And then there was light...

Ta da!! We have lights now! And paint! They did lots of good stuff this week. As you can see, all of our lights are up, everything is painted (a khaki/tannish color in case you can't really tell in the pics), all of the countertops/vanity tops are in, bathroom mirrors, and other electrical stuff like the
cable jacks/outlets/smoke detectors are in.



The kitchen is really coming together...


What do you think of our countertop/snack bar? Isn't it awesome? It looks like granite but it's a laminate.



The upstairs hallway and bathroom with our new lights...


Greg in the master bedroom with the new ceiling fan.



Master bath with new lights and countertop (they also put in the mirror the next day but we forgot to get a pic). Greg is ironically standing right next to where he'll be spending a lot of time sitting...ha!



This is the chandelier that hangs in the entryway- we LOVE it!



They also poured the garage this week.



And finally, in case you forgot what the outside of the house looks like...they also poured our sidewalk and put in the lights on the garage. Next week....FLOORS!!

Stain stain stain...

Well, all of our woodwork has officially been stained this week. We went with a natural stain, which we love- and it's got a little bit of gloss/shine to it. Every piece of molding, every door, and every drawer are all stained. Here's Greg in the kitchen checking out the cabinets. They've pretty much just been drying the past few days...now we're not sure what's next. Paint, hopefully?



They also installed our fireplace- woohoo! Here are all of the downstairs trim/molding pieces airing out to dry. We know, really exciting. :)



Nicole in the master bedroom...that stain was really stinky! We could only stay in the house a few minutes before getting dizzy.



Here's Greg measuring the windows in the basement for some window coverings that we've been shopping around for.



Here's a side view of the house that I don't think we've put on the blog- look at all the nice light we get coming in through the windows! You can actually see the paper they had up on the inside for when they stained the trim.
So, that's about it. It's not going as fast now, since all of the things they have to do now are more putsy and time consuming. But, our house is really starting to feel more like a house now that they're getting this interior stuff done. Hopefully less than 3 weeks til we move in!
P.S. Happy Mother's Day!!!

"Wood" you like to see our new kitchen?? HA!

Fun stuff this week! They're in the middle of doing all of the woodwork in our house- the trim, cupboards, vanities, doors, etc. They haven't stained any of it yet, but we're thinking they're going to do that this week.



Another view of the partially-finished kitchen- is that awesome or what?? We love the staggered cupboards.



Here's a handsome guy standing next to our new railing in the stairway...



These are the french doors to the master bedroom- aren't they fun?



Another view of the banister- beautiful! We love it!


And, yet another cat picture- Tiger was watching his namesake play some golf on TV today. It's pretty funny- he gets totally enthralled watching the ball roll into the cup. I guess we chose the right name for him, huh? He likes to watch golf with Dad on the weekends.

Is it June yet???

Well, here's the latest- it was kind of a slow week as far as progress on the house. But, the outside of the house is pretty much done (minus the lights and doors)! The siding is done, and we now have shakes (the gray, shingle-like things on the front of the house- we had no clue what those were when we started this whole process). The color was a little darker gray than Nicole had expected, but oh-well- it still looks awesome!



They also sprayed our ceilings, though it's kind of hard to tell in this pic.


And this is pretty much where we're at. Here's looking into the kitchen/eating area from the living room. The big news we got this week is that the house should officially be done on June 5th! We'll have our final walk-through that day, then it takes about 3 days for them to do touch-ups and whatnot, and then we close!! So, we should officially get to move in around June 8th or 9th if all goes well- about 3 weeks earlier than the previous date we had.


Also, this past weekend we ran the North St. Paul Detour Days 5K with Nicole's aunt Bobbi and cousin Amy- what a beautiful day!

Holy Sheet Rock!

Lots of good progress this week! As you can see, we now have brick! We were pretty excited to have our address block. Very cool.



Otherwise, not much different on the front of the house...but there is siding on the sides and back of the house right now. Shouldn't be long before the outside is completely done!



And, for the big news...the whole house is SHEET ROCKED!! Woohoo! We couldn't believe they got it all done already. Here is the eating area.



And above is our stairway/entryway. Love seeing that sheet rock.



They also poured the basement earlier in the week. Here is Greg with his mom and dad checking it out.




We just had to throw this pic in...we had a little visitor on our balcony this week. I thought the cats were going to go nuts when they saw this guy, but Tiger just walked up to the window and meowed like he wanted to go out and play. Tiger and this cat even touched noses through the glass- it was pretty cute. We have no idea how this cat scaled the balcony- we're on the 4th floor!

Truckin' along...

We now have shingles! As you can see, the outside of the house hasn't changed too much from last week, but they just finished up the shingles yesterday. Siding should hopefully be next week.



