The Pros and Cons of Building

We have found there are certain pros and cons to building with a company like M/I Homes (versus building on your own, or even just buying).

• Pro: Plot is included with the price of the house
• Con: Because plot is included it isn't very big.
• Pro: Models are available in many communities to see what the house will actually look like.
• Con: Because there are limited amount of layouts to choose from, many houses look the same.
• Pro:Wonderful community feeling.
• Con: Communities are limited to where they build so you are limited in the choice of where you live.
• Pro: Selections are limited and streamlined so it is easier and less stressful.
• Cons: Limited selections means you may not get exactly what you want.

I could go on and on but I won't. Obviously we could find pros and cons whichever way we went housing wise but we found that the pros of building with M/I outweighed every other option we had at the time. Given the fact that we could get a brand new house for the same price as one on the market. Not only would it be brand new, we could get exactly (or at least pretty close to what we wanted) and also get more time to save  for closing and all the stuff that you need when you move into a new place. 

How did you select your first house?

Hockey!

'Tis the hockey season once more which is a big deal in the SalTal household. See Andy is a huge Red Wings fan, I mean huge, like he would attend every game if he could. When we met I knew very little about hockey, in fact when Andy asked what I knew about the sport I think I said something about the flying V in the Mighty Ducks. Anyway, we got to attend our first game of the season down here in Columbus on Tuesday. It was a belated birthday present to Andy.

This was our view of from our first set of seats. That's right, I said first. Andy got a call about 5 minutes after we sat down from his brother, who had scored some awesome seats through our incredibly generous sister-in-law and her friend. So our view went to this:

Yeah, Andy was over the moon excited. It was awesome. Andy a screen shot of us on TV the next day.

I suck at self phone pictures.

The Wings ended up losing the game, which wasn't good, but it was the first win  of the season for the Blue Jackets.  Either way, it was nice to go to a game, sort of felt like an official kick off to our holiday season. 

Building Progress: Slowly but surely.

It has been a slow week for progress on the house. We actually had a bit of a set back last Tuesday, someone broke into the new house and stripped the place of wire. Boo. Our contractor was really sweet, he had told us in an e-mail that only some of the wire was taken but we visited the site and all of it was gone. I think he didn't want us to worry, which was nice. Well that meant that the electrician had to re-wire the whole house, which is what was taking place last week. We did express to our contractor that we are a little nervous that we won't be done by the end of the year, but he assured us that it will be. Other than that little set back we have some other milestones:

If you can't see it, don't worry, I can barely see it too. I'll tell you for those of you as blind as I am, we have a front door, the cement has been poured for the front porch, the garage, and also in the basement. Not seen here but progress nonetheless, there is a furnace and some of the duct work! Woot! Not all that exciting but it's still something. Another picture for you before I sign off:

This is our beautiful park with downtown in the distant background. I love it! 

Happy 100th post!

I just looked at my post count and realized I made it to my 100th post! Yay me!

Let's take a look at what's happened since I started this blog, shall we?

• I graduated from college. 
• We decided to move to a new city. 
• We became an aunt and uncle.
• We both started new jobs.
• We brought home a new member of the family.
• I quit my job and got a new job.
• We went to Disney World. 
• I got a second job.
• Andy got a new but old job.
• We celebrated our first Valentine's Day as newlyweds.
• We decided to stay in Columbus for the foreseeable future.
• We decided to build a house.

So those are the highlights for the last year and a half! It makes me tired just reading it. By the way, Sunday marked a year and a half of marriage! Pretty sweet!

Target-0, Amanda-1

A little back story before I start my tale; I have been on a quest for a dressing table for some time. My makeup and beauty supplies have minds of their own, they spread out all over the counter. It drives Andy crazy. I don't blame him, I try to keep up with it but I have a lot of crap and storage in our bathroom is minimal. Anyway, I have been searching for a dressing table to organize my makeup and such and give me my own space to get ready. I have found several options, but haven't pulled the trigger on any until Saturday night.

One of the vanities I was looking at was on Target's website and the website was having a sale, if you spent $125 on furniture you got 15% off your purchase. The vanity was not that much so I looked at the matching stool for the vanity and added it to my cart to get the discount. The 15% off wasn't added to my purchase and I couldn't figure out why. The table had a little disclaimer next to it that said if you spent $125 on furniture you got 15% off but not the stool. I looked at other stools that had the disclaimer, but not the one that matched my vanity. So I decided to call the customer service line to see if they could explain it to me. When I finally got someone on the phone, she took a look at my cart and told me simply, well the offer isn't applied to the stool (which I could obviously see). I explained to her that I could see that but I wanted to know why since it was furniture and my purchase was over $125. She said the same thing, the stool just isn't included in the sale. After asking why three more times and getting the same answer (seriously, it was like an awful Abbott and Costello routine), I thanked her for her "help" and hung up. I was so mad about the whole thing that I ended up not purchasing the set that night.

