We've got plumbing!

Woohoo! After two weeks of waiting through rain and snow, we've finally got plumbing! The plumber came out and worked Tuesday through Thursday to install all of our drain pipes and supply lines. The power company also randomly showed up and installed our transformer that we'll run power from once everything is finished. Tuesday looked like it was a super busy day with both the power company and the plumber with his backhoe out there tearing up things.

Tractor town

Electric company guy way up there in the back

Transformer and plumbing drains after Tuesday's work

Supply lines in! And our second green tag!

Friday the inspector came out to check it all. And we passed! 

Now we're all set for them to start work on the foundation tomorrow. The foundation contractor will come back out to clean up the mess the plumber made, lay cables per our engineered plan, and install the vapor barrier. We also chose to have the termite pre-treatment under the slab so they will be out this week too. Once that is all set we've got 2 more inspections to get done before they actually pour the slab. Looks like rain on Tuesday so we'll see when it'll happen but it's so close!! Looking forward to posting pictures of a beautiful chunk of concrete next week. :)

Let's just pretend this is progress...

So, scratch those "plans" we had last week. Instead of just needing to dry Monday and Tuesday, it rained/snowed again on Tuesday so that dry time was extended through tomorrow. So let's hope the weather forecast cooperates this week so the plumber and inspectors can come out and do their things and get this slab poured finally. The plumber did come out and run some strings to mark the drains/sinks, and got a load of sand delivered for him but that was it this week. We did have some beautiful sunny days this weekend, so that was nice!

Progress-ish?

One of the next steps in our book was to pick out brick. Apparently when the house building industry was booming, it could take up to 3 months to get brick in so we were advised to go early on in the process to make sure we ordered it in time. On Friday, we drove out to Aubrey to visit Aubrey Brick & Claystone. They had a ton of brick samples on little display boards. We looked around their showroom and outside where they had some samples set up with mortar. It was pretty cool to see all the different colors and shapes of the brick and stone.   

It's a brick....house... (you sang that, didn't you?)

We showed the lady some pictures of homes we liked and she directed us to a couple different bricks. She wrote down addresses of a couple homes near the showroom, up in Pilot Point that they had done in the brick we liked with different stone options. There were also some in McKinney that we looked at. She also advised us that it would only take 2 weeks or so to get brick or stone in after we ordered it, so we have plenty of time. 

After looking at the homes on the list, we still weren't sure we had picked the right one. They look a lot different on the homes than they do on the boards. So Saturday afternoon, we went back out to drive around some more and found a neighborhood with some HUGE homes being built. But we figured they should have good taste, so we drove through the neighborhood and found one that was just getting its brick/stone up. Luckily for us, we LOVED how this one looked and the piles of bricks they had delivered were stacked up in the back, so we got a snapshot of the brand and color. It's SO weird how different they look in the stack vs. what it looks like on the house with the mortar. I would never have picked this brick off a sample board in a million years, so I'm so glad we stumbled upon this house! They were also doing a cream limestone, which is what we wanted too, perfect! Except ours won't be 9,000 sq ft like this one. :)

Loving this brick/stone combination

Now this may not seem like much but making these decisions seemed like they could take a while so it's great to have this big task marked off the list! We also really like the "messy" mortar style like they did here, where they lay it thick and get chunks of the mortar on the brick too. Awesome. Now, we just have to get it ordered. "Um yes, I'll take twenty thousand of those please."

So, third time's a charm on scheduling the plumber. Cross your fingers!! Also, sounds like the family has a pool going on completion date. Feel free to comment with your guess. :)

Who ordered the pool?

Mother nature has not been on our side this past week. Lots and lots and lots of rain. I'm sure we really needed it, but couldn't it have waited until after we had a foundation, a frame and a roof up? Oh well, we'll get by. I have a feeling patience will be our friend through this process...

Pool house

Just in case you were wondering, the camera that takes these shots is still on its original 8 AA batteries, capturing over 1,000 photos a week (one every 5 minutes). Impressive. So far we've got a pretty cool time lapse of what's been going on, but we'll wait to post it here probably until it's framed or at least something a little more interesting. If you're REALLY interested in seeing it so far though, let us know and we'll send ya a link!

Luckily the surveyor made it out Tuesday morning before it started coming down, and they even sent us the survey later that day. When we got it back, something didn't quite look right. See those dashed lines in the picture? That's where Fairview allows buildings on the property per the town ordinances. It has to be at least 35 ft from the front and rear property lines, and at least 50 feet from each side property line. 

Well...when we had our site plan drawn up, the architect had those lines switched...so we thought we had an extra 15 ft on each side of the house. We were wrong. Thankfully it's still 10 ft in from that south property line on the bottom there, but if it was outside of that line, we would have had to tear up everything and move it all over. Disaster averted...whew. That was close. 

That was the last of the actual work that was done...yesterday it poured again, and filled up all those nice trenches the foundation guy dug up the week before. There was about a foot of water in them.
 

After Saturday's rain :(

It seems to have dried up a bit today. Hope that trend continues so we can get back on schedule here soon! If you happen to stop by and check it out, don't drive out on the property. It's more soggy than it looks! And yes, we found that out the hard way. Oops.

Drying up...kind of

Tentative plans for the week are drying Monday/Tuesday, digging the plumber's trenches Wednesday, installing drains Thursday, pipes on Friday. Inspections, foundation prep and pour the following week. Ready, set, go.

Progress at last!

Well it is a happy new year, indeed! Ya know...you wouldn't believe how much money you will spend on a "house" before anything actually gets done. Well...we didn't anyway, but now we finally have at least something to show for it!

This week, our foundation contractor came out to set form boards for the slab, the power company came to hook up power to the T-pole, and we made it an official construction site thanks to the delivery of a port-o-potty. (Note to any of Rob's childhood friends: LEAVE.IT.ALONE - we know who you are and where to find you.) We also ordered all the windows, but we won't see those for a few more weeks.

The guys showed up early Thursday morning and got to work.

Mid-day on Day 1 

Port-o-potty delivery

Power company decided to show up

 

Day 1 cut short when one of the trencher machines broke

Back to work today, this time with two trenchers

Close up of the action.

All ready for the surveyor and plumber to come out next week!

Before we can move forward, we have to get a survey of it with the forms set in place...if we don't, the bank won't give us any money, which we'll need here shortly to pay for all that concrete. Up until now, we've been spending our own money...like a down payment on a normal loan. But since the bank would have just given it back to us after closing, we just keep it and pay as we go. Once we hit our agreed to down payment amount, we'll send copies of all the invoices to the bank. After that, whenever we get an invoice from a contractor, we send it to the bank by Wednesday, they fund our checking account and we write the checks to the guys on Friday. I guess they don't trust you won't take it all to Vegas?

Anyway, the surveyor is scheduled to come out on Tuesday and then the plumber Wednesday to do all his ground work, installing supply and drain lines for all sinks and toilets and whatnot. Good stuff, starting to resemble something like a house finally!