No new photos today as most of the big changes are taking place inside and they don't show up well on photos.

We had the electrical walk through this week!  It took 3.5 hours and a team of 6 to get it done, but it is a big step along the way in this long line of things to get done.  It feels like I am laying out dominos in one of those elaborate patterns and soon, the dominos will all be set and everything will fall into place.  Until then, I will be carefully setting things in place taking care not to knock them down too soon.

Happy Spring Break!

 Mimi decided to go for a dip
 Window!
 Soon to be the screen porch

I have great visions of curling up in the oversize chair with my coffee and the Sunday paper with the fan running overhead and lazing the day away...

That is all for now, tune in next week to see the progress.

Doug and the girls enjoying the afternoon
View from dining room.

So I can only post 5 pictures at a time, so as soon as I finish with this, I'll post some more with the windows.  We spent the afternoon at the house yesterday.  Doug and his dad were working, and the girls and I hung out in the 60 degree weather.  The boys shored up the boathouse roof, did some assessing of the boat house floor and put the fireplace in the living room.

There was evidence of lots of work this past week, piping in the basement, duct work and he windows are in!  Those are the pictures I'll post next.

View from the master tub
view out the master
from master looking into Maddie's room

We have a second floor and roof!!!  We had an open house today at 1809 Hidden Hill Drive and had to make ourselves scarce.  Doug and the girls headed to McFarland, and this is what they found!  I can't wait to go see it in person.  

Things are really coming together; the kitchen design has been finalized, the flooring and tile is done, we met with the lighting designer this week and on Saturday, Doug and I spent 3.5 hours with the plumber going over selections of faucets, sinks, toilets.  Who knew there were so many options on toilets!  It really is amazing to see something take shape when for months you have stared a pieces of paper that represent rooms and now you can stand in them.

We had 2 visitors to the open house, which is not bad considering how lousy the weather was today.  It was pouring and 34 degrees.  So cold.  Cross your fingers.

Mad City Aqua Stars
Thriller Team
Dark Knight headpieces
2 nd floor trusses, finally
First Floor.

So please forgive how long it took me to post new photos of the house.  We had some technical difficulties.  I took some great shots of the first floor and the views from the living room, and Doug lost the card with the photos on it.  Luckily in the mad scramble to get the house on the market, he found it, I will upload them tomorrow.  In the meantime, you can see we have a first floor.  It is really cool to walk around in the structure you have been imagining for a very long time.  Not much progress had been made since 2/14 as the second floor trusses were delayed.  You can see in the 4th photo the guys putting those in.  An interesting side note; we had a weird weather day last Thursday where it poured rain and was thundering, that of course was when the trusses arrived.

When the girls and I stopped by on the way out of town for the invitational meet last weekend, the poor guys were out there in 17 degree weather putting them up.  That's right, we went from 40 and torrential rain to freezing.  The first floor of our house could have doubled as a skating rink! 

I am headed over tomorrow to register the girls for school, and I am anxious to see the progress from last week.  I think the roof may be on!

Until then...

Happy Birthday to me!!!

On facebook, there is a thing going around called "25 Random Things About Me," once you are "tagged" by someone, you are to write 25 things about yourself and tag 25 people including the person who tagged you.  At first, I had a hard time, but once I got started, I could have written more.  It isn't meant to be a "bucket list" just a list of random things.  It did get me thinking about a bucket list, a list of things to do before I die.

Where do you start?  Of course I would love to see The Great Wall of China, scuba dive The Great Barrier Reef, and I would love to visit each state in the United States.  But those seem self-indulgent and superficial.  What I want to do before I die is watch my girls grow-up.  Help them get ready for their first date, shop for prom dresses, help them learn to drive.  I want to be there when they get their hearts broken.  I want to take the college "road trip" to help them find the college for them.  I want to throw big parties for their graduations.  I want to share funny stories about me when I was their age. 

 I want to shop for their wedding dresses, cry at their weddings, dance with their dad and toast them at their receptions.  I want to help them move into their first house, share my favorite recipes and deliver all their Christmas ornaments to them for their first Christmas in their own home.  I want to hold my grandchildren, spoil them and send them home to their moms.

I want to watch them grow and blossom, become who they are meant to be.  Watch them navigate the world and discover what gives them joy and passion.  I want to watch them fall in love and meet their soul mates.

I want to continue loving my soul mate and rediscover and redefine our relationship as we grow older and our roles change.  I want to continue having adventures, exploring new places together and taking on new projects.  

