5/11/11 Better late than never...

OK already, so this update is really overdue!  Things have been happening fast and furiously at the Dublin house.  I took a ten day "leave of absence" in late March to visit Denver and Phoenix, checking up on my brother, sister-in-law and sister, respectively.  Enjoyed a little R 'n R along the way with a family cookout at my niece's newly-remodeled house.  It was a good mental break from the Dublin house that refreshed me for the push to the finish.  Once I got back, things just started happening every day...make this decision, choose this, choose that, get colors lined up for paint, pick the floor. Oh, the floor - what a whooping decision that was!  I probably took more than two dozen samples to the house and agonized over each one.  Once a few other choices were made, the floor became easier.  But if someone had told me 6 months ago that the living area of the house would be beige and gray - well, I would have laughed at them!  It kind of started with the great room paint color - called Yosemite Sand. ( I could write an entire blog about paint color names, but that's another story.)  Anyway, I prefer to call it "khaki."   There's a lighter version of it on the ceiling and a darker version in the study.  We did the room's longest wall (which supports the fireplace) in 8-inch tongue and groove planks. Now, what to do with the fireplace?  The kitchen cabinets are hickory with a chocolate glaze (which tones down the high contrast of the shades within the hickory) and we decided on mostly black granite countertops.  Officially the granite is called Uba-Tuba - now what's with that name for a color?  We went with gray stacked stone on the fireplace, so it just seemed right to go with gray slate-looking flooring in the kitchen, breakfast room, sunroom and mud room.  I got my wish for the high-end cushioned vinyl which is, by the way,  easy to clean and pet perfect.  What's not to like about that!?  We opted for carpeting everywhere else in the house (well, except for the bathrooms!) and choose a beige/gray (would that be "greige"?) frieze that will do well in hiding the Georgia clay dirt.  While all this is going on and the decisions are being made, I am second-guessing how well everything will go together. It's harder than you think to pick out bits and pieces of the "big picture" - especially when the big picture isn't incredibly clear.  I worried everyday...

The front porch came together when the columns were put in.  OMG - what a huge differences to the appearance. Much more substantive...the four columns are one-third brick (on the bottom) and two-thirds square tapered white fiberglass.  Love it!  Meanwhile, the garage doors have gone up and the place is  beginning to really look like a house.  The shop is finally finished, bathroom completed, painted, floored, and equipped with a fridge.  We brought in the pinball machine and the room is a huge success.  Jacely loves the pinball (but she calls it gumball!) and stretches her arms across the glass to reach the "flippers."  She managed to put it out of commission the first day!  But it was soon up and running again and the shop's room is officially  the new hang out.  Tommy's got the TV hooked up and dialed in to the Western channel. Thinking about calling it the "roadhouse" - what do ya think?

Rather than make this a marathon post, I'm going to stop here and add a few pictures.  I'll resume the narrative tomorrow.  That is, if the computer holds together...it's been acting funny lately.

3/12/11 Spring has sprung and Dublin is green

Bradford Pear trees - look great but smell awful! Our apt./house in the background.

Jacely's trampoline blown to smithereens

inside shop room

the shop is filling up!

Busy, busy at the house last week with the septic tank and lines going in, the plumbers fitting pipes, the heat and A/C guys "venting" the house, and the brick masons working outside - plus Todd pulling all the electrical lines.  Whew! And all that happened in between spring storms with rain and winds that blew Jacely's trampoline into the pine trees!  Electricity is permanently in place now, underground from the box in the back of the yard, to the house and on to the shop.  The meter is running!  The bricks are 3/4 of the way around the house. The shop is almost complete...4 fans up (2 on the porch and 2 in the front room), 9 can lights and 5 flourescent lights, hot water heater, shop sink, bath (minus the toilet), painted, stained, trimmed.  Only waiting for the floor in the front room and bath.  I'd say 90% finished.  Tommy's unloaded so much stuff into the shop area that he says he already needs to expand it.  Yeah  - like that's gonna happen!  Time to build and fill shelves and use the shop attic.

Leprechaun Jacely

Leprechaun JD

Miss Jacely at the pageant

with her trophy

On another but equally pertinent note...Dublin goes crazy in March over St. Patrick's Day.  It's a month-long affair with pageants, parades, fairs, exhibitions, lectures, hot air balloons, contests - a little bit of everything.  Just this week Jacely and JD participated in the "Littlest Leprechaun" contest.  Jacely took second place out of 30 entrants and while JD didn't place, he stole the show with his glen plaid pants, green sequin tie, matching billed hat and a beard and smile artfully crafted on to his pacifier.  Quite a night!  Then today, Jacely was first runner-up in the Little Miss Erin Go Bragh beauty pageant.  One excited little lady!  Looking forward to a beautiful week ahead with temps predicted in the 70's.  And - most important of all - it's JD's first birthday on the 17th.  I can't believe the little St. Pat's baby is a year old already.

