Layout....

A friend last night, asked when I was going to post the plans of the house, and I would have posted them earlier, but I didn't know if I was allowed to, or if I really wanted them on the world wide web....but alas, here they are.

These are the plans with of course my horrible coloring skills to show the grass, concrete, and gravel for the road. 

The gray colored concrete shows a side walk up the front doors with a small porch in the front, and then concrete again around the back with a porch and sidewalk. The white gaps drawn around the house were supposed to represent some sort of flower beds, again I am a bad artist. And those brown things with a scalloped flower looking thing on top, are trees. :)

When you walk through the front doors.....

on the left side, we have 3 bedrooms (with 3 closets) with 2 bathrooms, one of the being a Jack and Jill bath for the girls and Jaxon having his one bathroom, that I think guest will use too.

When you walk through the front doors.....

directly to your right is a formal dining and straight ahead is the Living Room with a fireplace in the corner. 

As you come around the Living Room to the right, there are doors to go on the back porch, a breakfast nook in the corner of the kitchen, and the kitchen itself.  

The kitchen has a long, raised, island down the middle with bar stools along one side, and a sink on the other, with close relations to the cook top and refrigerator.  If you keep going through the kitchen (Back towards the front of the house), there is a pantry, and a walk through to the formal dining room.  In the Dining Room, there is a built-in Butlers Pantry with a counter top, glass cabinets above, and cabinets below, and in the very corner there, is a small storage closet. 

As you continue to walk towards the right side of the house, there is a room with double doors that opens off the kitchen, this is the kids playroom. 

Keep going to the right and then take a right, and you will find the longest hall in the house which goes to our bedroom; built-in on the hall is a small broom closet and a small desk with cabinets.  Our bedroom is the one when looking at the front of the house it sticks out more and there are two jag things. The master bath is at the front of the house as well, on the right; it leads into the master closet. It's big, but we are sharing. :)

The coolest thing in the house, is there is a door out of the master closet coming into the laundry room.

If you are back in the kitchen again, and walk towards the right of the house, there is a station with cubbies, and opening to get in the laundry room, and a powder room.  It is all kind of close together and hard to see. 

As you continue to go towards the garage, there is a open area for a desk to the left, and then farther in there is a small craft room.

Now, the picture also shows a breezeway with an attached garage on the far right.  I don't know if we are doing this right now or not.

Approaching....

Things are starting to approach us, but I would not go as far and say they are approaching fast. But still, we have made some progress, and it feels good to be moving forward. 

Finally, got the estimate back from the builder. He is working on the final contract, we should be on the list to start the house pad (so maybe in a couple weeks), things with the water are coming together, and the electric guys are coming next week to work on the water pump, and will hopefully go ahead put in a temporary pole at the job site. 

Still don't know if we will break ground in April, if not, I will scream and punch the door in, but then I guess it will be fine if it's May... 

My main goal for this blog was for me to keep tract with pictures of the progress. 

Well, there is no visual progress.

So, there are no pictures. 

So, there is not a lot to post.

So, we all don't die of boredom, hopefully it starts soon, so we can see some ACTION.  And lots of it!!

Same Story, Different Ending.....

This big yellow drilling truck has been here before, and now, it is back..... and has been around our house for the past 6 days.....

1. The guy came and dug 2 water wells the first time.  One of them they hit was so to GOOD TO BE TRUE.  It was about 15 gallons a minute, which was fabulous, again, all we really need this for is the yard, not the inside of the house.  After, a month, they came to do something to the well and get it ready to lay the pipe, and there was NO water, at A.L.L.

Over the past 6 days, the water guys have been back to try and find a different place to get some water.  They have been digging nearly all over the land around our house. 

2.  They dug near the road (like picture above), and thought it was pretty good 1/2 gallons a minute, the next morning they came back, and there was NOTHING.  In the end, this one might can do about 1/4 of a gallon a minute.....

3.  They dug about 200 feet from that well, and that was ZELCH dry, no water there. 

4. They crossed the road, and tried again yesterday, nothing there. 

5. They are in the process of working on the fifth well right now, and we are wanting to see how it goes. 

I'm really not getting my hopes up for anything after being let down all these previous times, especially when they said it was good, and then just all of sudden gone. 

In the mean time, we met with VR last Monday, and discussed the details of the house.  He is working on the estimate; hopefully we'll here from him in a week, and can get started breaking ground!!

I'll keep you posted. 

Exciting, Scared, Anxious, Fun.....

I'm a ball full of mixed emotions.  I think I've been there before in this house process.... And I'm thinking I'll probably just stay a ball of mixed emotions through the whole thing.

FINALLY....we have the HUGE plans in our own hands!! But, now, I am scared to death.  We are going to meet with the builder and go room-to-room to get started on the estimate process. This seems fun to me.  Getting to pick out what I want room-to-room.  Jason doesn't really have major opinions on what the house looks like.  But then sometimes he surprises me.  Mostly, he says, "you are the one going to be cleaning it, so you pick what you want." I think getting the estimate could take 2 weeks. We are both just so ready to know the how much, so we can move on.

Group Effort

We did get word back on the final elevation plans, so now we wait again, on getting our estimate from the builder.  He has to contact all his crews to get the estimates, and then get them back to us. Probably 2 weeks or more. I cringe.

We went out and marked a rectangular area with stakes in the ground of how long and how wide the house will be.  I thought this would give me a better feel as I drive by it for a few weeks of EXACTLY where in the field it should be.  And, also I want the house angled a little bit, so hopefully seeing the stakes out there will help me visualize it. 

Kylee's in full house talking mode now. She's got big plans for her room. It must be pink, and she thinks she needs a desk, and wants me to paint it pink too!! We'll see on all this..... ;)

Tomorrow

Tomorrow could be the day that all is finished!!! Well, not really, but one chapter of the house planning.  Talked to VR this afternoon, planning on the architect sending us the finalized elevation. I use finalized loosely. 

If all is good, we will start getting our estimate. Praise the Lord for hopefully getting to move onto another lengthy phase. :) 

One step at a time. One step at a time. 

Exterior Ideas

At this point, the architect is finishing up the "elevation" part of our house plans.  The plans part is done, just waiting on elevation, and then we will meet with VR to start getting an estimate something he said could take 2 weeks to get.  So, breaking ground in February, don't think so. :(

Elevation consists of a lot of different things, and I'm still not sure exactly what it is.  Everything exterior effecting the house is considered elevation, such as, roof line, gables, porch, columns, how many, etc.  And things inside effected by elevation are ceiling heights, beams, vaulted ceilings, etc.

On the exterior of the house, I still like a traditional brick house, but I do like accenting with rock or stone places. 

Colors of brick I like and Jason does too..... (just looking at brick not the house or stone)

I would like to accent with white stone like in these pictures or a type of rock, like in this picture below

or in this picture here. Again, just looking at the type of rock. 

Accenting with the stone or rock:

Columns like this

Around edges of house, and around the front door, but I want it kind of patchy, not uniform. Can't find my picture to show, and don't know the right word to use....

Anyway the reason I don't know what to pick. I like both of them about the same. I would like to use the white stone inside as well, at the fireplace and possibly around cabinet ends or something.  There are tons of pictures out there showing the "white stone" being used inside, but I just think my children and having it around the fireplace it will be brown, black, and have crayons colored on it..... Jason, agreed, and doesn't think we should use it inside. 

So, I thought maybe using a rock inside would be good, but don't know if it would look good using it outside with the bricks I like.... 

I kind of like the idea of rock instead of the white stone because so many people are using the white stone right now.....

What do you think?