update

Well, the weather has still not been cooperating, so no further work on the house. On the flip side though, apparently since the demo, water has been getting into the basement and now there is standing water in the basement. I have not yet seen the damage, but Brent called to tell me about it. It looks like our plan to not redo the entire house is quickly changing because now we'll have to re-carpet and re-drywall (and add repaint) the basment. UGH! not fun. Might as well let you all in on the other "bad" news thus far - we had to replace the battery for the thermostat and the hold button was not pushed, so it automatically reverted to 70 degrees -- for the better part of 3 weeks we've been heating the backyard. And lastly, before the port-a-john was brought over someone urinated in the downstairs bathroom, but there was no water to flush the toilet since they were demolishing the back of the house and the water had been turned off; now the house smells rancid. All of these things are just annoyances, but when you put two OCD people like Brent and me on a project, these annoyances are very bothersome. Send a little prayer our way that we stay positive and focused!

The Hatchling

Today started off like a good day for excavation. But then about one hour after school began the schools decided to close early for impending freezing rain. Of course that inch of ice never happened.
Brent still takes the same route home from work; that way he can pick up the mail or recycling bins and check on progress. He said the CAT excavator hatched a CAT "cat bob" as Bennett calls it. A cute little bob cat has cozied up to the honking excavator in the driveway. Big progress seems close enough to touch...

a change in weather

Apparently all we needed was a little change in the weather for a couple of days for things to move ahead. Last week was wet and snowy and, of course, cold. This week it's just cold, so the work can begin again.

First, yesterday the guy took out most of the ONE tree we're loosing for this project. It's bittersweet because we hated to loose any trees, but if one had to go, this one was the one we didn't like and don't mind seeing cut.

Now, I say he took out "most" of the tree because obviously one does not pay to grind out a stump when one will be digging 10ft into the ground in that exact spot. So, the tree removal was a pretty good deal on the ole budget.

Second, Carl said to me today that he'd been waiting on the "mobilizing" phone call. Well, apparently the guys forgot to call him because there is huge CAT machine parked in our driveway. BTW, Bennett was thrilled beyond belief to see his favorite thing right in his own driveway! Looks like there'll be some serious digging going on very soon - as long as the weather continues to hold out.

Can't wait to get some pictures of excavation! Check back soon. Oh, and I added some pics to previous posts, so scroll through again.

sea of boxes

With a little help from some friends and my mom, this week has been a productive one on the boxes front. Monday, in the sleet and snow, I moved several boxes into the house from the garage and other items from one bay to another in the garage in an effort to clear one bay so Brent could park in the garage. I didn't want him to have to defrost and chip out his car for an hour at 6am in order to get to work. Then another night Brent moved about 6 more boxes into the house. Getting all of that into the house was the first step, then it was just picking out one thing at a time and finding a new home for it. Today, while my mom took Emma and Bennett to ChuckECheese for Bennett's b-day "gift," I tackled the new playroom - which would be about half of the huge basement. It's hard to just toss a bunch of stuff since there are 2 other kids who will use the toys, but I gave it a good effort and culled the games and toys a bit. We are almost finished with the moving in process - still need a little organizing in a few spots, like the kids' rooms/closets. Most of the boxes still in the house just need to be taken to the storage area in the basement. Yea!
Well, the kids enjoyed a snow day Tuesday and got to sled down the pretty big hill this house is sitting on. We're still having some serious problems with our desktop - so much so that Brent called in the professionals for Monday - so still no pictures.
All remains fairly quiet at our house. There were tire tracks in the snow the other day and the AC unit is missing from the back of the house and the tree we are saving has been "roped off." Apparently the crew that does the demo and the framing work at such lightning speed that they are already waiting on us to make some final decisions on windows and doors. Next on the list will be tree removal and excavation (there should be some great pictures to be had during excavation with Bennett in his hard hat!), then the pouring of the foundation.
Check back soon for potential pictures of progress!

we'll call it official

Well, I've been waiting to add this post for a couple of days now, and am just tired of waiting. So, I'm calling it "official" on the moving out part of the project. Technically Brent still needs to go back and remove the lifts from the windows before the windows get tossed into the dumpster, but other than that, the place is cleaned out. And I mean cleaned out - we are storing light fixtures, appliances, medicine cabinets, mirrors, knobs, and hinges here. Carl said we needed to take out anything we didn't want damaged - which would be anything we planned to reuse. So, that's what we're doing. The storage area looks like a salvage store!

