New House Week 6

I just realized that we left the door open when we left...oops. This week the builders have been busy on the interior filling cracks and holes in the drywall, and that is a long and tedious job. There has been a lot of progress on the exterior with the porches nearly complete on the end units and the siding installed on the back of the house.

This is our view from the interior at the front of the house. We think it is pretty sweet.

The view of our living room from our kitchen. On the floor is all of the trim and molding.

Here is the back of the house with the siding! The builders are still working on the walls of the garage, which you can see in the foreground. I am really getting excited and have already picked out paint colors and curtains!

New House Week 5

November 18th...6 more weeks until we get to move in! We found out that the delay was with engineering. They needed to make sure that there was enough support because the home is on a hill. Yesterday we did our construction walk-through. We did not get any pictures of the interior however because we were very rushed and had a very upset little girl. In the interior the insulation is in, dry wall is up, the can lights are installed as well as the smoke detectors (very important), so now begins the finishing work.

As of Monday on the exterior the porches need to be built for our lucky neighbors who get them, and the siding was about to be put up. The foundations for the detached garages were still curing in their forms but they should be up soon too. Annoyingly there are still no steps going into the house so we have to climb up or else use the 2X4 ramps that the construction works have improvised.

It looks like I will have a good spot for my garden in the front of the house. The plot is only about 3 feet deep but approximately 15 feet long and it will get plenty of sunlight. My plans are to try square-foot gardening. It is hard to imagine that in just a few weeks our townhouse will be complete!

My First Quilt!

Here it is! I made my very first quilt and though it looks lopsided in the picture, I promise that it is surprisingly symmetrical. Being the scaredy-cat that I am, I chose to do a simple baby blanket from Amy Karol's book Bend-the-Rules Sewing and was surprised how easy it actually was to make.

Perhaps it isn't a true "quilt" but I did do some machine quilting on it. It turned out much smaller than I had originally planned, mainly this is because I CANNOT cut fabric. Months ago I asked people for advice on how to best cut fabric and the answers that I got were: rotary cutter and mat. Well I have both of those and still managed to fail this one. Ugh...I could go on and on about my frustrations about measuring and cutting fabric but perhaps someday I will be able to figure it out.

One of the great pieces of advice that Amy gave for this project is to not pre-wash the fabric because machine quilting often causes puckers. Washing it after sewing disguises these and gives it a really neat shabby-chic look which is very cute. A general review of this book is &&&/5 because this isn't really a book that I would recommend to someone who actually knows how to sew. I am guessing that a lot of the projects an experienced seamstress could just look at and know exactly how to make. Karol does have some great advice thrown in throughout the book and I do think this a great book for beginners. If you are interested definitely check with your library first.

Now I just have to give this little baby girl blankie away...but to whom, I am not telling. ;)

New House Week 4

We have windows and doors! This was a rather exciting week because we got to sneak into the house and check it out. The electrical wiring has been done as has the plumbing and everything is "roughed" in. It is still quite hard to imagine what the finished space will look like but it was exciting to walk around the space that soon will be all our own.

The foundation for the garage has been laid and, as expected, we have almost no backyard to speak of. There will probably only be 8 ft. from the sliding glass door to the garage.

The interior! Pretty fancy huh? This is looking into the kitchen from the family room. We are really excited to be able to have our first walk-through with the builder and hoping that it will happen this week!

Confusion

To clarify: we are only building 1 townhouse, not 4. Ours is the 2nd from the right.

New House Week 3

All three floors are framed, the roof is on and the weather guard is up! It is amazing how much happens in one week. We haven't gotten any updates on the completion date so it still looks like mid-October. Looking at it, can you believe that this will be done in a month? Me neither. I am guessing that it will be done at the end of October. Maybe I should have a poll?

This week has been really busy for us. Andrew is always busy working but with canning peaches, drying tomatoes, making meals for new moms, chiropractic appointments, La Leche League, birthday dinners, grocery shopping, laundry... [sigh] this has been a LONG week.

This weekend should be great! We get to go to Harrisburg to our Stake Conference AND we get a new stake presidency. While we haven't been here very long, a new stake presidency is always exciting.

New House Week 2

The ground floor is framed! This process seems to be taking FOREVER. When we met with the builder the first week of August he said that by now the framing would be finished and we would be doing the first walk-through. I think it will be two more weeks until we get to that point.

See the lovely puddles? We have had tons of rain this summer and it has been holding up the construction. While we had a few glorious days in the beginning of the month the rain is back with a vengeance, and will continue to dampen our spirits through tomorrow evening. I think I am in need of an indoor adventure. Any recommendations?