Building: Getting close

With all the hub bub of the last week or so we haven't had much time to see the house and progress, but boy has there been some. Take a look:

Landscaping and driveway are done

Lighting in kitchen and breakfast nook

Foyer light

Master bath lights

Master bath tile/bathtub

Master bath shower tile

Kitchen floors

Master bath floors

Plus we also have flooring in the entryways, laundry room, and other bathrooms! Woot! We also have a date for the final walk thru which will be on December 19th. We should close within 10 days of that date, barring any major complications. I'm hoping there isn't anything major because we need to be out of our rental by the 31st of December. Yikes. Cross your fingers and toes for us folks, it's going to be close.

What a week.

It's been a couple weeks, folks. A week and a half ago, we received the news that Andy's maternal Grandmother had passed. It was very unexpected, which made it all the harder to process. We had to carpool up to Michigan with Andy's brother and our nephew, our sis-in-law is due any day now, so it wasn't a good idea for her to go too far. Between that and the holiday we have been very busy and I haven't had time to post. It's been very hard on everyone and I think we are still processing. I promise to myself and you readers to be a little more diligent in posting. I was going strong there for a couple of weeks, but life happens. Hope all is well with everyone out in blogger land.

Tornado Drill

I have a love/hate relationship with storms. I love watching the wind whip around, the sheets of rain, the lightening. However, I live in Ohio, therefore storms can result in tornadoes which I hate. Don't get me wrong there is a small part of me that would love to be a storm chaser, but the rest of me is terrified. I mean 95% of the time the sirens go off there isn't a tornado, but I take precautions anyway. We have a routine in our house. Prior to actually living in a house, if we were under a tornado watch we would put the cats into their carriers, ready to go if we needed to head to a safer place in our apartment building. It's been much easier living in the rental house because currently our basement is finished so we just haul everybody down to the basement and chill.

Last night was no different (which, by the way, is pure crazy, it's November, not the season of tornadoes), when the TV sent out the signal that there was a warning we rounded all the animals up and headed downstairs. However, we couldn't find our one cat, Izzy. We used all our old standbys, shaking the treat container, pouring out some food, but she wouldn't come. We started to panic because we had been in and out of the house for the past few hours and Izzy likes to jet out into the back yard when she can. After searching everywhere in the house we came to the conclusion that she must be outside. So we grabbed our flashlights and the treats and spent the next hour combing the area around our house and our neighbors houses. We turned up nothing. We had decided to take a break and wait for the rain to let up when suddenly there she was sitting in the kitchen, completely dry. I'm really surprised I didn't crush her when I scooped her up and started crying. Which Izzy was completely against because she isn't a lovely cat. So we were back together safe and sound. Thank goodness. I still have no idea where she was because we tore through all the closets and her favorite sleeping spots looking for her but I don't care because she is safe.

Have you ever had a scary moment with your fur baby?

Building Progress: Holy cow!

So I kind of fell off the face of the Earth for the last week, bear with me please. It was one heck of a week last week. Work was a bit crazy for both Andy and I, we were dealing with some mix ups with the house, and we got the e-mail to get our closing documents submitted! I know, right? Before I dive into the nitty gritty, here is what you are here for:

Siding almost complete

Love our shutters, why we don't have siding near the top there is beyond me.

Our lovely cabinets.

Things are really coming along at the new place. It's amazing. It's also the reason we received an e-mail last week to get our closing documents submitted no later than today. I was a little stressed out about that. It isn't that I didn't know we were going to have to do that soon, it was more that we had three business days to obtain things, two of which we were going to be on vacation. You would think the fact that we had the days off would have helped but we had so much already planned that it didn't. On top of that we had some mix ups with our tile that we were trying to resolve. Apparently there is going to be tile around our tub in the master bathroom, which we were not informed of and never selected. Our design consultant had the same tile that we had in the shower around the tub and while I love that tile, I don't think that brown tile around a white tub would look quite right. We got that fixed as well but it was a bit stressful too.

Other than all that, things are well, we spent our vacation catching up with the family, cleaning, and trying to fit in a bit of relaxing. Hopefully I will have some project posts for you soon.

DIY: Mock Pallet End Table Top

I have a slight obsession with pallets that are turned into coffee tables. I think it's amazingly resourceful and looks wonderful, if you have the right pallet. We are planning on attempting a pallet coffee table for the new house but we have never been big into coffee tables, mostly because the dogs like to run around. What I really wanted to do was create end tables out of pallets but something that size is really hard to come by. So a few weeks back I had an idea to create an end table that looks like a pallet out of furring strips and some 2x4 studs. It was a super simple project and I'm excited to share it with you.

