Construction: Day 20-23

The roof has been framed out, the interior framing has been finished up, and they are starting to "wrap" the house.  I have a feeling shingles are coming soon!  Week four of construction is off to a great start!

You guys.  I am soooo excited.

I know the house isn't officially "ours"... and that it won't be until we close (they're estimating June 8th), but I have broken all the house buying rules and fallen totally in love with this house.  If anything happens (god forbid, knock on wood, all all those other things you say to avoid things sucking) during the final parts of this deal, I will be crushed.  I love our the house too much.  

And don't you just lurve the roof line??

here you can see the wrap process they've started.  You are looking at the back patio (covered) and the living room windows. 

 This is the entire right side of the house.  You can definitely see the breakfast nook window and the living room windows now!

I snapped this photo as quickly as possible because it's kinda awkward to photograph men who have been busting their balls in the heat doing construction - while you prance around photographing your the house.  

(I told The Husband that when I drive down next week, I'm going to bring cookies and water bottles.  I think they'll appreciate it... right?  We're building in Texas and it is already into the 90s every day.  I cannot imagine doing the hard labor these guys do!  And not only hard labor - detailed labor.  I'm impressed.)

This photo is the left side of the house.  It is the garage, then a window for bedroom #2, then a large window for the playroom, and then a window for bedroom #3.  You can't see the window from the master bath in the back... but it's there.

Shit's gettin' done.  I love it!

Mirror Mirror on the Wall.

Both bathrooms in our house come with the giant mirror that spans the entire vanity.  

Evidence (master bath):

Evidence (guest bath):

Ideally, I'm wanting to tell the builder to leave the mirrors out of the plan completely.  All though they are not awful.. and very typical of this kind of home - it's not my preference.

I know my husband, and I know how priorities change... so I'm worried if I go with the large mirror it will be there forever.  

Ideally, I could get two separate mirrors... a la the following:

This one actually kind of "speaks" to me.  (sorry for the bad quality - it was found on google images):

We will have the white countertops, the oil rubbed bronze fixtures, and I'm pretty sure those are the exact lighting fixtures we're getting too.  The above photo shows (I think) black fames to match the ORB finishes.  Initially, I assumed the frame should match the cabinet stain... but now I'm not so sure.

I feel like the two mirrors are much more 'custom' looking... but talking The Husband into buying mirrors when one comes "free" with the house will be tricky.  However, I think I'm up for a challenge.

for sale on Overstock

also for sale on Overstock

What do you think?  

A wood stained finish on the mirror?

Black mirror to match the ORB?

I'm going to keep the faith that I can find four mirrors (two per bathroom), that I love... on the cheap.  If not, I'm thinking we'll go ahead and do the giant mirror in the guest bath and 'fancy up' the master.  

...

In other house news... the loan process sucks.  I feel like a show dog jumping through 1,000 hoops.  The husband has been too busy with work to participate much in this sucky process.  Not fun.  I don't know how anyone does all of this in 30 days for a re-sale home. 

color me overwhelmed cause it's a lot of work that I was not anticipating.

for some reason... I feel like the color overwhelmed would be purple.  A dark purple. 

We're also going tomorrow to start window shopping for fridges, blinds, lawnmowers and mirrors.  The husband 'owes me' for dealing with this loan stuff all on my own, and has told me that I have free reign over the plans on Saturday and he'll go along with it... I have planned a day of:

 checking out the house

meeting with the tax guy

a quick (ha!) trip to Ikea to look at blinds and mirrors

a trip to Best Buy to look at fridges

a trip to Lowes to look for blinds, mirrors, fridge and lawnmower

a trip to Home Depot to look for blinds, mirrors, fridge and lawnmower

bawhahahaha.

poor husband. He has no clue what he's in for.  

me, on the other hand: can.not.wait.

The changes.

Although we're totally in love with the 512a and ready to move in, commit ourselves, and all that jazz - it doesn't mean she doesn't have a few flaws quirks.

The husband and I spent a lot of time going through models of this floor plan.  I have taken tons of photographs and we scoured through them, discussing what we would do differently.  Thankfully, we were able to write all of these changes into our contract and with only one round of negotiations - everyone came to a happy agreement.

Armed with a folder full of photographs, I'm going to take you... my loyal followers (all 6 of you) through our house and show you all the awesome-ness it entails.   (And some of the changes we made to the original plan)

(Remember, these are photos from the model home.  I wish we had the budget they used  to furnish this home... but for now, it's great inspiration while we build our savings)

Above is standing in the "extended" entryway looking at the front door.  We are getting an upgraded front door (meaning it's a lot larger with glass inserts).  That small window above the door will not be there, because the front door will almost reach to that point.  You can see a sliver of a blue wall on the right... that is the dining room.  The opening to the left (next to to the front door) is actually where the garage will be.  Because this is a model home... they use the garage space as their office and leave it open.  The smaller opening on the left closest to you is the opening where you'll enter from the garage into the house.  

We have our choice between 12''x12'', 16''x16'' or 18''x18'' tiles.  The patterns will determine which way I go... but I know it will either be the 16'' or 18''.  

Above the is the formal dining room that was just to the right of the front door (when you were looking towards the door in the previous photo).  Although I think Dining Rooms are beautiful, they are not really suitable for our current lifestyle.  If I'm going to be honest, we only eat at our breakfast table on "fancy" days.  Normally, dinner is done in front of the t.v. on the couch.  

We debated having the builders go ahead and enclose this opening with french doors to make in an office for the husband.  In the end, we decided having a dining room would be good for eventual re-sale, and the husband will still use it as his office.  The plan is to change out the lighting fixture and put a desk and bookshelves in this rooms for when he works from home.  Maybe someday we will use it for a dining room... but for now - this is the office.  Thankfully, he's a complete freak about tidiness in his work space so this area will still look nice when visitors first enter the home.  

If you go back and look at the previous photo of the dining room, you'll see these doors.  This leads to the laundry room (left) and planning area (right) and then through into the kitchen.

We also included the upgrade of all oil rubbed bronze fixtures, knobs, hinges, and pluming into our contract.  Once again, all things in life are better in oil rubbed:  men, massages, fish, the list goes on an on...

Here you can see the "planning area" I mentioned.  In our home, the desk will have a granite top.  There are cabinets and a small 'look through' into the entry way.  I plan on keeping cookbooks, keys, bills, etc in this area.  This will also be where the computer lives until we save up the cash to get the husband his office furniture.  

Here is the floor plan once again.  With my expert powerpoint skills I added the visual of the tile extending all the way to the family room.  Originally, that was all carpet and I really felt like tile was a better solution with the amount of foot traffic that area would see.  You can also see that I added new boundaries for the back patio.  We are going to be getting the "extended covered patio" which will be awesome.  It will leave us plenty of room for patio furniture, a grill, and room to spare.  

I'm pretty sure this floor plan is property of Highland Homes... so don't steal it, mmmkay?

So there are the first few areas of the house.  I imagine this tour will be broken into at least 4-5 segments - so stay tuned.