Our House is coming along fast!

The guys got tons of stuff done in the house while we were gone for a week. Our whole upper level is sheetrocked and most of the main level is done. They were taping the sheetrock on the upper level yesterday when we went to check out the progress.
Here is Jeff and the boys and Declan's friend checking out the upper sitting room and the upper level of the turret. We are having an open area in the middle of this area with a railing that can look down to the office. The guys have scaffolding across the open area with lots of plywood so they can walk everywhere. We finally get to walk out there and get to see the view from that area. This is going to be our telescope area and the turret will have a steel floor.
This is the beams finished in the library with all the plywood over them.

We have storage trusses in the attic of the garage and got to see what all that looks like yesterday. If we don't have enough storage space in this area, we have way too much stuff.
Here is Declan and his friend in his room showing off the sheetrock.
Isaac is showing off his sheetrocked room.
Here is the back of the house view from the Hole #11 that I have been doing.

The front of the house is completed except for the front porch. It is so nice to get rid of that ugly green color and have the cool green color.
The back of the house is also sided and you can see where we will be having a deck.
The rock was finished on the bottom of the turret. It is exactly how we imagined it and we are very excited it turned out so well.
They have the 2 sides of the house left for the siding and half the turret. We are really excited it looks so good. They got alot done while we were gone and we have more decisions to make again. It is going so well and we are loving every minute of it!

Family Vacation

We just got home from a week vacation to my home town of Wilmington, IL. My grandparents 60th anniversary is the 31st and we went back to wish them a happy anniversary a bit early. We also made the trip a bit longer to see more of my family and some of my friends from high school. We had a blast and are totally exhausted!

I am not going to put pictures of the extended family because I am unsure if anyone would be upset about being on a website. Here is the 4 of us by the Dam on the Kankakee River. This river runs right through the middle of Wilmington. The kids thought I was crazy calling this a dam because the only ones they have ever seen are totally enclosed and allow a certain amount of water through holes in the concrete. They have never seen one where the water just flows over the top of it.
Here are the kids and I swimming in my aunt and uncle's pool. Jeff went golfing with my cousins and my uncle several times during the week and the kids and I would swim. It was fun to see everyone and I miss you all very much! Thanks for everything!

July 14th

Our contractor, Don, is on vacation this week and left a list for his guys while he is gone. It is nailed to the railing of the stairs to the upper level. Jeff asked one of the guys if he gets done with this list in one day, does he get the rest of the week off. Bob said, "I wish, see the last one. It says start siding the garage. We will be working all week."

They are framing all the windows in the trim color we picked out and will start doing the soffits when the windows are all trimmed. They are almost done and here is the garage doors with the trim color. We are doing cement board siding, but the trim is a super strong stryofoam. Crazy!

This is the frame for my cool whirlpool tub that I am very much looking forward to using often.
The boys are holding up the cardboard covering the tub while they get everything ready.
The garage ceiling is almost sheet rocked and they got the insulation on all the walls.

For those of you who are asking, I cannot figure out how to reply on this blog, so I will answer the questions I remember. Our new move in date is the middle of October, which is sooner than the Thanksgiving original date. No, we haven't put our house up for sale yet, but we hope to be ready to do that in August. We have some junk to store to make this crammed house look bigger and a couple projects to finish. Ask any questions you think of I will answer them in my next post. Thanks for asking!

Strawberry Picking

The kids have been wanting to go and pick strawberries since we saw they were ready. We have been so busy that we haven't had time to go out there. Yesterday, Monday, I made sure we had time to get some strawberries. It was HOT, muggy, and a bit buggy, but we got 3 buckets full. The kids did really good and filled their buckets half full themselves.
Here is Isaac with his prize strawberry.
Declan eating his prize strawberry.
They are proud of what they picked and they should be. Next time, I will be more specific about picking the bright red ones and not the dark red over ripe ones. Who knew???

Rock on the front of the house

Here is the finished product on the front of the house. They are still working on the north side and haven't started the turret yet. We are stopping the rock after the turret because there is a walk-out patio on the back side of the house and why do the side and back of a garage. This will look really nice when they get the siding on this week or next week.

Exterior Rock

The boys had been asking me for days how the guys put the rock on the house and how do they get it to stay and how do they make it look like a cool puzzle. Well, on 7/10 we finally were out at the house at the same time as the masonry guys. This guy in the photo, forgot his name, has kids close to the ages of mine and was nice enough the let the boys help.
Here he is explaining why the piece Isaac picked out would not quite work out in the spot, but it did work really well in another spot. They have all these pieces of rock laid out on a long table and it is one huge puzzle putting them together to work. They try to have about a finger length between the rocks and cut as little as possible. They have to have a straight edge on the top and bottom and need to cut, but otherwise they do really well making thing work.
This is the rock Declan thought would work in this spot and he was right.
Isaac wanted this one in Declan's spot, but it didn't have the right angles. We were there most of the afternoon and the kids loved it. It is so cool they have been a part of our house building and have had these experiences this summer. They may not remember it in many years, but they can look at the scrapbooks I will be making and it will come back to them.

