November 7th & 10th....drywall, bridge, and covering the floor

Hangin' a little drywall here boss! And boy does it change the look of things.

The kitchen looks much brighter and bigger.

The great room looks bigger than I thought it would!(Yeah! I was secretly worried about that...)
And for now...that's all I'm writing. I posted the pics (which takes a long time on here...) and I'll come back and (maybe) write more later.
Off for some family time!

Garage
Laundry
More laundry
Garage is straight ahead with 1/2 bath on my immediate left (can't see it in the picture). The doorway on the left is a closet and the open space to the left is for cubbies. The wall on my right is the laundry.
Living room view from kitchen. The kitchen ceiling is flat, no the living room. (Bad angle from the camera...)
Better picture of the living room ceiling.
Standing in the dining room looking at the front door.
Dining room that leads out to the covered porch and deck.
Standing in the dining room looking at the kitchen. The doorway to the left leads to the garage. If you go to the right, you go to Ty's bedroom, playroom, bath, and the stairs.
Stairs to the future game-room, bath, and bedroom.
One of Ty's rooms.
Our new bridge.
Taping the floors off so the drywall mud won't get on them.

November 4th...Septic and a little drywall! (and a late Happy Halloween)

HAPPY LATE HALLOWEEN!

Boo! Happy late Halloween. I know this is a house blog, but I can't keep from bragging on our teachers for a minute. For the past 5 weeks, we have been learning the Michael Jackson "Thriller" dance so that we could surprise the kids with it at the talent show on the Friday before Halloween. It was soooo great! Here's the link to the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvEtfGKyuJQ
As you can see, we went all out on our makeup and costume. The picture above is of me (zombie bride) and Stephanie (zombie football player).
Here's one of Ms. Baskin (Michael Jackson), Mrs. Gould (aka rock star zombie) and Mrs. Wyatt (zombie nurse)A group pic: Starting on the back row from left to right: Mrs. Houston, Mrs. Sosebee, Mrs. Phillips, Mrs. Wyatt, Mrs. Newman, Mrs. Gould, Ms. Terrill, Mrs. Watkins, Mrs. Koch. Bottom row: Mrs. Lynch, Ms Baskin and Mrs. Mori. Shelly (track zombie) and StephanieMe and my "groom" Anna JoTonya was trying to avoid having her picture made (she's a cowgirl zombie)And the best makeup award goes to Mrs. Lynch! Wow....
Now to house stuff...
I'll just tell ya right now....it is a pretty good feeling to know that you will have a place for your sewer to go! I'm pretty sure that we have a septic tank installed and the lateral line ditches are dug with pipes by them. I didn't know that they were going to be working on this today, but the big mounds of dirt on the north side of the yard kinda gave it away...along with the big backhoe sitting there. They must have been testing the drainage in the ditches because there sure was a lot of water soaked into the ground. I wonder what my water bill will be...Since the bridge has been under construction, I wasn't sure that any work could be done, but apparently that didn't matter because we walked into the house and...(imagine the bright lights of heaven shining down on us and the heavenly choir singing here...) we had some drywall up! I know, it seems silly to put the whole heaven scene with this, but it just seems like that has been my goal since May. Drywall. It really makes it feel like a house. And it makes it shrink. In a hurry. I'm sure it didn't shrink...but not being able to see the garage from our bedroom anymore makes it feel so enclosed. (Yeah, I'm stating the obvious here, but give me a break! It is 5 am on Saturday morning and I can't sleep.) Anyway, here's some pics of the drywall up so far:

Our bedroomOur bath (The two door openings are actually entrances to the shower. The tub will be placed kinda in the middle of the room, but attached to the small wall between the shower entrances. Since this is a little difficult to picture, here's a picture of the inspiration bath taken from garrellassociates.com (just to give credit where credit is due.) There will be a few differences like the ceiling shape and the window, but the rest is pretty close to this.One of the vanity areas is to the left, and our toilet is to the right.ClosetWorkout roomCeiling in Ty's roomCeiling with the air intakeTy loved playing on this pile of gravel. I don't know what the plan is for the gravel, but I'm sure it involves the driveway.

November 2nd..the doors are in

Well, the bridge breaking kinda did a number on our work schedule this week. On Wednesday, the new concrete form will be built and the concrete will be poured on Thursday, so no one can really cross to go to work. Our insulation has been blown in and the drywall guys were supposed to be there today to start hanging drywall...but they weren't. So, they said they could come on Wednesday, but the bridge may not be passable...and Thursday is more of the same with wet concrete. So, our blown in insulation has an increased chance of falling out of the walls because it will be totally dry by then. So....who knows what will happen. Hopefully they will find a way to park a vehicle on both sides of the bridge and walk across to the other vehicle and drive up to our house. I know...wishful thinking, but maybe it will happen!
So, for the good news...
The front doors are in and they are exactly what I wanted!
Here's an inside shot:
Here's a couple of outside pics before the siding was completed:Here's an outside shot after the siding was completed:The back door is also in.The guys started the railing for the back porch and I really like the fact that they used the large 6x6 posts that match the 6x6 support posts.In between these posts will be a bench with a back that will act as a railing on the deck. Here's my guys just hanging out.

October 30th...Ooops, there goes the bridge!

Combine lots of rain, an old low-water bridge, and a loaded delivery truck, and what do you get?
Yep....a collapsed bridge. Not only is it a collapsed bridge, but a private collapsed bridge...which means that the county doesn't pay for it. UGH!! Thankfully, we have a wonderful neighbor that took care of getting it demolished and temporarily fixed so that they and the few other neighbors could get back to their houses. We'll have more concrete poured over it on Wednesday of this week and it'll be better than it was. Plus, I think most of the other neighbors are going to chip in so that we won't have to pay for the repair all by ourselves. Oh...and the delivery guy was on his game that day because he was able to get the truck loaded with drywall off the bridge before it fell off of the truck and into the creek. Unfortunately, the second truck wasn't able to deliver the drywall. Anway, here's some pics of the whole ordeal.
A view of the road with the backhoe sitting on a remnant of the bridge. If you look really close, you can see the delivery truck sitting off to the right past the bridge...
Here's the dozer with some sort of attachment that breaks up the concrete.
After the fallen slabs are broken up...Putting 2 new 36" culverts in...

October 28th...Porch posts, trim, and doors

The front and back porch posts were put up and they feel and smell so good.There's some more trim work, too. The window frame is repaired and you can't even tell unless you look really hard.The doors came in...but the front doors are still in the crate, so you can't see them. Here's some pics anyway 'cause I'm so excited about them! The back porch door came in too.