On Sunday night I decided to see about another vanity but opened the Target vanity to compare styles only to see that both the table and the stool went on sale! The combined price of the two was less than the table's original price! Success! I win! I thank the customer service person for making me so mad that I didn't order the items on Saturday and ended up saving about $60 by waiting an extra day.

Pass it on

Something really strange happened to me yesterday and I can't stop thinking about it. Before I dive in, let me give you the story.

Yesterday I had to work and Andy was sick. On my way home I called and asked if he wanted anything, he requested broccoli cheddar soup. I decided to hit Panera on my way home for him and I would get Chipotle for myself. Panera was easy enough, but when I got to Chipotle the line was outrageously long and very slow going. It took almost 20 minutes to get through the line and as I was getting ready to pay the guy in front of me asks if I want chips or a drink, which seemed really strange to me. He then told the lady running the cash register that he was paying for both our orders. When I told him he didn't have to do that, he said that he knew he didn't, but the line was so long and he just wanted to do something nice. This really shocked me. This guy and I had shared no pleasantries, we had merely stood in line together for a time. Yet he paid for my meal. I thanked him and he walked out to his car and left. Some thoughts that ran through my mind were "Do I look poor?" "Do I look like I'm having a bad day?" "Was he trying to hit on me?" (I believe the answer is no to all three), I just had to wonder. I know that people do nice things, I realize that this happens, I just was surprised is all. I keep thinking about it and it makes me smile. What a wonderful random act of kindness, so simple but so sweet. It really makes me think about ways I could brighten someone's day with just a simple act. I'm looking forward to passing it on.

Have you ever been the recipient of a random act of kindness?

Keeping the spark alive

Last night Andy and I had a date night, it was the first one in a long time. I don't mean to say we are hermits by any stretch, we go out a bit, but we are on a budget and have been trying to limit our date nights to simple things like Chipotle/pizza and a rental movie. Last night we actually got dressed up and went out on the town like it was a first date. I must give Andy props because he planned an excellent date night.

First we went to The Candle Lab, which allows you to create your own candle scent. There are all these different scents to smell and you go around and choose two or three to blend together. It was a lot of fun and I would love to do it again. Then we went to dinner at a French restaurant nearby called La Chatelaine, which was tres magnifique (sorry, I just had to). Then finally out for some ice cream for dessert.

I was really happy we did this because lately we have been a little stressed out with all the stuff for the house. Plus I think it's important to help keep the spark alive, getting dressed up for your spouse and spending some uninterrupted time together. It was just a wonderful evening.

How do you keep the spark alive?

DIY: Book Mobile Part 2

If you missed it, see part one here.

Once we got the dowels into place we had to secure them somehow, we decided that Gorilla Glue was the best method. I don't have any pictures of this part, sorry (no cookie for the blogger). What we did was force the dowels through the holes and just before they hit the wood we wet both the bottom of the table and the dowel and put the glue down and forced the two together. We then just had to weight it down while it cured. We let this sit overnight so that it was fully cured before we filled the top of the dowel rod holes with wood putty but we could have moved into filling the holes after a few hours.

We just filled the holes with wood filler and a putty knife and just smoothed it out. We had to wait again to let that dry, then after several hours there were a couple holes we had to go over the holes again, then finally we had to sand the entire top of the table with some fine grit sand paper. 

Once that was done we I was too impatient to wait until I painted the whole thing and let it dry to add the casters so we just screwed those in before I painted it. Once that was done I painted the top, dowels, bottom and sides in Glidden Toasted White. 

Looks pretty great, huh? Here is a shot with it holding some books.

I am thrilled with how this project turned out. I have some minor tweaks to work out (like getting the paint out of the metal pieces on the top) but over all it turned out great.

Now the break down of project cost and time:

Project Cost

• Spool- free thanks to Home Depot
• 3/4" dowels- 4 x $3.50 = $14
• Glidden Paint-1 Quart $7.00
• Casters- 3 x $6.00= $18.00
• Gorilla Glue, Paint Bushes, Wood putty and putty knife, sand paper, tools- free, we already had everything

Total Cost: $39.00

Not too shabby, but I must say, I was really picky about what casters I used, if I hadn't been the cost would have been a lot less.

Estimated Time of Project Completion

• Hammer down nails and filling with wood filler- 1/2 hour
• Measure and drill holes for dowels- 1/2 hour
• Cut dowels to size- 1/4 hour
• Secure dowels- 5 hours (this includes glue curing time)
• Fill tops of dowel rod holes- 4 hours (this includes dry time for wood putty)
• Sand top of table- 1/4 hour
• Secure Casters- 1/4 hour
• Paint- 1 hour

Total Time: 11 hours 45 minutes

There you have it, now I am ready to move on to the next project! Just have to figure out which one.

