Day 74

A decision made! In a sea of many choices, today I made this one! Actually, we had already picked out a kitchen sink along with all of our plumbing fixtures, but the man of the house was not happy with our kitchen sink options. So I went to another supplier that our builder recomended. I requested prices on three sinks only to find out that two of them were out of our budget. But the second one pictured above was nearly the exact same price as the one at the top that is a rather plain jane lighter gauge sink. So, we are getting that lovely sink!

The plumbers completed their work today and called for an inspection. Unfortunately, the inspecter found something that needs to be corrected. So tomorrow, the plumber return and make his changes and call for another inspection.

Our lovely "classic cream" siding was delivered today. It should start to go up tomorrow morning!

Day 73

The mechanicals are close to being complete. The plumber is running gas lines for my fireplace, range, and stove today and has just a few things to finish up tomorrow morning. Both the HVAC and the Electrical work have been done and passed inspection. Once the plumbing work has been inspected our builder will order a framing inspection. Once that has passed, the house will be insulated and drywall will begin to go up. Things will really begin to take shape then!

The siding will start to go up at the end of this week and the outside will really change, as well.

Today, WaterWorks was here running lines for our purified drinking water and preparing for our duel tank softener system. I can't wait for the time when I no longer need to haul 19 gallons of water home every two weeks!

We are in the mode of making many decision right now. Cabinets, lighting, switches, paint, sinks, porch posts, appliances, door hardware, stain color, bath accessories and much more have to be thought about and choices made. It can seem overwhelming! I keep praying for God's wisdom for all of our choices because this home is truly His. We just want to do what is right!

Our manablock system. I keep wanting to call it our water fuse box. :) There is a separate shut off for every plumbed item in our home. Cool, huh?

Day 65

Haven't updated lately because the progress of late isn't as visible and I haven't taken many photos. But the mechanical contractors have been quite busy. The HVAC has been completed to the 1st inspection stage, as well as all of the electrical wiring. The plumbers are working as I type and should be done within a couple of days.

Next comes insulation and drywall. Once drywall goes up, our builder said that it should be approximately 60 days to completion! The end is in sight! We should be insulated next week and drywall will follow immediately after.

Our siding contractor will begin installing the soffits this week and the siding will go up next week. Then, I will have some new pictures!

Day 54

Day 54: Transformtions!
AEP showed up today to install our new transformer (shown here in a watercolor rendering). We are one step closer to having power in our new home.

Day 53

Day 53 Electricity...E-lectricity

Although we weren't expecting them to begin for another week, our electrician showed up today to do some work. They wanted to get the boxes for the services installed quickly because they have to be inspected by our electric company before we can be hooked up with power. While they were here, they also tacked up switch and outlet boxes as well as some of our recessed can lights. They also repaired our low hanging wire that goes from our pole to the barn that was damaged during last week's storm. He made a comment that it looked pretty dangerous, so I am very thankful to have that done!

Day 52

Day 52: Electrical Walkthough
We met with our electrician as well as our builder to walk though the house and discuss where all of our lights, switches and outlets should be. I never realized how hard it would be to make those decisions. Barry and I had been discussing what we wanted and our builder and electrician provided their wisdom and experience. We got most everything figured out in about two hours, but they did say that we should be talking with the the place we will purchase our lights from to iron our some unclear details on light placement. They also said they would need to have our cabinet manufacturer come out and draw where the center kitchen island will be so that they can place the light over it correctly. The only problem is that we haven't picked a cabinet company or selected cabinets yet.

So, Barry and I took the afternoon and picked out all of our lighting fixtures at Light World. The lady we were working with there was very helpful in light placement and finding appropriate lights for the right places. Now, we just need to get her quote and see if we are within our budget.

Then we still had some time, so we went to Harlan Cabinets and picked out cabinets. We should get a quote on that in about a week. Hopefully we are within our budget on that, as well.

Then we went home and I thought my head might explode trying to make that last decision of the day: what to fix for dinner! Ü

Day 47

Day 47: Garage Door

We have a garage door we can close! Our poor Overhead Door guy arrived with a door and pulled everything out of his truck before he realized that we have an 8'-0" high opening and he had a 7'-0" door. So he had to pack everything back up and go back to get the right one. But we did eventually get a door, but there is no opener yet. That will come after the home is drywalled.

Inside Garage with New Door

Elizabeth's Ductwork

A View from the Master Bedroom

Here's a photo taken looking out of the master bedroom window. You can see our lovely new geothermal trenches as well as our green roof and beautiful view of our neighbor's pasture across the road. We never realized how pretty and rolling it was until we saw it from this view up high!

Day 47

Day 47: Geothermal Trenches
The only section of our pasture that up untl now had not been torn up and reduced to mud, is gone. The front of our yard now has two 250'-0" long trenches that are 5'-0" deep. These will hold black tubing that will carry water underground for our closed loop geothermal HVAC system. The tubing can be seen here laying coiled up next to the left trench. They did end up hitting our current home's septic tile which they did patch. Hopefully well enough to last us a few more months.

Day 47

Here is where our geothermal lines leave and re-enter our house through the basement wall.

Geothermal Tubing

Day 47

In the trenches! Today the trenches are being dug for the tubing for our geothermal system. They digging two 200' trenches that are 5'-0" deep where they will lay in coiled tubing. They will also lay tubing at the 3'-0" level. This is for our closed loop geothermal HVAC system.