And, we have plumbing!


Gas lines and electric, as well.


These are going to be cool- this is the "can" of one of the can lights we're going to have in the kitchen.


They also put in the duct work this week. So, as you can see, they got a lot done on the inside of the house!

For other "goings-on" this week, we got to see lots of our families! There was Easter at Nicole's Aunt Kay's new house, and also at Greg's mom and dad's. This past Saturday we went out to breakfast with our cousins Nickie, Becky, and Aiden, as well as Elizabeth (in from Washington D.C.) and Aunt Annell (in from Colorado)! Today is the 10-year anniversary of Greg's grandpa's death, so we got to spend the day with Greg's mom's side of the family. It was awesome to spend some time with our families, since we definitely don't get to see them as often as we'd like! More updates soon...

Hi, I'm a fully framed house. What's your name?

More house photos. How do you like the windows?



The top right bedroom is our cousin Andrew's. Big ups at ya A.



Look at the hot babe in the jacuzzi.



I've heard this stud comes with the property. We're not talking 2 x 4's here folks.

Frame this!

Hey check out the latest framing photos. They are nearly done. We're looking to have that roof on by next week. Can we move in yet?

Main level!

We can't believe it- the house is just flying up this week! Pretty much all of the main level is framed (minus the garage). They also just broke ground on another house a couple of lots down from us, and we were able to meet those neighbors today, too! It's quite the nice community we've got going on!



Here's Greg in the living room, in front of the future fireplace.




The back of the house. More updates soon!

St. Patty's Day Shenanigans

A few of us headed out to Tom Reid's for a St. Patrick's Day celebration- t'was a good time! There were a few people at the bar, to say the least. Here are a couple of pics for your viewing pleasure:

We broke ground!

Well, we actually broke ground about a week ago...and had no idea! They're building our house even faster than we can keep up with it on this blog. Greg decided to drive by our lot last weekend, and found what you see in the above 2 pictures! It was quite a pleasant surprise. They had dug the hole, brought in the cement blocks and laid down the concrete footing. Nicole drove back out with him later that day to get these pics (there's Greg walking around in the background), and we even got to meet the neighbors across the street! Very cool people. They even gave us a bunch of boxes to use for our move later.



Then, Nicole drove by just 2 days later and found this! We can't believe how fast they build. Don't worry- we won't post pics of every single little step of construction...now we'll wait til we at least have walls, which probably won't take long! I gotta say though, each concrete block they lay down is pretty exciting to us. :)



Here's the view of the back side of the house. It's even been a couple more days since this photo, so we're anxious to see how far they got. The house you see in the background they've popped up in the last month or so. Tomorrow the 15th we are picking out several things for the house- our cabinets, plumbing fixtures, etc. We can't wait!

So, this past month has been pretty crazy! In 3 weeks time we sold our house, found a house to build, found an apartment to live in in the meantime (which we are all settled into), closed on our townhouse, moved during a huge snowstorm and got our U-Haul stuck twice, somehow managed to get to work during all of this (and, Nicole switched to the night shift at the hospital the same week that we moved)...whew! Insane. But, it's all done and now we just get to enjoy watching the house being built and picking stuff out. We're looking forward to celebrating St. Patty's Day this weekend so we can finally relax a little bit!
Anyway, we'll keep you posted with more pics very soon!

WOOHOO!!

FINALLY!

Yes, that is a "SOLD" sign you see in the picture! After about 9 months, we have finally sold our townhouse. Talk about a soft market! If all goes as planned, we officially close on February 28th (right around the corner)!

And, for even more exciting news....
We've decided to build! The following pic is a model of what our new house will look like:


Ours will be the exact same model, but different colors and everything will be flipped (the garage will be on the right, etc.) We will be building in a northern suburb of the Cities (sorry, had to try and keep some online anonymity). Some of you know, but for those of you who don't I'm sure we'll be chatting with you really soon!



This is what the back of the house will look like.




This is Nicole's dad and Greg checking out our lot, which we also were able to hand-pick ourselves! What's really nice is that there's a big field behind our lot, which will remain there- no one else can build behind us, and we'll have a great view! We will hopefully be breaking ground soon, and the house should be done in July- or somewhere in that area.
We cannot even begin to tell you how excited we are. We looked at about a gazillion houses and did lots of research, but were so glad that this option worked out for us and that we found such a reputable builder. It makes the house that much more "ours" to be able to pick out so many things ourselves and to be able to watch it being built from the ground up!
So, the next 4-5 months of this blog will be filled with construction pictures- we'll be giving you lots more details on the house and be sure to keep you posted. For those of you here in the Cities...hopefully a 4th of July housewarming party will be in the mix???
WOOHOO again!!!