We are still working on settling in at the rental and getting things in order. Still don't have the real computer hooked up (the technology in this house exceeds all of our equipment so we are making some adjustments here and there) so check back in soon for pictures.

That appointment with the other window guy went well. We liked his product, but liked another product in his showroom even more - it's just a "little more expensive." We'll see what that means in dollars sooner rather than later. We have an uncanny knack to be able to walk into almost any place and pick the more expensive product. It's a gift really, or at least that's what we keep telling ourselves.

Well, my counterpart has crawled into bed and my laundry is still on the bed waiting to be put away. I should probably finish before he starts twitching and knocks it all on the floor. hahaha. later.

progress

First thing this morning there was a bright yellow Port-A-John in our front yard; now that's progress. Then Brent called the office to notify them of the placement. It was relocated in less than an hour.

I am also going to use this opportunity to post an update on the babies. Em is growing. She's still riding every week and we can hardly get her to leave to go home on those afternoons. Her instructor is beginning the suggestion of buying her own horse... Bennett is all over this house project! He's got his own hard hat, thanks to a loving friend, and is ready to help with the excavation. Chubby is still very loud, has finally gotten her front teeth (4 top and 2 bottom), and just might be beginning that "thinning out" phase at 19 mos. And lastly, the baby has been sleeping through the night intermittenly the last two weeks. It's nice to get 5 or 6 consecutive hours! He'll be 4 mos on the 17th.

Tomorrow we do our comparison shopping on windows. We've met with one guy, now we need to get the other guy to tell us why his product is better. Proves to be interesting...

Well, I'm eating into those 6 hrs of consecutive sleep. Later.

No kidding

Whoa! They weren't kidding yesterday. Brent stopped by the house tonight and the side porch is gone and all the brick on the back of the house is off. And get this, the house is now wrapped in Tyvex - the first insulation that house has seen since 1946 when the builder stuffed newspaper and tin beer cans between the plaster and brick.

BTW, have I mentioned how bad it is moving? Brent continually said something like, where did we have all this crap in that house!!! It's amazing how much stuff one accumulates with 4 kids. I have a theory and it doesn't just involve me being a pack rat. We were very blessed when got married to have an apartment full of furniture mostly given to us. Then we purchased a new piece or two for our apartment, then a couple of things for our first house, then all the stuff for Baby #1, plus new stuff to fit house #2, then we got our Franklin house that needed a ton of furniture plus baby #2. Now start the "too hectic to purge" scenario with our move up here and add 2 more babies and a few items like frames for pictures of those 4 beautiful babies, and tons of presents for birthdays and Christmas for 4 years and you have a 3car garage overflowing with stuff.
I'm nowhere near as exhausted as Brent right now after all the extraneous moving he's done these past few days (pls reference above the 3car garage overflowing with stuff), but must sleep when I can. Later.

Ready to Roll

I received an email yesterday from Carl's assistant that we were "ready to roll." Carl met with the tree guy yesterday to discuss trimming the tree next to the house that we are saving (and went to great lengths during the design phase to be sure it was kept) and is meeting the demo and framer guys today. We have been asked to finalize our first selections - windows, ext doors, and plumbing fixtures. So, we're being forced to move our focus from settling in here in the rental back to our house. BTW, it was kind of sad to leave our little house. Brent said he had a talk with 'her' before we left. I laughed and asked if he told 'her' we were giving her Botox and a boob job! She'll be beautiful when we're done!

SUPERwhat?

Glad my Titans didn't make it to the SuperBowl -- that would've been too much to deal with this weekend. Even though we moved the cable, we're having some difficulty finding cable outlets in this latest technology house, and since we decided that we need a break from the boxes, we're heading to a friend's house to "watch" the game and eat. Truth be told, it's just an easy way to feed our family tonight - LOL. I'll touch base again soon.

Sanity/Insanity

Well, the weather held out for us yesterday and we started the move process. I'm currently sitting at the rental waiting on our last load from the movers! We still have a bunch of stuff to bring over that didn't make it into boxes-like toys, shoes, etc. But we are sleeping here tonight! Brent is hoping that our sanity got packed in one of the boxes; I only hope it's not in one that was put in storage! Luckily storage is right here in the basement, so if we can't find our sanity by next week, we can go down there and look for it. This whole process is insane, but our movers are fab and I've had lots of help from friends with the kids and the boxes. Oh, we have the same phone # and are not changing our address. Check back in soon.