Finally an Update!

Kitchen

Kitchen from living room

View from the kitchen into the living room

Tray ceiling in our bedroom/dining room

The arch above our shower

Our whirlpool tub!

Where the kitchen table will set

Another view from the loft

The living room from the hallway

Ava's closet (she chose this room because it had a bigger closet than Emelia!)

Ava's Room

Kid's bathroom (soon to be decorated in owls!)

Emelia's room

Emelia's window seat

Our half sided house!

Kale's room

The landing, a place for the kid's toys!

The dining room

Looking into the kitchen from the living room, love the 3 arched doorways!

The dining room view from our living room

The kids in their Christmas pjs!

The house is coming along. Drywall is almost finished upstairs and should be ready to paint this week! The downstairs is next and should start hanging sometime next week. Dave is about to wrap up all the loose end electrical items. The porch is ready to be built and the rest of the siding is waiting to go up! Lot's of stuff to keep Dave busy this winter!

An Update....Finally

It's been hard to keep this updated with everything going on, Ethan's Rodeo, our new baby, Emelia, the house building.....etc! Here are some outside and inside shots of our progress. The plumbers have finished the rough-ins, the HVAC are finishing up our geothermal system rough-in, Dave has started on the electric wiring, siding is up on the East and partially on the North side of the house, the garage is up, all the stud walls are up, the cabinets are ordered, plumbing fixtures and lighting fixtures have been picked out and the tile/flooring is all picked out too. We are hoping to start drywall in the next couple weeks and to get the house sealed up before winter hits again. Dave thinks we could be in before the end of winter.....but winter technically goes until sometime in March!

Looking up from our great room....kind of hard to visualize, but the room on the left is the dining room.

The siding on the east side of the house.

A view from the winery road.

Another view from the winery road.

The kids shower/tub upstairs.

A look over our great room from the upstairs hallway

Our steps up to our landing.

We have a Roof and Windows!

We are "still" working on our house, the weather just hasn't been cooperating the way we would like. The roof was finally finished the last couple weeks in May. Then we started to get more rain and couldn't get the JLG around to close up the peaks of the house. So this is how the house sat for quite a while. Didn't they do a nice job with the backfilling! We don't have those big mounds of dirt anymore so I can actually see the house from my kitchen window!Here is a shot of the house with all of the windows (minus the front door)! You can click on the picture to see them in more detail, but I believe this is what they refer to as prairie style windows. Now I can't wait to see what the house will look like with our wrap around porch.Here is a view of the East side of the house!And the back side!And this is where the garage will eventually be!The back of the house!

This is a view from the inside of the house looking down onto our living oom!

Another shot of our open living room1

House Rendering - "Colored"

I attempted to color in the rendering of our house. I did this using paint, so it doesn't look the greated, but you get the "picture". There will be some stone on the front of the house at the bottom left where the porch isn't located. You would think I could do better with my rendering doing what I do for a living, but all the "good" programs are at work!

Trusses are up!

The trusses are up and the roof is getting started! Our house is starting to finally look like a home! The rainy weather put off this process for a couple weeks! It's really starting to come together now! We just picked out the color of our rim board that will go at the bottom of the roof line. We chose to match the cranberry red on the barn and the soffits will match as well. The siding on the house will be green like the barn too.

Dave took this picture with his phone last night to show me the progress! The kids and I left him to work in peace and quiet while we are having fun in Florida! Looks like he is getting a lot finished! I'm anxious to see the roof complete and then time for the windows. They are in and waiting for us at Doors-n-More!

No New Pics, but an Update!

Last Wednesday, March 30th, our second floor walls were poured! 36 total yards and now our house walls are complete. The windows should be in any day now and the trusses were ordered! Our house should start taking shape soon with a roof and windows to fill all the holes!

The Blocks are set!

All the blocks have been set and we are ready for the remaining rebar and bracing.....hoping to pour the second floor in a couple of weeks!

We have a 2nd Floor!

This hasn't been the easiest winter to build a house, but Dave keeps on working! My Dad, Dave, and a friend helped get all the floor joists up and the subfloor down for the 2nd floor. Now our house is finally starting to take shape! Here is a view from our bedroom into the dining room. We actually have some walls up downstairs. Actually almost all of the walls are up because we have such an open floor plan. we still have the bathroom wall, bedroom, pantry and 1/2 bath wall to go up, but other than that the house is wide open!

Here is a view into our bedroom. The windows are spaced so a king sized bed will fit in between. The smaller window is actually on the other side of the bathroom wall and sits just above our whirlpool tub! (Dave says it is a waste of money for this tub....we will see!)

Here is another shot into the master bedroom and the small wall is the back wall of the 1/2 bath off of the kitchen.

Dave, Ava, and Kale are patiently waiting on me to take pictures. They are standing in the middle of our kitchen. The big opening is what leads to our "locker room" that will house our shoes and coats. It leads into the kitchen directly from the garage. This also walks into our walk in pantry!

Here is a view from the top. That is the second floor subfloor. We are up in Dave's toy, his JLG. All of the subfloor is down now and Dave has started to put up the blocks and windows for the 2nd story! It's supposed to be a nice weekend so hopefully he can get a lot accomplished!

A House Update and A Illinois Blizzard!

We ended up pouring our first floor walls the first Thursday in January (34 yards). It was cold, but luckily the snow held off and we ended up with a lot of help. So now we just have one more level to go and then we can start getting this house under roof (easier said than done!).


February 1, 2011 was a historical weather date for Illinois. We recieved a 20 inch snowfall which has caused many businesses to shut down and schools have been closed for at least 3 days. They finally got our road open around 11:00 a.m. Drifts in some areas were over 3 feet high, but there were areas where the snow didn't cover the ground at all. The winds were at times close to 40 mph. This was the first blizzard I have ever wittnessed.

Here is our new kitchen with a couple feet of snow!

Here is our living room with a couple feet of snow as well!

This is the west side of the house with our windows in our living room and one in the kitchen.

This is the west and back side of our house. We have a level entry from our garage into our house and the concrete walls on the back are for the steps that lead to the basement from our garage!

Here's a picture of the front of our house with all the mounds of dirt and snow!