2/22/11 Brick-o-mania!

brick delivery

old mosstown

Briggs looking out of sunroom windows

breakfast room windows

front door and dining room window

so what do ya think?

kings of the mountain...Anna, Andrew, Jacely and Briggs

Good weather has finally returned to Georgia.  Yesterday, 10,000 bricks were delivered to the house (and that's only half of the order) and today the walls are going up.  It will take about three weeks to brick the entire house and that's IF the good (meaning dry) weather holds.  I LOVE the bricks we chose.  Good thing as I'll be looking at them for the rest of my life!  They're called "Old Mosstown" and they do look a bit "mossy."  Using a buff colored mortar so it's all very brown but the individual bricks have touches of white, cream, black and even green.  Now that they've finished the corner where the electric meter is going, we can get powered up and off extension cords.  The shop should be up and running by tomorrow.  Tommy is like a kid at Christmas, unpacking and arranging his shop.  So much more room than he ever had before.  And the shop's front room ( lovingly called the "man-cave" even though I intend to spend time there too) is almost finished. We're painting the ceiling now; will start on the walls next.  The ceiling is beadboard and the walls are textured T1-11 so it's all pretty rustic looking.  Not sure what we'll do with the floor yet...Brin wants to paint/stain the cement and leave it at that.  Maybe...  Meanwhile, in the house, things are moving along.  Todd has most of the wiring done - which is no small feat considering we put in more than 75 "can" ceiling lights - not to mention 6 ceiling fans! I'm gonna need a road map for all the switches!  He's also been working on the plumbing and some of the basics are in.  The kitchen cabinets are being built as we speak.  Decided on hickory, lightly glazed in chocolate.  Sounds good enough to eat!  Lots of people at the building site this week  - 4 in the brick crew, Todd, Tommy, the 3-man framing and multi-purpose crew and Briggs, who loves being away from the small apartment.  Yesterday, Jacely was playing with 2 cousins on the pile of dirt out back.  You can only imagine the dirt that went home with those kids.  All in all, we're getting a bad case of spring fever and will be sorely disappointed when the cold returns - which it surely will (this is still February, after all).  Good thing the house is becoming more of a "real" thing everyday.  Hoping it won't be more than eight weeks before we can move in.

2/2/11 Basking in mud

driveway - yuck!

more windows to come...and a door!

cathedral ceiling in Great Room

insulation in shop

While the rest of you are shivering in the latest blast of cold, snow and ice,...we're basking in a realative balmy 60-something today. But - we're mired in mud!  It seems like the entire month of January was one rainy day after another.  Good thing the house is dried in and we can work mostly indoors.  OK - I call it "dried in" but I'm not sure if that's official.  The good news is that the shop is zipping right along.  Wired, plumbed, heat and a/c in, and as of this week, insulated.  Today, the garage door went up and tomorrow, the door knobs and locks will be in.  So, as far as insurance is concerned, it's lockable.  We'll be able to store building supplies inside and feel like they are relatively secure.  After we put up plywood on the inside walls and ceiling, Tommy will be ready to set up his shop toys.  The front room of the shop is ready to finish too but will be a bit more sophisticated...textured 1-11 plywood walls (rough paneling) with wood plank ceiling and floor.  Still pretty rustic.  Can lights are in, and it's wired for ceiling fans.  The shop porch is ready for 3 lights and 2 fans.  Oh - and did I say that the shop is finished on the outside?  Vinyl siding (alas, bricks for the shop weren't in the budget) is up and trimmed out.

So - where does that leave the house?  Well, all the windows arrived this week and the first two are up.  Todd's been working on wiring this week, mostly putting up can lights.  Does it seem excessive that there will be about 75 cans in the house?  Nice to have an electrician in the family!  We met with the cabinet maker last week and are finalizing the kitchen layout.  Looks like the cabinets will be hickory wood - very pretty.  But that led to the need to order the appliances so we're sure everything fits.  Sears thanked us for buying french-door refrigerator, double oven stove, dishwasher, microwave/vent, upright freezer, and a secondary fridge for the shop.  Whew!  Doing all of those in stainless steel.  Ordered the vanity for the guest bath as well as a Mexican talavera vessel sink.  Lots and lots of decisions and choices yet to come, but all in all, it's coming along.  Hopefully the pictures will fill in where where my words don't.  Wish you all were here to see the progress!

1/10/11 Snow in the South

Ice on the mailbox... trees down in the driveway...not much happening at the Dublin house today.

12/30/10 end of year wrap-up

from across the back field

electric hook-up

well/pump

back of house

across the field, again

from the front

Our best worker!