For this project we bought:

• 2- 2x4x8
• 3- Furring Strips 1x3x8
• Plus wood for legs (will get to that later)

Cut List

• 2  - 2x4 @ 24" (for table top support)
• 3 - 2x4 @ 21" (again for table top support)
• 9 - 1x3 @ 24" (for table top)

Tools we needed

• Miter Saw
• Drill
• Counter sink bit
• Phillips head bit
• 7/64" drill bit*
• Measuring tape
• Pencil
• Hammer
• 12- 2" wood screws
• 27- 1 1/4" finishing nails

* Just needs to be a little bit smaller than the screw

First Andy and I measured and cut all the wood, (yes I used the saw and I was proud). 

Then we arranged the 24" 2x4's and the 21" 2x4's like so: 

Basically, we created a box out of the 4 pieces and then added a brace in between to stabilize the table top.
Andy then used the drill bit to drill a guide hole for the screw, used the counter sink so the screw head would sit flush with the table, then actually screwed it in. He repeated this process two times at each of the four corners and also two times on each side of the brace beam.

You can see the counter sink next to where he is drilling. 

Actually screwing the pieces together.

Once that was completed we had to nail the table top on. With this portion we just laid out the nine 24" 1x3's across the table and arranged them so that the spaces were even. This was, for us, just a trial and error process. We could have used less 1x3's and had bigger spaces in the table top or we could have used more and had zero spaces in the table top. It's really whatever you prefer. We preferred something like this:

Once we figured out how we wanted the spaces we made a little mark on each side of the base where we wanted each piece of wood, this made it easier when we started nailing them all. We just nailed each piece three times. Once on either side and one in the middle where the support beam is. We used finishing nails because it gave it a cleaner look but you could also use standard nails to make it more pallet like.

Voila we had a table top. Which is where this project stops. See, we want these to be our end tables but we don't have a couch for our great room yet, so we really want them to sit flush (or at least) close to our couch so we are waiting on the leg portion of this project until we figure out what size our couch is going to be. I promise to post a link to the leg portion of this project when we get to it.

The Poll Results

Alright readers, our poll closed down a few days ago so here are the final results.

• 3 of you (or 30%)  voted before Thanksgiving
• 3 votes (30%) for the week of December 18-24
• 2 votes (20%) for the week of December 4-10
• 1 vote (10%) for the week of Thanksgiving November 20-26
• 1 vote (10%) for the week of December 11-17

So the majority of you think we will be in either before Thanksgiving or just before Christmas. While I hope that the Thanksgiving people are right I have a feeling it will be a little later. We are just going to have to wait and see.

Also Andy and I are working on revamping the blog a little bit. Keep an eye out and let me know what you think. 

NaBloPoMo Revisted

I tried to do NaBloPoMo last year and failed so I really thought that this year I would just continue to blog as usual which is about 2-3 times per week. However, the more I think about it the more I think maybe I should challenge myself to write every day for a month. I have a lot of projects that I would like to get done and this could help met be accountable for it. It would also make me feel accomplished to write every day for a month. However, I have one worry, when I hit my NaBloPoMo wall last year I became really frustrated with blogging and didn't want to do it anymore. This caused my posts to become more and more spaced out (well that and working two jobs but I'd like to think I could do anything if I had the motivation and drive) and eventually I had a 3 months gap in posting which I would like to avoid ever happening again. Regardless, I'm torn, to NaBloPoMo or to not NaBloPoMo that is the question? Any fellow bloggers participating in NaBloPoMo this year?

P.S. I am already two days in, which is a positive.

Building Progress: Eeeeee!

I'm so excited! I went out to the house yesterday and saw this:

Check out that siding! Woot! I'm hoping they will be back to finish the front between today and tomorrow since the weather is going to be nice. Moving on to the inside:

 

Top picture: Master bedroom/Middle picture: Master bath/Bottom Picture: Foyer

We have drywall y'all! We have finally moved out of framing. I'm excited mostly because our contractor (many moons ago) told us that from drywall the house will take about 6 to 8 weeks to finish, leaning more towards 6. Given his determination and some discussion reassurance from some folks that live in the neighborhood we will be in before the end of the year. Let me get a wahoo!

P.S. Happy NaBloPoMo! Good luck to anyone attempting it, you are a better blogger than me.