around the house

It was sunny and cold at the house this week.

All the plumbing and electric seems to be finished, but low voltage wiring is still going in.
We should soon be scheduling the pre-drywall inspection.

The mechanical room is ready for the tankless water heater.

When I got to the landing on the stairs to the second floor, I actually said, “OH!” out loud because I saw this!

The beginnings of my kitchen!
Fridge on the left of the back wall, cooktop in the center, oven/microwave on the right.
The sink and dish washer in the island.

Oh my goodness, y’all! I’m so ready!

And then there was electrical and plumbing!
Soon the low voltage stuff will go in and we’ll have our pre-drywall walk through.

Baby K picked up bits of PVC and “swept” up the wood shavings from where the pipes went through the framing. She left the house with a small piece of pipe in her pocket and a longer piece with and elbow on each end in her hand. (Birdie went through the box of fittings to make sure she had something fun.)

Brittany at the sales office called YBW last week with an update, and gave him a June/July move in timeframe. Of course this is approximate, but it’s much sooner than the initial September/October we got when we first stated our interest. And the July/August they told us when we gave our deposit.

Even though we don’t yet have a real date…

It was cold and windy as all get out when we went over to the house this weekend. It was the first weekend in a month it wasn’t actively precipitating though, so that was cool.

You’ll notice it says Saturday afternoon in the title up there, that’s because we couldn’t go Sunday morning.
What had happened was…
I had my first covid vaccine Saturday morning. (There was a clinic for PWCS employees at one of the high schools the past two weekends.)
But first, I had to run to Target.
And after, YBW and I had carry out lunch with his brother and sister-in-law.
Then we finally went to the house.

The HVAC is going in!
How exciting!

This is the view from the back of the house.
I was standing at the windows in our bedroom.
YBW noticed we could see the tower at Dulles. (Dulles International Airport is about ten miles to the north)
If you’re curious, it’s just that dark gray thing that kind of looks like a bowler hat just to the right of that big tree. If you’re not curious, it’s still that dark gray thing that kind of looks like a bowler hat just to the right of that big tree.

We met some neighbors who were out walking. They were keen to see the view from our house, so we invited them in and let them look out the windows. In turn, they invited us to see their home. It’s the same model as ours, but an interior unit, and I was eager to see the finished pantry, linen, and main bedroom closets.
This single guy with roommates doesn’t utilize his space very well, and I bit my tongue to stop myself offering organizational advice. Though he does have a tricked out smart house thing going on and YBW dug that!

I know what we’re going to do in the pantry and linen closets, and we’re working to design our closet.
I did some measuring in the laundry room for a counter or table top over the machines, open shelving above that, and a tall cabinet in the corner of the room. Now to see what I come up with…

You’ll notice it says Saturday and not Sunday up there.
That’s because we were in the middle of a mad ice storm and based on the forecast, thought we’d be safer going to the house Saturday morning.
Mother Nature had different plans.
The ice was bad out there!
Temps steadily dropped from when we left our (current) house just after eight and by the time we got home just after ten, there was a solid quarter inch of ice on the roads.

There were no workers in the house this week so we were able to get into every nook and cranny!
We’ve been in finished models. We’ve been in partially constructed models.
But this was the first time we were able to go all over our own house! (mini SQUEE moment for sure)

I’m standing in the front right corner of our house, in the dining room right next to the half bath shooting towards the living room. The kitchen will be on the left wall there in the middle. The gaping hole in the back is where that big ass stacking door will go.

The door to the roof deck is nailed shut so I couldn’t open it to get a better pic. But this is where I plan to spend as much time as humanly possible. Porch life will have a entirely new setting!

Yes, all that water on the doors is ice.

It was a snowy Sunday morning this week!

We have stairs now!
(do you see those telescoping doors stacked up in the living room at the top of the stairs!?!)

Of course there were carpenters working in the house while we were there so we chose not to go up the stairs.
We did go down into the ground floor room and that was cool!

While I’m eager to climb the stairs to the upper floors of our house, I will admit to being a bit disappointed that I can no longer stand in this spot in the garage and look all the way up.

I’m hoping there won’t be anybody working next Sunday morning so we can go up into the house!

We’ve got windows!

It was cold and snowy when we woke Sunday morning. But that didn’t stop us from going over to the house.
Thing 1 and Baby K got all bundled up and went with us.

Inside the garage huge stacking sliding doors are leaning against the wall. The ones for our house and the house next door.
One of the windows broke, the glass swept into a huge pile. Of course Baby K decided that was where she wanted to play. Her mom decided the best way to get her out of the glass in the garage was to plop her down into the living space.
YBW wanted to show me something on the side of the house so I told her we were going around the side and would meet them in the back.
When we got around the side of the house, this is what we saw.

She was saying, “Papa!” right as I took that photo.
Y’all this kid loves her some Papa.
Papa loves him some Baby K too, so it’s a match made in Heaven!

The stairs were scheduled to be delivered late last week or early this week. Since there were no stairs it looks like early this week. Maybe next Sunday we’ll have some!
The back of the house has some windows, but is waiting for the those big ass sliding doors to go in.

It’s beginning to look like a proper house now, y’all!

The waterproof membrane is finally on the house so no more dancing in puddles for Baby K.
She stayed home this week anyway. It was sunny but damn cold. Even with my coat and a hat and gloves I wasn’t warm enough to dawdle for too long.

We have a front door now!

YBW ran into the building manager last week and he said stairs should arrive on the twenty-ninth.
So there won’t be anymore of this view:

But that’s OK, it just makes it more real!