Walls! Man This House Is Going Up FAST!!!

Gina and I are freaking out at how quickly our new house is coming along. At this pace we will be closing in mid-May! We need to get moving on packing up and getting things fixed to get our house on the market.

Next weekend we'll be on a campout with the Sierra Club so we won't have photos of the next week's work. I suppose by the time I post again we'll have stones and bricks!!

Here's how it looks now with a few walls in place.

There were some men working inside the house while we took photos. They were putting in the plumbing. See the guy on the ladder?

We even have the upstairs bathtubs installed.

Wonder what they plan to do with all these pipe fittings!

This is the view from the upstairs front bedroom, which we plan to use as a media room.

The view from the 2 bedrooms upstairs where Gina and I will live are virtually identical.

Our favorite room is definitely going to be the family room. Wonderful view through those 3 big windows!!

View from Mom's master is pretty impressive as well.

Much less impressive is the view from the upstairs gameroom and the downstairs breakfast area. Both look out on the neighbor's house - but you can still see the forest if you look just right.

Here's the view out of what we plan to use as an exercise room. At least until another house is built there...

We got sticks!!! Pink Pretty STICKS!

We were quite surprised to see our house has been framed! Ken, our realtor, had told us the slab was done on Tuesday. So we were expecting just to see it. To actually have sticks on the slab was a real treat!

Here's another view from the front that shows off the dormers atop the garage a bit better.

And here's the view from the side.

And the back of the house. Note the 3 big window frames and covered porch from where we'll have great views of the trees.

Look closely and you can see Mom standing in her bedroom to the left of the 3 big picture windows.

Gina also met the new puppy who lives next door. 

He's such a cutie, but look at the size of those paws! He'll be a monster by the time we move in! I just hope that Rick trains him well. I'd hate to have Porch Boy attacked again!

I did a ritual that Gina and I started when our current house was being built.

 Then Mom joined in the ritual, placing one near the front door entrance.

In no time at all we'll have walls and floors. So exciting!!!!

Plumbing Is In

Dirt from last week got all packed in nice and tight around all the plumbing pipes. I just can't wait until we're living so near big, beautiful trees!

 

Here's the reverse angle so you can see what we'll see out the front of the house. 

 

Gina and Porch Boy stand just outside the back porch. What a great view of the forest we'll have!

 

 

If we hadn't taken Denise's advice and flipped the floor plan, this is what the porch view would have been. Nice, but the forest is so much further away. Beyond the detention area.

 

 

 

 

Our New House - So Far

Promised the family that I would start blogging again to keep them all updated on the progress of our new house. For anyone who might read my blog that doesn't know about the house we're building, here's the backstory.

In 2012 Mom decided she wanted to come live with us so we used the entire year exploring options. Renovate the garage? No, the HOA didn't allow that. Add a room to our house? At a cost of $65k we thought it better to invest in a new house rather than just a new room. So we hired Gina's friend Glenn, an architect, to design our dream home. And we found the neighborhood we wanted to build this custom house - in Porter TX on acre-sized lots.

Unfortunately, we never could get a lot that we wanted at a price we could afford. So we looked for something already built - in the Loop and out in the 'burbs. Eventually we found what we wanted in Crosby - a new neighborhood called Seven Oaks being built by Brighton Homes. We got a lot on the cul-de-sac which backed up to a greenbelt area with lots of trees and a 6 mile hiking trail! Perfect.

Another wonderful thing about buying in this neighborhood is that all residents have access to San Jacinto River with a beachfront

 and Lake Houston with a boat launch and a very cool Gazebo, fishing pier, and picnic tables.

Finally we decided on the model we wanted which has 5 bedrooms and 3 full baths. Mom will live downstairs in the master suite and Gina & I will share the upstairs with the animals.

Signed the contract, went to the design center to pick out all our upgrades, and now the construction has commenced. So far it's just a bunch of dirt on our lot.

There's no one building on the lot to the right of us yet, so we get a rather expansive view of the woods in that direction!

 

But there is already a house on the lot to the left of us. We've met these neighbors and they're nice.

Greg, the construction manager, said that he had to wait on the survey to make sure that they have the dirt positioned properly on the lot before they start laying in the plumbing and then they'll pour the foundation. So, we'll wait until next weekend to go back to take more photos. But keep tuned. Each week we expect to see changes and keep posting new photos. Proposed close date is in May and we just got word today that we've been approved on the loan at just 3.5%