We have a house!

Well the framers have left and we have a house that looks like a house!

I posted a bunch of pictures in the gallery (http://gallery.maybe.net/House?page=7) that everyone can check out. We have had quite an eventful week, we found out that we had 4 windows and a sliding glass door stolen that will end up costing us about $1000 out of pocket, so that was some bad news.

We also found out on Sunday that our neighbor who owns the undeveloped property next to us filed a complaint against us due to stormwater drainage. I was pretty worried about it and didn't get much sleep Sunday night. I called the county on Monday and God had already taken care of everything, the inspector had already come out and looked at our property and said that our neighbor didn't have a leg to stand on and that we had done nothing wrong, so that was some great news.

We are headed out to the property Sunday night, we are going to bring out the bar-b-q and the basketball hoop and have a little bonfire burning a lot of our scrap wood. (Anything that isn't worth saving, we also got a lot of good lumber that was left over from the construction.)

Walls and a 2nd Floor!

As you can see, all 4 walls on the lower floor have been completed, and when I was out there they were just getting ready to put the decking on the 2nd floor!



The garage hasn't been started yet, but it is comming along including the interior walls.

I got a call yesterday from Steve at Hiline saying that the framers were having an issue with the circuit breaker blowing on them all the time. I drove out there at lunch time with Shalisa and talked to them, and they said they just needed an additional circuit for all of their air compressors that they were running for all of the pneumatic tools. I called around in the Yellow pages and actually found this really nice guy named Derrick who was an electrician, and turns out is my boss's next door neighbor!

Well he said he would go out there, fix the circuit that was in the box already, and install a 2nd circuit and plug on the base off the meter, all for free! He was out there by 3:30 and had it all fixed up! I went out there this afternoon and talked to the framers and they were all thrilled. They said it was night and day and it has been working flawlessly all day today so they were happy.

Should have some more great pictures this weekend, maybe the 2nd story will even be up. The roof trusses delivery date is only 7 days away so things are moving quickly!

Framing started!

Well, our framers started this last Monday, and our visit on Wednesday provided us with some good pictures. On Wednesday they had started and finished laying the floor.


We were glad we caught the framers on Wednesday so we could chat with them. Ryan was able to get some good advice and a good timeline from one of the guys out there. We had been very concerned about our windows that had been delivered quite a bit too early, theft of building products, especially windows, is pretty common. The framer told us though that we could chain them through the open part of the window, and use a combination lock to tie it together. So, that's what we did, and we feel much safer knowing they probably won't be going anywhere. The framer also informed us that our trusses were to come in on April 27th, so that's when the framing will be completed. I would assume that Roofing may happen the first or second week of May.

This last weekend we started buying our wiring components for the low voltage stuff we're in charge of. So far we've been able to find everything on Ebay for reduced costs. We bought 1000 feet of Cat 5e for 35 dollars, and Ryan says we need another 1000 apparently. We've bought most everything else, like face plates and jacks and termination ports through an ebay store where we got a huge reduction in shipping costs, which was quite nice.

Now that we've "sold" the house, I'm looking around at all my flowers wishing I could take them all with me. I had already done a lot of dividing of plants and taken them to our new property, but I'm still in the process of taking plants that won't be missed. I also started some seeds in an indoor greenhouse, which are all doing quite nicely, and I'm hoping will help fill out the flower beds I'm planning.

Sold

SOLD

In case you can't guess, our house is sold. We went to Mason County Title at 4:00 this afternoon and signed all of the paperwork. There are still some contingencies, we have to decomission the oil tank, caulk around the siding of the house and fix a tile on the roof but other than that there is nothing on our side that will hold it up. On their side they still have to have all the financing and mortgage stuff to work out but they are already preapproved and everything so that should go fine.

Our First Offer

Well, didn't take long to find a buyer for our house. We posted on Friday that our house was up for sale. On Sunday, we had a call from an interested couple who wanted to view the house. We called them back and they wanted to see it that day...so, they came. The man was very interested in the media room, and also wanted to make sure there was room in the bedroom for his flat panel tv...the woman loved the view out the bedroom and the way it was decorated. They seemed to really like the house. We let them ask us questions, which they did, and we answered honestly about the plumbing and such. They called us about 30 or 45 minutes after they left telling us that they wanted to make an offer, they just weren't sure how to go about it since it's "by owner", so we said "GREAT" and started calling around to people that may be able to tell us what paperwork we needed. We had friends over for the day, and one of their moms was a real estate agent, and she was able to help us with that. So, the interested couple sent us their pre-approval letter via email, and we faxed them copies of a buying agreement. Looks like things are on the move. It's possible that this deal isn't for us, but we look at this as encouragement for the Lord. So, keep the legal matters in your prayers. We are so blessed to have so many loved ones with good experience we can learn from.