Building Progress: Interiors!

I have to break from our regularly scheduled blogging to bring you a progress report (I will post the Book Mobile Part 2 tomorrow). We have plumbing and electric going in! Woot woot! These shots are not as impressive as the exterior shots, I acknowledge that, but to Andy and me they are a thing of beauty!

Kitchen sink!

Hall bath!

Laundry Room!

Master bath tub!

Master bath shower!

So exciting, right? It is so much fun to walk through the house and see the changes daily. I'm fairly certain that we annoy the construction people what with our going around with our cameras taking pictures but oh well, I love being in our house!

DIY: Book Mobile Part 1

Remember this project:

Well I did it! I found my cable spool! I just have to say Home Depot rocks! We were wandering through the store the other day and I saw a cable spool that looked to be a good size for a coffee table. So I asked an associate if I could have one and after some chit chat we got to take it home for free! Woot! While we were there we picked up the rest of the supplies for the project, 4 dowel rods 3/4", 3 casters, and some paint.

Beautiful isn't it!

It's even better than I could have hoped for, I mean it's in great shape. So this weekend Andy and I decided to work on turning it to a table for the new house. First thing we had to do was try to pound  down the nails to make the top surface even. 

We tried a chisel and hammer but the wood was way tougher than we expected, so we ended up just using the hammer. After about fifty billion strikes we used some wood putty over the nails and over the jagged bits to give the surface a smoother texture. 

Before putty...

After putty!

Once the surface was looking like it wouldn't cut somebody it was time for measurements to figure out where to put the spokes. 

Andy is much better with measurements so he took over at this point (and yes that is my cup of coffee sitting on the spool, I was testing it out)

Andy thought that a clock pattern would be best for the placement of the dowel rods. He measured across the spool and marked about and inch in on either size at 12 and 6 then again at 9 and 3. Then he went around between 12-3, 3-6, 6-9, 9-12 and put two more marks in between each set roughly equal distance apart (I say roughly because there were a lot of nails and he was trying hard not to hit any of them when it came time to drill). 

Next Andy and I took the spool outside and used a 3/4" spade bit to drill the holes at the marks. There were some complications during this project as Andy hit nails in three different spots. To remedy this he simply used a chisel and hammer to hit the nails back and finished drilling. Once all the holes were complete we had to measure the dowel rods for sawing. 

Andy simply placed one into the hole and made a pen mark at the point where the dowel hit the table top. During the saw process he simply went a little under the mark so that the dowel wouldn't stick up out of the hole on the table. After sawing all the dowels we forced them through the holes on the spool and it's really starting to look like a book shelf table!

(Pardon the wonky dowel rod, it is a work in progress)

Stay tuned as tomorrow will unveil part two of this project!

Cast your vote!

Ok y'all, time for another poll. You have all seen recent developments with the house so I think it's time to place some bets on when we will be in the new house. Again I will give you a few weeks to choose from and the poll will be open until October 31. If you want to wager on an exact date leave a comment perhaps a gift card will come to the person that guesses closest to our move in date.

Procrastination Station

That is our household right now. I mean big time. We are awful (or awesome, depending on your viewpoint) at putting things off. For example, currently we should be:

• Working on packing up the non-essentials for the move
• Working on DIY projects for the new house
• Cleaning out the useless junk in garage and basement 
• Giving the dogs baths
• Clearing out old clothes for donation
• Shopping for furniture for the new house

But instead, what we have been doing:

• Watching stuff on Netflix
• Curling up next to the fireplace
• Sipping  Drinking wine
• Going through old stuff and laughing (not throwing anything away)
• Clearing out space in the DVR

Yep, we are clearly being a bit lazy. Perhaps I will have to print out a list so whenever we have a good chunk of free time we work on something on that list. Any other ideas on how to combat the procrastination bug?

Building Progress: A lot can happen in a week!

The last two weekends and the week in between have been super busy. Two weekends ago, I had to work on Saturday and then Sunday was Andy's birthday. My parents also came down with the dogs on Sunday. They went on vacation this last week (lucky them) and we got to dog sit. They stayed with us Sunday and flew out Monday so we took them over to the house on Sunday and they saw this:

 Between the four dogs and work this last week zoomed right by, we got to stop at the house once during the week and saw this:

We arrived Friday night with lots of plans for the weekend. Andy's mom was in town so we took her and Andy's brother and sis-in-law over to the new house where we saw: 

The busy weekend flew right by and we got to Monday when my parents returned. We picked them up from the airport and drove to the house to get a picture and saw this progress: 

My parents were amazed at the progress that was made while they were gone, quiet honestly seeing it in picture form I'm pretty impressed myself. These pictures don't even show the inside progress, which is pretty amazing as well. I guess I'm going to have to start trekking into the house as well during my visits, I will have to remember my hard hat.