I want to make sure that all my family and friends know how much they mean to me.  How their support gets me through the days when the pain is more than I can bear.  

That is my bucket list.  If along the way, I walk on "The Wall," snorkel "The Reef,"  and visit the rest of the 50 states I have yet to see then so be it, it will be an adventure, no a to do list.

Happy Birthday.  Thanks mom and dad for me.

Kathryn Sue Jaques Barton

Hello from the comfort of my new bed.  We did end up sending the sleep number bed back.  We are now trying a Verlo mattress.  It has a combination of memory foam and laytex.  So far so good.

Sorry I do not have photos today, I have still been sick.  I did get an update from the site manager today.  They have finished the foundation walls and have filled it all in.  No more big piles of dirt.  They have also moved the well and dealt with the old septic.  Next week the plan is to lay the concrete slabs over the fitness room.  These slabs will serve as the floor of the garage.  Once those slabs are in place, they will be able to begin framing.  It may be as early as Friday, but most likely it will happen Monday.

I hope to be better by then and therefore able to share photos of them placing the slabs.  It should be pretty cool to watch, they need to use a big crane to lift them and put them in place.

We Have Walls!

With the temperatures rising from sub-zero to the teens this week, they were able to get back to work this week.  Tuesday, the walls were poured.  It was rather interesting, the truck was parked in the street and one of the guys controlled the nozzle remotely from controls on a belt.  Then, one guy handled the nozzle and moved it back and forth as the forms filled up.  Two guys came behind him and smoothed the top, all while balancing on the 2 by 4s you see toward the top of the forms.  I joked with them about needing gymnastics training.  It really was a site to see, imagine big clunky boots, ice and snow, wet concrete and a 4 inch beam.  No one fell while I was there, I think they were showing off.

We meet with the realtor tomorrow to go over what else need to get done before the house goes on the market, should be interesting.

Good night for now...

Friday January 16th, -27 with the wind chill, second day of no school due to cold.  I spoke with our site manager yesterday and he told me they had not been on site, I don't blame them.

The plan for next week is to pour the footings on Monday and the walls on Tuesday.  I've heard it is pretty cool to watch them pour the concrete, and given that the girls have the day off, we will be there to watch.

In the meantime, I had 3 other meeting this week about the house.  One with the flooring and tile company, one with the kitchen designer and one with the landscape design company.  I'm ready to move into the landscape plan now.  It looks so beautiful!  

I had a bit of design shift this week, I decided to change one of the colors of the cabinets to Palamino, a creamy white.  With the dark espresso, it looks fantastic!!!  The details are coming together, it is like a giant puzzle being worked piece by piece.  I'll shoot some pictures and post later.

Until then, bundle up and stay warm.

Kate

Day 2

What a difference a day makes!

What takes 6 months to build takes 6 hours to destroy and haul away.  When I showed up Tuesday, all that was left of the house was the back wall of the foundation.  The plan was to put up the retention fencing and finish breaking up and hauling the rest of the house.  

The girls and Doug have been anxious to see the site, so we took a drive over after school.  Unfortunately with the sun setting around 5 these days, we arrived in the dark.  After a cold walk around the perimeter, we hopped backed into the car and determined we would never enjoy winter camping.

Tomorrow, Thursday, they plan to excavate and by Friday hopefully pour the footings.

I'm off to bed, long day with the designer...good work got done, but makes for a long day.

After six months of dreaming, planning, researching, talking, meeting, spending, not sleeping, it has finally begun. 

 Yesterday, January 5, 2009, the old house came down.  What an experience!  If you have never seen a house come down, I highly recommend it.  When I arrived, they had half of it down.  Over the course of 3 hours, they had it leveled, except for the fireplace.  The bricks and rocks from the chimney and fireplace are not allowed in the dumpsters, they must be hauled away by dump truck.  It was also interesting to learn, this particular hauling company takes the dumpsters back to a warehouse and dumps them and sorts through for any materials that can be recycled.  Good to know.  I included some photos.  As usually happens to me, I ran out of battery on my video camera, so I was only able to record about 20 minutes of the destruction.  I'll work on a small clip to post here at a later date.

With the house down, you catch a glimpse of the view.  Can't wait for summer, sipping "boat drinks," swimming, water sports, watching the sunsets...aaah!  It was 13 degrees yesterday and at one point I could no longer feel my fingers.  That was when I headed to the car for a quick warm up.  I'm headed over today to watch them dig.  Until tomorrow...