Holy cow!

7/8- The wall between the garage and house was sheetrocked so the foaming guys could foam that wall. The kids are posing for me in the doorway we will use to go into the house most of the time from the garage.
We have 2 patio doors and they are now installed. This is the one on the main level that will have a deck off of it.

This is the west side of the house facing the golf course. The kids and I are showing off the patio doors and the window in the kitchen.
This is the north side of the house. There is only 1 window missing and that is on purpose so they can bring the sheet rock into that window instead of carrying it up the stairs.
The west side of the house again. The bottom level of the turret is going to be our wine cellar and we are foaming the outside of those walls and the rock will be put on that level on the outside as well.

There are way, way, way too many things for 2 kids to get in trouble with at the house. We are constantly telling them "no" and "stop that" when we have to go there to check things out or answer questions. Declan cracked me up, though when he came up to me like this. Only a kid would think of looking through a hole in a piece of plywood.

Progress after Holiday

Well, the guys must have had lots of rest over the holiday weekend because they seem to be cruising on making progress now.
7/7- Here is the pocket door frame to the master bathroom. We have several pocket doors in our house.
This is the window right above the futute kitchen sick.

The masonry guys also got started on putting up the rock exterior. The boys are checking it out. You can see moss on a long rock above Isaac's head. By the way, he is showing us that he is thinking about this rock stuff.
Partial rock exterior. I guess another project the guys are working had major problems and they all had to leave to fix some problem. It looks cool, but not cool enough.
The front door glass with a temporary door. Our front door has not come in yet and they wanted to get the glass in so it didn't get broken. I am standing in the kitchen area taking this picture.
The front door and glass from the outside. It will look much nicer after the nice door comes in.

7/3- Here is the masonry guys putting on the mesh on the outside of the house to get ready to apply the rock exterior. We are doing cement board siding with rock on the front, around one side, and then around the bottom of the turret. I think it is around 4 ft. up from the ground, but on the side it will follow the contour of the land.
We are insulating the house with spray foam (polyurethane) in all the exterior walls. The boys think it is way cooler than the itchy stuff. We watched him apply the foam in the walls and he was nice enough to let me photograph him in his wonderful protective attire. It is neat to watch him do it, but it sure is smelly.

Cool Picture

I laid on the floor of the library to take this picture. This is the ceiling beam of the library and then you can see the upper level beams as well. It just looked cool!

Steel Floor Beams

7/2- Here is the post in the wine cellar that will connect to a post in the library above that will support our steel floor in the turret.
The beams are done except for one spot and the walk-ways to the beams are done. We were watching the guys work on that one spot yesterday while we were there and now I see they gave up on that spot. Maybe they needed to take a break since it was not working out and try again another day. None of the walls in the turret are the exact same size by the way it had to work out so I am sure the beams are all cut individually to make things work out.

We are having an open area from the upper level to look down to the office which in connected to the library. I hope that makes sense. So, we will have a walk-way on both sides of the open area to walk around the turret on the steel floor. It might make more sense when it is more finished.
Jeff and the kids are on the walk-way that will take you to the soon to come steel floor.
Here is the kids and I on the walk-way.

Our house

7/1- We finally have stairs to get to the upper level. We were way tired of the extension ladder and so were many of the guys who were carting things up and down the stairs all this time. The kids were getting pretty good at going up and down the ladder and being less nervous, but I don't think their mom and dad got less nervous of their kids going up and down that ladder.
This is all the wiring that is hanging in the mechanical room in the basement. What a mess! I sure hope the electrician remembers what goes to what.
The guys have started to install the beams that will be supporting our steel floor in our turret. The ceiling of the library will be these beams covered in cedar and the steel floor above it. The upper level of the turret is the steel floor and it will just be a cool area to observe the view.

Tree Removal

I had posted pictures of the tree that was leaning on this big (well, it isn't so big now) elm tree from a storm. Well, after taking down the ash, the tree guy, Roger, was looking at the elm and how bad of shape it was in. We have known for a long time that the tree didn't look too good and the bark slowly fallin off didn't help it any. The tree grew split and was rotting at the base. The split was over our house or the road. Roger was afraid the ash was protecting the elm and that is why it has never fallen down and now that protection is gone. We decided after much deliberation to not take any chances on the tree falling on the house right before we move and take it down. My yard looks wrong now and our shade on that side of the house is very slim. Our triangle of 3 trees is down to 1 and my landscaping had to be taken out. The flowers were all for shade.
This was a huge oddly shaped tree.
kids sitting on one of the logs watching
The kids also worked very hard that day. They helped the guys load up all the wood chips after grinding the stumps, helped pick up the branches to chip them, and also helped put down the black dirt needed to fill in all the holes from logs and the no longer landscaped area. The kids had fun working so hard and were exhausted!