Well, the house survived its first snow.  Hopefully this will be the only time it snows inside the house! We missed a white Christmas by one day as big fat snowflakes fluttered down early on 12/26.  The entire event lasted about 3 hours - just long enough for Jacely to make and throw a few snowballs.  Since the roof isn't on the house yet it did indeed snow inside.  Actually, this has been a slow week for the Dublin house...time off for the holidays, followed by Tommy's killer head cold (that put him out of construction commission for 5 days), and the loss (hopefully only temporarily) of our framing crew...made it a slow go.  Todd tries to do it all but it's hard when he's alone.  On the up side, we do have all the roof rafters in place and you can really see what the house is going to look like.  This week they've been working on getting the outside walls up and it's going well.  The pump has been connected to the reservoir tank in the garage; the attic stairs in the garage are up; the guest bathroom bathtub unit is inside; we're plugging along.  Can't post this without a word about Christmas..we celebrated at Brin's house, our house, and Tommy's sister's house.  Jamie was in town for 3 days - hurray!  Jacely's first reaction to Santa's visit at her house was,  "Santa left a big mess!" But it didn't take her long to jump into all the presents...yes, she got her "man" (which was part of a truck, trailer, horse toy).  Sweet baby JD enjoyed playing with the wrapping paper most of all.  On Christmas day, Jacely called baby Jesus on her iphone (play) and spoke with Mary and Jof-set.  She wished Him a happy birthday.  A good day was had by all!  Todd told me today that he's hoping for a March completion date on the house.  I was sort of aiming for June so anything before that will be a bonus.  I'm not counting days just yet...

12/19/10 December doings

going up!

overview of site before garage

breakfast room walls

back of house with view of shop

My apologies for not updating sooner.  Let's see, I never really got over the "crud" I had at Thanksgiving and now have a whopper of a head cold.  Also spent a week in Denver.  So now I have a lot to tell you.  Things are really moving along.  The shop is up and roofed and the outside walls are wrapped.  Progress has slowed on the shop and we've turned our attention to the house.  After the trenches were dug around the perimeter (allowing the house to be built on a crawl space), cement was poured and cinder blocks laid for the foundation.  Next came the floor joists and floor.  I'm beginning to get a sense of the space... Outside walls went up next which meant we had to make some decisions about windows and doors.  After all, they have to be built into the walls. Tried to standardize the windows at either 3 ft X 4 ft. or 3 ft X 5 ft. and  all the outside doors are 3 ft wide to accommodate a wheelchair, if necessary. Other things come into play too - like the minimum size window for a bedroom.  It must be of a size that, when open, will accommodate a fireman in full gear (i.e. 5.7 sq. ft.).  Plus, I wanted the windows placed where they will not interfere with the furniture in the room.  Have to think ahead about bed placement. etc.  That accomplished, we tackled two large beams that support the span across the open living/dining/kitchen area and cathedral ceiling.  Very heavy.  We've been lucky to have the help of a framing crew (3 guys) who are experts at all of this.  Cement truck returned to pour the front porch and garage, then the outside walls went up on the garage. The inside walls of the house were framed up next and then the ceiling joists.  Last Fri. a boom truck came to lift the massive beam that spans the garage - meaning no support poles inside the 28' X 26'  garage. Rafters have been started on the garage area - but then the rains came.  The last two days (Sat. and Sun) have been pretty much non-productive.  In a way, it's good to have a chance to catch our breath.  Tommy's muscles are sore!  He's over at the work site every day by 8am and stays until dark.  Todd is a hard worker too putting in more hours than Tommy.  On Fridays, Tommy gets to be the paymaster and claims to be the boss. Every other day he's just one of the workers.  One guy out there is 67 years old and has been building houses for 35 years.  He knows his stuff!  I check in every day or two to keep everything  smooth (yeah - more like riled up!)  I try not to second-guess our decisions and make changes...but poor Todd has had to move the master bedroom toilet 3 times already.  I think I'm finally happy with the arrangement but now wavering about the guest bath tub/shower.  Todd will have to remove part of a wall to get the pre-formed acrylic tub into the room.  I should have made that decisions sooner.  He says I need to go on vacation again so they can make decisions and move ahead without me changing my mind!  Oh yeah, on Fri. we also drilled a well.  Technically, "we" didn't, the pros did but they found water at 195 ft - which was 100 ft less than they expected.  So that's good news - hopefully, lack of water will never be an issue for us.  We've picked out the windows, outside doors, bricks, vinyl siding and roof tile.  But it's only just begun.  It seems like we've made huge progress but everyone assures me that once we get to the inside (plumbing, wiring, etc.) visible progress will slow down.  I'm not living by any schedule and know it will be many months yet before another moving day.  My goal this week is to get Christmas up and running (and over with), including a visit from Jamie.  The tree is a little cramped in the apartment but it's up and Jacely is pleased.