It lives!

It isn't the prettiest truck on the block, but it lives again! We made pretty quick work of it this morning, Sam showed up at around 8:00 and by 8:15 we had the carb back on the truck. We got a bit of a scare because we went to crank it over and nothing happened. We sprayed a little bit of starter fluid in it, and it would start up, but then die as soon as it had burned it off. Sam thought that it might just need a bunch of gas in the bowl, so we pumped the gas pedal a whole bunch while turning it over, it finally fired and for about 2-3 minutes it blew terrible awful blue black smoke out of the exhaust.

But once all of the crap that had built up in the exhaust system burned out it ran GREAT and had no colored smoke comming out from the tail pipe (I know from previous vehicles that that is always a good sign). We took it out for a test drive to our property and back, it ran great the whole way, and while we were going up the hill to our property I dropped the pedal to the floor. As someone who has never driven a V8 and whose only 2 cars he currently drives are 4 cylinders, let me tell you - WOW. The 4 barrells kicked in and we went from about 20 to 50 in about 3 seconds as the engine made this beautiful growl as the butterfly valves opened up.



So the truck is running great, it idles fine (which used to be a problem) so there are just a few things left to do on it. The first priority is to fix the brakes. The brake pedal tends to stick to the floor when you push it down, I don't know if they need more fluid or if the discs are just "sticky" from not being used for a long time and somewhat rusty or what. I also want to pull the air conditioner off the truck, it doesn't work and there is no reason to leave it hooked up as that only hurts my gas mileage.

We brought some plants out to the property, but they hadn't started framing, so it is still just a pile of lumber. Hopefully on Monday or Tuesday we can go out and take some pictures of our new floors, walls and ceilings!

For Sale!

Well it's official!

We have the sign up and hopefully next week we will be running an ad in the Shelton Journal. I don't know how many people will come look at the house, but here is praying that God brings along the right person who wants our house. We don't need a lot of people to look at the house, just the right one!

Well I went out to the property on Thursday and our lumber had been delivered! I was told that the framers would start either Friday or Monday, but I haven't driven out there yet to see if they started today. Tomorrow morning I am going to try and get the carberatur back on my truck, and if it starts I will take it on a "test drive" out to the property to see if we have a floor yet or not. I promise to take the camera as well :D

Hopefully we will have some exciting pictures and news tomorrow!

Best Backfiller Ever

New pictures posted in the gallery

So, looks like I'm posting again...trying to keep this updated. Last time I told you that I had some pictures, well, now I will attempt to post them.

On Friday our backfillers, Uncle Dean and Jeremiah, came out to do the dirt work. I was a little concerned with money when it came to this as we began to realize just how much dirt was going to be needed to fill in our land around the 3 foot stemwall. But God is sooo good! Bayshore sand and gravel is just down the road from our property, and while Uncle Dean went to get the sand, also inquired about some fill, and since the gravel pit was digging dirt to make way for something else, he was told he could have the dirt for FREE since they didn't want it! 27 loads had been hauled at 1pm Monday...and they still needed more...but it looks great, and our framers should be here Friday or Monday, with our lumber delivery coming this Thursday.

Last Friday we also had our final inspection on our septic system, and I was also a little nervous on this. I wanted everything to pass, but at the same time I wanted to have a trouble free septic, so I asked our Good Lord to provide for both of those. We passed with flying colors, and there is plenty of pressure in our system. Uncle Dean was able to bury the drain field and connect the septic to the foundation, ready for the plumbers now. We also realized almost too late that we were burying our utility trench but had yet to install our water line, but we ran down to the hardware store and bought pipe that Uncle Dean recommended and were able to lay it out just in time.


So, many many thanks go to God, who has blessed us so greatly in so many ways. We feel His presence in the building of this house, through our good family who works on this project, through the safety He has provided, and through the answered prayers on county cooperation and finances. God is Good.