The Arch

They have finished the brick and rock work on the outside of the house including the arch over the front porch. The electricians are done with all of the wiring. Today they were supposed to put up the sheetrock. At this rate, it won't be long before we are moving in.

more brick

Here are a few more pictures of the brick. Also, they were putting the shingles on the roof at the same time. All of this house stuff is driving me crazy. This weekend, with the help of my mother, we made some major decisions in interior design. I think we have decided on the colors of tile, the kitchen countertop, and the marble for the bathrooms. We will try to get some carpet picked out later this week, and we are still discussing paint colors. Who has time to do all of this? I met with the electrician again this morning. I expect his work to be done today or tomorrow.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

This has been an eventful week. Wednesday afternoon we had an appointment to meet with the electrician out at the house to discuss the placement of some lights, plugs, and other electrical type things. On the way to pick Tiffany up, I got into a small fender bender. There seems to be some debate as to whose fault it was, but the police didn't cite either of us. Since this is my blog, I'm gonna say it was his fault. The only damage to my truck was a punctured tire. He's going to have to replace the front bumper and a headlight. That will teach him to drive his Ford into a Chevy truck. Mostly it was just an inconvenience to me, and it made me late to my appointment with the electrician. Anyway, he was fine with my tardiness and we were able to make all of the major decisions. After walking the entire house, we had enough time to pick up food on the way home, shove it down our throats, and change clothes before heading to the civic center to see Evita. It you care, it was one of the best productions we have seen here in the big city of Abilene. Anyway, a lot of the wiring is already done. There is also plenty of evidence that the plumbers have been there, though I haven't actually seen any of them. The bricklayers have worked every day this week. I will post those pictures tomorrow. By the way, my truck is not actually called the Edmund Fitzgerald, but that is a dang cool song. People that name their cars are just weird.

Members of the Cabinet

We met with the cabinet maker this morning. Who knew there could be this many decisions made about this one thing? He had the whole plan on a 3D computer program so we could really see what it would look like. I really feel sorry for people who had to do this without modern technology. We are going with oak and a design that complements our interior doors. We haven't actually picked out the color of the stain, but we are leaning toward darker colors in our kitchen. He said that we will probably have the cabinetry in the house in the next two or three weeks. I can't believe how fast they put these things together. It is nice weather today, so I hope they are putting brick up. I will try to get out there tomorrow or Wednesday and check on the progress. In other news, we have decided to go to Bonnaroo this year. It's a big music and arts festival on a 700 acre farm in the middle of Tennessee. What can I say? Tiffany loves her rock and roll.

ready to go

They are all ready to go with the brick. Hopefully the weather will clear up by Monday and they can get some of it on the house. We also noticed some of the duct work is done for the air conditioning. We are going to meet with the cabinet maker sometime this week. I'll let you know how that goes.

"For those about to rock, we salute you"

Here are some pictures of the brick and the rock that are going on the outside of the house. We went out there yesterday afternoon. They have everything set up and ready to go. Hopefully they will get some on the house today.

some inside pics

These are some pictures of the kitchen. There will be an island in the middle. I'm pretty sure that our current kitchen would fit in this space about 60 times. Maybe we overcompensated on this plan, but I don't care. OK that 60 times crack might be an exaggeration, but I don't think it's by much.

She's a Brick......House!

Things are moving along very nicely. This weekend we picked out the brick and rock for the outside of the house. I don't have any pictures of the brick, but they tell me it could be on the house by the end of next week. I will take some pictures then. For now, I can tell you that it is a red colored brick. I just realized brick is not very exciting. We have also decided on the shingles for the roof, which will be some dark color that Tiffany picked out. Actually, I think it's black. I'll get back to you on that. We actually stole this entire color scheme from another house. I'm not telling which one, but if you drive around our neighborhood you might find it. Hopefully they won't mind. As you can see from the pictures, we have most of the windows in. We met one of the carpenters on Saturday. He told us that by Wednesday, the house will be ready for the roofers, the plumbers, the electrician, and the bricklayers. I may have a lot to blog about next week.

blah blah blog

I really haven't got anything else to put up. We went out there today, but I didn't take the camera. I will take some pictures this weekend. Until then, take my word that things are coming along nicely.

the doors

Today we had to pick out the interior doors. This design to the left is what we decided on. We saw them in another house and I really like them. If you agree with me, then you have good taste. If you don't like them, all I can say is that it's not your house. Get over it. We also got some brochures with pictures of front doors. I get the feeling this is just the beginning of a lot of decision making. Whatever Tiffany says is alright with me. The only real decision I'm going to make is which TV is worthy enough to grace my living room wall. Actually, I know which one it is, but I'm keeping it under wraps.

"There are things known and things unknown, and in between are the doors." --Jim Morrison

Rafters!

Tiffany and I were both off this weekend, which is a rare occurence. Saturday we packed up some things around here and moved them to the storage building. I hate the thought of moving everything twice, but we have to get some stuff out of here before we can sell this house. We went to the hospital to see Carl. He is beginning to get a lot more talkative and you can tell he wants out of that bed. Yesterday we went to the Zops Wild Game Feast at the Expo Center. We got some free tickets from a guy at work and decided to go check it out. It really doesn't get more redneck than this. It's a bunch of booths set up cooking pretty much anything you can imagine--deer chili, fried alligator, calf fries (you probably don't want to know), elk hamburgers. You can bring your own cooler of beer in and try anything you want. Hopefully we can score some free tickets again next year. After our roadkill lunch, we went home for a little while. We finally watched the Lost season premiere, which like every other episode of that show went absolutely nowhere. Why can't I stop watching it? After that, we blew off watching the Super Bowl (sue me) and instead opted to go see Juno at the movies. I thought it was hilarious. We love these little indie films, and we haven't been to a movie in quite a while. Actually, I did sneak off and see Rambo last week without Tiffany. I don't care what anyone says--it was awesome. I did Tivo the big game so that we could catch the highlights, including the Tom Petty halftime show. It got my approval and was surprisingly void of wardrobe malfunction. All in all it was a pretty good weekend. It looks like I forgot to mention that we did go see the house. Enjoy, and I will get a few more pictures up in a day or two.