:



Freshly painted side of garage:



Front of house end of Monday (with paint):


Close-up of the encased gable:



In Isaac news, Todd and I took him to the park on Sunday afternoon.  We ran into 2 families (who also didn’t come together) from National Instruments, a friend of mine from church, and a woman I used to go to music class with over the summer.  Rather impressive given the size of this fairly small park… 


Self-feeding with yogurt:

First attempt at spaghetti (we usually have smaller noodles): 

We like spaghetti!

I want to go in the attic to help Daddy rewire the ceiling fans!!!


Isaac has a bit of a cold today and has been coughing, so I bought him some Little Remedies Saf-T-Pops to try to soothe a sore throat.  He had fun making himself into a super-sticky mess!


Parks

~ Heather Walter ~ 2 Comments
We recently rediscovered parks, now that the weather has gotten much cooler.  I realized that I hadn’t posted many photos of Isaac growing up lately, so I’m posting a few pictures from our mommy outing a few weeks ago and then some from this Tuesday.

Isaac has become quite the little dare-devil and has a blast when we go to the park now.  Before summer weather made outings impossible, I tried multiple times to get Isaac to try a sliding board.  He was not much of a fan and would cry, even though I would hold him the whole way down.  We only tried it a few times because I didn’t want to traumatize him.  Apparently I didn’t.  Now, he not only enjoys going down the slides, but climbing back up them, as well.  🙂  Here he is going up a small slide from one section of the playscape to the next:



Before I made him sit on his bottom to come down the slide…  This is a smaller slide; only about 3 feet high. It is designed to go pretty slowly (like the one pictured above), so he’s tempted to just walk up and down it.



Sliding on his bottom:



Climbing up down the steps on the playscape:



Over the weekend, we went to a new park that my friend, I’ll call her “Mephanie” to protect her innocence, assured us was much safer than the other parks we’ve tried.  As you can see, Mephanie spoke too soon.  Isaac managed to land on a little rock (we think) and gave himself a nice knot on the side of his head.

As you can see, he’s really bothered by it:

He was actually perfectly fine after he cried for about 30 seconds, but several people have now asked me what happened to his head.  It doesn’t help that the night before, I’d managed to cut his chin with my thumb nail while trying to get him to sit down on the couch…  I am not going to win Mother of the Year, after all.  The park was otherwise lots of fun and I’m sure we will try it again soon, although Mommy will keep a better eye out for little rocks…


This week, the cooler temps necessitated much warmer clothing.  Isaac had a great time when we stopped at the park for a little playtime on Tuesday.  He discovered this set of “steps” to climb up to the big slide.  To give you a reference, the top of this thing is about 6′ high – it’s above my head:



Determining his next move:



Reached the top and headed down the sliding board!  FEARLESS!!!



Here are a few quick video clips of the boy on the move… They were taken on my phone, so they aren’t quite as good as the ones my camera takes.  I didn’t realize how windy it was, so you may wish to turn the sound “off” on your computer before watching.  Sorry…
Climbing like a little pro:



Going down the slide:

Priming, Ceilings, Roofing!

~ Heather Walter ~ 1 Comment

Wow!  I didn’t post for a few days, so I went back to check what had happened since my last update.  The answer:  a LOT!!  I will let the pictures do the talking…  Apparently they are more efficient than I am…

Siding going up on the front of the house:

Siding and new door into office:

Side of garage with new foam board:

Todd was working on the lighting, so he bought this little transformer.  I like to the think of the next 3 photos with the theme music to Jaws in my head (Duh-nuh):

Duh-nuh:



Duh-nuh, duh-nuh, duh-nuh…

Finished siding along the front:

…and along the side of the garage:

Primer!!!  Back of the garage:

Priming the back of the house and covering the overly-yellow siding:

Front of house primed and shutters removed around first-floor windows.  As you can see, they painted the old shutters without taking them down…  Lovely…

Street-level view earlier this week:

Primed area over garage (this is the side of the guest room):

Other side of the house, also primed:

Back of house fully-primed.  I apparently scared the foreman at this point with my picture-taking because he wanted to be sure I knew this was just primer:

Monday evening, a VERY welcome cold front literally blew in.  It ripped the tar paper off of the roof over Isaac’s room:

Ceiling on the upper floor – including Todd’s hatch to get to the electrical:

Installing the downstairs ceiling:

Roofers!!!  Oddly, I remember our house being re-roofed as a child and how abominably loud it seemed at the time.  With everything else we’ve had done to the house, it was quite peaceful to hear the constant rat-tat-tat-tat all day today as they installed the shingles…

Downstairs ceiling work:

Both ceilings and the siding/finishing work they’ve done on the front along the edge of the decking:



 Front of house at the end of the day today:



You can see the new roof!  They still need to come back (tomorrow?) to finish up a few things, but the bulk of the work is already complete.



Windows are due to be installed on Friday.  Tomorrow, John is coming to assemble the shutters.  They have really gotten quite a bit of work done this week and we are happy about that.  After much ado, Todd and I finally selected colors to paint the siding and the trim.  We *think* we have found the color for the ceilings, but we haven’t gotten a sample yet to make sure it will look like we think it should.  Hopefully we will be finishing up just in time for Halloween!