Excited I suppose is one word!

Quick update.

Saturday I was golfing and DJ had some extra time. So she cruised north to visit the Jenny in Columbus. They decided to go to the house an look around to see how he deck was coming.

It was a beautiful day, sunny and about 70 degrees and a little breezy.

I arrived home and the first thing out of DJ's mouth was "YOU MUST go to the house and look at the deck, YOU MUST!!!" It is the perfect day to see the deck for the first time.

I picked up my buddy and we drove north. I opened the door, walked through the house and onto the deck and . . . .WOW!!! I stood there, looking out over the 16th fairway on a perfect day on a perfect sized deck.


We were planning only to spend a little time there but we both stood on the deck for an hour basking in the glory. Watching golfers go by, watching where the balls were landing and just enjoying the moment.

It was at that moment when the house felt complete. For the first time it hit me that THIS was a dream come true. The house had always been wonderful but it was just a house, a very nice house but just a house. Standing on the deck it hit me that this is more wonderful then I had imagined.

Our Corgi had always liked being up high. Having very short legs I suppose being high was either going to be terrifying or something to look forward to. Blake seemed to love being above things.

So when we introduced him to the deck he walked out and circumnavigated the basically two decks (360 sq feet). Once all corners were sniffed he looked up and all of a sudden had a HUGE grin which never stopped while we were there.

We close in 10 days and move in June 2. Final cleanup is next week and appliances are being installed and minor landscaping is being finished (filling in and removing the dirt mountain) . The rest of the deck should be complete at this writing.


Our "old" house has not been sold but it's sort of on hold at the moment and it is not a problem.

Excited I suppose is one word!

Rod and DJ

The Perfect Build

Two weeks to go before closing and eighteen days before we move in and all is well.

The perfect build? Well 99% at least and nothing to get worried about.

We did have one glitch with the garage floor getting a crack but it was fixed at no extra charge (of course) with a new floor.

Our builder Kevin Kleckner of Ambiance Homes has been a dream and has passed inspection with the most important people. My brother the architect and his son the engineer. Both are builders. My brother Ralls runs his own firm and has been featured in House Beautiful and his son builds buildings in Chicago for some mammoth company.

When I invited them up to see the house my secret goal was to hear what they thought of the build and I followed them around like a puppy dog listening and trying to read between the lines.

It passed with flying colors and they even said many things were done that many builders either skip, are too lazy to fix or just do not know about. The ONLY thing mentioned was to get the water heater off the floor. With the high water table in the area there was bound to be a lot of humidity and you do not want the water heater to be right on the floor.

I mention it to Kevin and it was fixed the next day.

The TyVek was put in the windows correctly (a common problem), the I-Joists were good to go and other "excellent ideas" were discovered. Even their ideas on how they would do this and that were done automatically

Are we happy? YOU BET!!

We are going to have somebody come by and talk to us about landscaping. We have ideas but having a pro give suggestions can not hurt.


The countertops are in place and we're happy. Certainly not Corian which would have been perfect but you have to draw the line somewhere in price and from our view is a not needed luxury. This is a house to live in and not a show place.

The fire place is basically finished except for the final touches and we actually paid for home insurance last night (only a little over $300 a year).

As I said - carpeting is 70% in and the color is working out very nice and is really making the place less echoie (if that is a word LOL).

The 360 sq foot deck is going up as I type and it's all good!

My friends at NASA would be proud.

Until next time!
Rod and DJ!

Getting close!!

Time is growing short for this blog. You see, we close on May 31st and move in on June 2nd. GULP!!


The house is looking wonderful and we're pretty excited. The OLD house is still on the market but that is not a worry. No bridge loan is needed and maybe it will sell faster empty. I'll just have to keep mowing the yard and we will just have to keep the conditions inside the house up for a little longer then anticipated.

Anyway - the New house will have 360 sq feet of deck put in sometime the week of the 14th. We were thinking of composite (also called plastic) but after a lot of research we're going with wood.


Why? A couple of schools of thought. Composite is great because it never needs to be stained. However, it DOES need to be cleaned every couple years. Also a five year old composite deck will look like a five year old composite deck. A wood deck will look brand new every couple years.

Composite decks get much hotter in the summer and are more prone to warping as they get soft in the heat. Composites will sit in a landfill for a thousand years so wood is better for the environment. Wood is cheaper and we feel, bang for the buck, wood is the winner.

Inside the house, carpeting still needs to be going in and counter tops are due up! The counters are in and look great! The fireplace is taking shape and even though we were told to get six inch tile three inch tile is being install with we feel is better.


Our builder has done a 100% perfect job so far and we could not be happier with the build.

The garage doors must be one of the last and that will be nice as they are not the standard doors (almost but they have windows which adds something).

What we like is that while it is a modest ONE QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLAR home it has some pop to it. Actually that does sound like a lot but our current home is not that much less.

We're dumping DISH and going with DIRECT TV. No Charter because their digital is not really digital but compressed analog and there is a big difference between the two. DISH is just a messed up company and since Mr. Evil Rupert Murdock no longer owns DIRECT, we can now buy into the service.

We're also dumping ATT because they do not offer DSL and we're going to use Charter for their broadband.

Hmmmm - what else - can’t think of anything at the moment.

Cheers

Starting to Look Like a Real Home

Nothing more exciting then watching plumbing and electric going in - thus - the lack of house blog.

However all of a sudden stuff is happening again and every time we make the trip we hold our breath hoping we had a clue on what we decided on four months ago.

Was the color of the siding ok?? Does it match the brick? Do they match the shingles? Does anybody care about the shingles? We were given a choice of ten different shades, all the samples were about one by two inchs. Yea - sort of hard to make a real decision on something nobody looks at anyway!

Then there was the paint problem AND A PROBLEM IT WAS! We were given 1000 different shades of white and what we picked we THOUGHT was an off white, sort of a light tan.

So we step into the house a few hours after it was painted and IT'S YELLOW!!! DJ was visibly shaken and HATED it! Our first mess-up? Two days later we go back and it has dried to a MUCH calmer color that we can live with. The interesting thing is that the house as so many textures of light streaming in that every room is a different shade of the same color AND the time of day changes it also.

The hard wood floors are great and the trim is really helping the color of the paint.

NOTE - do not make judgments on anything until it is all put together. The tile around the fireplace is not 6 inch tiles like we expected but 3inch - however - we like it better actually AND they match the laminate floor in the entrance way.

All in All we very very happy.

Cabinets are going in a day or two and we looking to move in in 4 or 5 weeks!! Maybe!

Here are the newest photos.

I hope they keep the landscaping, it has sort of an . . . .Afghanistan foreign look don't you think?

DJ is so happy she is doing a little jig!

What you do not see is that Blake's leash is caught and he is stuck! This is from the living room looking south towards the breakfast nook.

Middle of the breakfast nook looking into the future kitchen and living room where I took the last photo. No photos of the bedrooms as they are square box's. The Master beroom has some nice features (vaulted ceiling, sliding door to the huge deck) I'll have something next time.