Livin' it up in the country

You know you live in the country when "lost dog" signs are replaced by these:

Our new home!

I think i've worked harder the last few weeks than I have the last 6 months. Moving is hard! We are slowly getting settled and feel so blessed to be where we are. For those of you that don't know, let me recap... the last 11 months we have been living with Brent's mom, the first six months we were trying to sell our home in Oregon. We finally decided to rent it and found a great family that is doing a lease-to-own, and they have been wonderful. Another blessing! We found this piece of land last spring, but were having a hard time trying to figure out how we could build on it. It's tough to get financing on new construction and most banks want 20% down, which we didn't have. We finally gave up on the idea of building and moved on. We made an offer on another home, an old farmhouse. But after the inspection we were scared off. There was a lot of work that needed to be done and a lot of upkeep needed. The same day we had the inspection, the realtor for the land called and told us that he found a builder who was willing to buy the land and build the home, and we could buy it from him completed. We decided to go for it. Building began in mid-January. I've thought a lot lately about this past year and how some might consider it a trial...but in so many ways we were blessed. My kids were able to get to know their granny in a way they never would have. My girls especially grew close to her and developed a special bond. I noticed Malia would always ask granny to play games at night...she never asked me! We are so thankful to Debbie for letting us stay with her for so long and for her patience with us!

So here's the outside of the house:
I took this picture because it's the only other house you can see from ours. It's so private and peaceful

Brent in the backyard. We will be doing the landscaping so for now we have a nice dirt patch. The house is on a hill, but there are some great flat spots where we plan on having a volleyball court and hopefully someday...a field big enough for some softball.


The view from the back porch
My living room.
The kitchen, we are planning on putting beadboard under the counter...yet another project. Also our bar stools from our old house are too short. The kids can barely see over the counter. So for now, we are eating at the table. This picture was taken before I put up my kitchen decorations. I think it looks much better now...I will post more pics of the inside as soon as the rooms are done.

Signing tomorrow!

The day has finally come! We sign papers tomorrow!! We aren't sure if we will be able to move in this weekend or next week, because technically the funding won't go through until Monday. It will depend on our builder and we should know by this afternoon. Luckily most of our stuff is still packed in storage, so there isn't tons of packing to do. We've kind of slacked on our picture taking lately. Here are a couple pictures of the counters that Brent installed HIMSELF last night. He got home at about 2:30 in the morning. The pics are from his phone and not the best quality, but you get the idea. I LOVE the counters! We have to give a huge thanks to Than Norman who helped Brent cut them out and gave us a great deal. I've spent a few nights the last few weeks painting, I have all of the downstairs/kitchen area done and the upstairs living area done. It's funny because I was looking for a nice neutral yellow/beige/creamish color. I looked in magazines, online, and had several samples up on the wall...but I couldn't find that perfect color that I was imagining in my head. Then i was at my Sis-in-laws house and in her bedroom was the color that I was looking for. She happened to have 5 gallon container of it in her basement (which felt completely full!) That she was done with and so she gave it to me, and it's PERFECT. I love it. I'll try to get better pictures during the daytime. :) We can't wait for you to all to come visit!

House pics

We are entering the final stretch! We locked in our interest rate yesterday and everything is ready to go. We finished tiling in all of th bathrooms (except the master...we had to order that tile), The doors are in, the back porch is done, the front porch is almost done, Brent and I are laying the wood laminate tomorrow and saturday, cabinets arrive monday....we're almost done!! It's hard to believe..
I still can't upload my pics, but I had Brent send me some via email. The first pic is of the rock fireplace going in. I'm sure this fellow would love to know his backside is on the internet for the world to see. The second one is our shower. All of our cabinetry is white and the tile that we chose for the master is a dark bamboo looking tile. So I chose to do white subway tiles in the shower. This pic is before it was grouted. I really love subway tile and love how it turned out! We will try to get more photos this weekend!
In other news, Malia started soccer and hates it. Oh well...now we know.

quick update

I've have a backlog of posts, but with the new computer, I haven't figured out how to upload my pictures off the camera. We don't have the right cord and the memory card no longer fits into the computer. So...I've been putting off posting. One of these days i will post about Claire's 4th birthday and our trip to Oregon for spring break. But I really want to include pictures.

Things are continuing to go well with the house. Things are starting to get busy. I feel like i've been to home depot, lowe's and the tile place, a million times this past week. The outside of the house is all painted. The interior is being painted today. They are just painting it white and I will do all of the "color." In order to save some money, Brent and I are laying tile and laminate wood flooring. We are going to start the tiling this weekend. We are excited to see the final touches going in. (By the way..we picked the lighter granite.)

On another note, Malia started soccer for the first time. She has her first game tomorrow and is pretty scared. She's also sporting a 101 degree temperature today. So hopefully she doesn't miss her first game. Well, that's a quick update, hopefully i'll figure out this picture things pretty soon.

Help ME!

I need help! I am notoriously indecisive and I am having such a hard time making a decision on what color granite. The dark granite actually has some green in it, which worries me a little but I keep reading that it is so dark you really can't tell and it looked okay in the warehouse. I am worried about it showing more dirt/crumbs. We narrowed our choices down to two and i've attached two pictures of the same granites in other houses. We will be having white cabinets and the floor will be a darker brown laminate wood. Cast your vote!

The latest

Is anyone else ready for spring? One thing I will miss about Oregon is that spring comes much earlier than it does here. The flowers poke out of the ground and the trees blossom and you feel so happy to see those early signs of spring. Here, everything is brown, brown, brown. I can't wait to see some signs of spring...Sorry to complain, just missing the color a bit today. I guess i'll just have to be a little more patient.

So, Our computer died, like really died. We had to take it in and pay mucho $ to have our information extracted from it. Then we had to pay mucho $ for a new computer. Why does it seem like this stuff happens at the worse times? So, sorry to keep boring you with house photos, but this is where i'm documenting everything, so... things are moving along quickly. The plumbing is done, the windows are in, the back deck has been started, the electrical is happening this week, the fireplace is in. I just can't imagine that this project will take another two months. But what do I know about home construction? Tomorrow Brent and I are going to look at flooring and masonry. Also our home teacher is in the granite business and said we could buy a slab really cheap and then he would have Brent come to his shop and help him cut it. (and not charge us) So we are excited about the possibility of having granite, not something we had planned on. So here are the latest pics: