Offutt Air Show

On Saturday, I got to go to the air show at Offutt AFB with Tammie, Troy, Cole, and Vonn. It was a gorgeous day! Vonn was back in Omaha for his first check-up since going home to the Sandhills from the med center. He had labs yesterday and a clinical exam this morning. If everything goes well, they should be on their way home tonight in time for Vonn to go to school tomorrow. If not, they'll be doing a liver biopsy to see what's going on down there. Tammie will likely post here: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/vonndubs. Much prayers!

New House: Paint Preview

Decisions, decisions, decisions. You never realize how many finish options you really have in your house until you have to pick it all at once! The picture in this post shows a few different paint colors we considered for the exterior. We ended up going with "Dormer Brown," the darker tan at the bottom of the window. The trim will be painted "Homestead Brown" to match the brown window trim. We also decided on "Beach House" for the interior walls, and "Canyon" polystone for the bathroom vanities. (These colors probably don't mean a thing to you, but hopefully there will be finished product pictures soon!)

New House: Kitchen Cabinets

There have been some major changes this week... The first picture shows our "little" delivery on Tuesday - all of our kitchen and bathroom cabinets! In the second picture, the guy on the left is working on our trim, and the guy on the right is one of the cabinet installers. The trim seems to be taking quite a while, but every piece he's put up looks perfect! The third shows our (huge) island. When it's done, the sink will be in the middle, the diswasher will be in the left vacant area, and we'll have a trash/recycling pull-out in the right cabinet. I got kinda picky about putting the sink in the island so that the kitchen opens up more to the rest of the room, but it made it really big! The last picture shows the kitchen from the corner of the dining room. We LOVE the cherry finish of the cabinets! We did end up buying the tile in the picture on the last post, and we'll hopefully be installing it over labor day weekend (as well as a fence, sprinkler system, and sod in the backyard). Yeah, we know, high expectations. You can see the grey flooring (DensShield) that will be the vapor barrier for the tile to sit on. Needless to say, you can probably tell I'm pretty antsy now that things are taking shape. Our contract date for finishing is October 15 - so we're getting close! :)

New House: Tile Preview

In order to illustrate what our architecture schoolin' bought us, here's a little preview of our kitchen materials and tile pattern. As seen in the first picture, we've already ordered the cherry cabinets, we're pretty much decided on the tile, and we're still working on the laminate color for the countertops (the one shown is a pretty strong candidate). The second picture shows what an architect does with an hour to kill over lunch. In order to estimate the amount of tile and supplies we need, they need square footages. Plus, I/we wanted to see what the kitchen would look like with an angled brick pattern to follow the 45-degree angle of the island. Therefore, the floor finish plan in AutoCAD. Now we have a really, really close estimate of how many square feet of square versus angled tile area we have. Nerdy, I know. But I can't help it! :)

New House: Trim & Doors

Slowly but surely, we're still moving along. All of our trim and doors have been delivered, and some of the trim has been put up over the past few days. The windows will all be finished with a wood sill (last picture), and then there'll be typical trim beyond that. We also got gutters yesterday - but everybody knows what those look like, so I figured a picture wasn't necessary. And, now that gutters are up, Grant and I are hoping to see paint soon!

New House: Drywall (volume 3)

We're almost done with the taping and sanding process on the walls (you can see what will be the kitchen in the first picture), and they applied the texture to the ceilings (second picture). We're really happy with the texture, given that we had really no idea what it would be. It's almost a mop texture that has been sanded once over - pretty nice effect. The last picture is the contraption that the drywall subs had set up to reach the ceiling over the stairs - a precarious ladder holding a 2x6 with some scaffolding on the landing with a 2x8 to the floor. Can't say that I'd feel too safe! They also applied a primer to any exposed edges of the siding on the exterior, so we'll probably have pictures of a painted house soon! :)

New House: Drywall (volume 2)

We officially have all of our inspections! And as of yesterday all the drywall hanging was complete, and one coat of mud was on the corners. Over the next couple of days, the drywall subcontractor will be taping and mudding where all the pieces intersect and at any corners. The second picture is what you see upon entering the house. The living room will be under the vault straight ahead, and the dining room is the bump-out on the right. The kitchen will sit in between creating a large, L-shaped room. The third picture is stading in the dining room corner, looking back at the entry way.

New House: Drywall (volume 1)

The drywall got started yesterday. By the end of the day, we had all the ceilings up and walls in the master bedroom and closet. I've included pictures of our living room ceiling vault, master bedroom vault, and an image of the stack of drywall in the living room. There was a stack of equal size in the kitchen, so there's a lot to go still. The pictures tomorrow should look quite different!

The front sidewalk and step was poured on Monday. And if you look closely, there's an outlet on the garage wall next to the bed created by the walk. It's for Christmas lights in the landscape! :)

New House: Concrete

Of course, Grant and I like to make things difficult. The first picture is of Grant and Kerwin (one of our builders) marking out the sidewalk from the driveway to the front door. In the second picture you can see the concrete guy's formwork for our curved masterpiece leaving us with a nice landscape bed against the house. Also, you can see that the stoop was finally poured. The last picture features our expanse of concrete for the driveway. We're already "discussing" who's gonna be shoveling that this winter! :)

On Saturday, Mom & Dad, and Granny & Pa (Leslie's grandparents) came up to see the house and have dinner after Pa did a wedding ceremony down by the Missouri River. The concrete was all dry, so we were able to go inside, take a look around, and get the "real" approval on the framing inspection from Pa. Both my dad and grandpa have extensive framing and remodeling experience, so it was good to know that they approve! :) It was the first time Granny & Pa had seen the house in person, and they aren't able to check pictures on email or online, so it was pretty fun to show off our construction project!

New House: Insulation

On Friday, all the interior/exterior walls were insulated. The first picture is of the kitchen (cabinets will be in an L-shape along the pink wall and to the right, and you can see the piping in the floor for the island). The second picture is looking back at the front door and entry way. Every little piece that's added just makes it more and more real (well, obviously). Once all the HVAC ductwork is inspected in the basement, we should have drywall/gyp up this week!

New House: Inspections

One thing you never think about is all the inspections that happen along the way. Right now, we're sitting in that hurry-up-and-wait zone while the various inspectors check everything. The blue sticker on the 2x4 is for the elctrical inspection, and the other white post-its are from the framing inspector. There were a few things that needed adjustment, but they were fixed the next day, and the framing inspector came back and "okayed" everything. All we're waiting on now is an HVAC inspection, then we'll have drywall!