Fun With Wood!

Well, it's been close to a month, so it must be time for another update!

Our apologies here at Fun With Wood. Christmas is like, time consuming, or something. Not to mention, the winter slowdown I've been so patiently waiting for at work hasn't come to pass. Worky work, busy bee!

Anyway, enough about the excuses. Time for an update!

Well, this will be a duel update, really, since we went to the house twice since the last posting. So, let's start at the start.

Melissa and I went up to the house on the 15th of December to see what we could see. Pulling into the complex, we're greeted with...



Hmmm... Curious enough. It appears that Nicor still hasn't gotten around to connecting the gas service to the house. Not sure what the delay is on all of this, but the always resourceful builders appear to have a temporary fix in place.

Stepping inside, we immediately see why the tank is out there. We're greeted at the door by 90 degrees and a rather high humidity level. Oh yeah, the drywall was also up!



It would appear that this was the day they put the drywall up, as the drywall mud was still very wet. Oh, did I mention it was 90 degrees in there? Yeah, it was 115 upstairs. We couldn't stay in too long as we were starting to feel a little funky from the space heater in there.

So here's a parting shot of the living room. Oh, and the portable heater.



Fast forward to the 22nd of December and we're back. It appears there was a lot of work going on in our absence! We find that the sidewalk that ended about 10 feet short of our driveway has been completed to the end of our property. As we walk hopscotch our way from rock to rock trying not to sink in the quagmire of mud my driveway has become, we notice that there is scaffolding around the house, and to our surprise, a few rows of siding on the front of the house! We weren't expecting this at all. In our observation of other houses being built in the neighborhood, it appears the siding work is the last thing to be done. Apparently the siders are taking advantage of the good weather while it lasts!

We also notice that the propane tank is gone.

We step inside and find that we're not walking on drywall mud stained subflooring. Oh, and it's nice and comfortable inside. Gas is on, and the furnace is running. Good news!



This comes as a bit of a shock. Since closing is the 9th of February, we were expecting a little slower progress. Apparently not. Hard flooring is in, and the tile in the master bathroom is also started. Not sure why I didn't get a picture of that. Silly me. Anyway, the kitchen flooring was in also.



This remarkably real looking floor is actually a laminate. I was very impressed by the quality of the flooring. Laminates appear to have come a long way since I attempted to destroy my parents flooring with various edgy and destructive toys as a rugrat! But, our shock and awe wasn't finished yet. Someone else has been busy this week!



It appears the cabinet guy was there also! The kitchen cabinets are well on their way to being finished. The cabinets for the bathrooms are still in the garage, but I imagine that by the end of this week, those should all be in.

So, once the cabinets are in, there's not much left to do. The wood trim, doors, electric and plumbing fixtures and carpeting. At the rate they're going, this place is going to be done weeks before our closing date! Good times.

We're going back and forth on whether we want to paint right away or wait a little bit. We spoke with the builder about this and his suggestion is to not paint for a year so that any repairs to the walls can be done without needing to repaint the whole wall. I can see his point, but it's gonna be a challenge trying to live in a house with screamingly white walls. The jury is still out on this.

On the drive away from the house, we decided to go around the back, and we're surprised to find:



Looks like there was more progress then we thought! The siding on the rear and south side of the house were completly sided and the rear porch was poured, which was a surprise.

Stay tuned! We're getting close!