A Day With the Johnson's

http://picasaweb.google.com/smokinhoosierhottie/BuildingOurHouse##

Wow! As you can see from the pictures they have made a lot of progress on the house this week. Kevin and I were suprised at how much they were able to get done considering it rained every single day. By Monday evening the floor trusses were layed and they were ready to start framing the upstairs portion of the house. It was amazing to see the rooms take shape! Right now our move in date is November 29 but at this rate I think we might be in before thanksgiving! Everyone says that it goes fast in the beginning but then things slow down. All I know is that I have been running around like a crazy person trying to pick things out and make decisions about everything. Since we are building so fast I don't have much time to think about what I am choosing. I hope everything matches in the end!

Kevin will get his first taste of electric work this weekend. Our friend (the electrician) will be starting on his part tomorrow and Kevin will be there to help him. Also on the docket for Kevin this week... Getting started on the shingles (yes, we are shingling our own roof). This is a task that I am being excluded from. I can honestly say I didn't protest much when the issue arose. I am scared of hights so I know I would slow the guys down with my whining and clinging to the roof. While they are working on the roof I will be getting estimates on counter tops for the kitchen and picking out light fixtures for the dining area and over the island. We will probably start hanging dry wall the first week of October. That means that after I finish with light fixtures I need to get moving on paint colors. We are also doing our own painting so that will be on the to do list in a few weeks. The great news about moving so fast is that there is not much time to worry about anything. You just make a decision and move on.

Between working at our regular jobs and working on house stuff we are staying very busy. In spite of all the hustle and bustle we were able to spend a lovely sabbath with Kevins family today. Kevin's oldest brother Brian and his wife Cheri were in town with there adorable kids. We were able to go on a picnic lunch, play with Ilona in the river, and feed the fish at the fish hatchery. I will try to put those pictures up later this week. It is so fun to have a niece and nephews to love! Tomorrow it is back to work for me so I better get to bed. Sorry the update was a day late. I will post more at the end of the week.

Click link to view pictures

A Day With the Johnson's

A Day With the Johnson's
http://picasaweb.google.com/smokinhoosierhottie/BuildingOurHouse##
Friday September 11, 2009
Work has been slow on the house this week due to rain every single day! They were supposed to pour the concrete in the basement on Wednesday, but they did not have an opportunity until today. That means they will start framing on Monday. Looking through the album it is amazing to see how much has changed at the site in less than a month.

Kevin and I go to the property almost every day to see how things have changed. It is amazing how peaceful and private it is. We have grown accustomed to lots of road noise and bright security lights. I cannot wait to move back into the country! The home owners association president was telling us that we will have to lock up our trash and take in our pets/bird feeders at night because there are lots of bears on the mountain! There was actually a couple who woke up with a bear on their deck one morning eating out of their bird feeder! That is pretty scary. (I am from the country but we don't have bears in Solsberry IN :) I will really have to make sure that little Ava does not get outside. She is so fat she would probably make great bear food.

I continue to try and link the albums to the blog with no success. I guess I am not as computer literate as I thought. I will keep trying and hopefuly it will all be running smoothly soon. We will update again next week.

As the Johnson's Turn

Kevin and Shannon

Sept 5th 2009

Finally I have had some time to get the blog started. It seems like this summer has flown by! After Kevin and I got back from our vacation in Napa Valley we closed on our property. Part of our contract included that we would drill the well before we closed on the property. We wanted to make sure that we would have water before we actually made the purchase. After asking around in the neighborhood we realized that most of our neighbors had to drill at least 700 feet and that only produced about 2 gallons per minute. Two gallons per minute is not that great and we really couldn't afford to drill 800 or so feet. The two days it took to drill the well were long and prayerful. To our suprise we hit water at 500 feet and it was coming at 10 gallons per minute! That is more water that any other house in the subdivision. The Lord really answered our prayers! Now we are the proud new owners of 1.25 acres that we are very quickly turning into a house. The property was officially ours on Aug 14, 2009. I cannot tell you what a relief it is to have that part of the process over with!

The weekend we closed on the property we started clearing the land. Since Kevin and I have always rented our home it feels nice to own something. We actually helped (as much as we could) to clear the property. Some of our dear friends from church offered to help us cut down some trees. We spent a whole Sunday cutting, chopping, and dragging. Kevin and Ryan actually did most of the work, but Sarah and I managed to provide lunch. As fearful as I was, Kevin managed to use a chain saw and did a great job. It wasn't that I didn't think he could do it I just wanted him to keep both legs so he could walk into the new house. (Those of you who know me know how much I worry :) When big trees were falling or I got nervous I just closed my eyes. We managed to make it out with sore muscles and property ready for a foundation.

A week after the clearing was finished we had footers and as of yesterday we have basement walls. This coming week they are supposed to start framing the upstairs portion of the house. It is so exciting to watch the house take shape. I was also thrilled to find out this week that Kitchen Interiors (a very upscale kitchen design shop) will be doing our kitchen. The owner (Mike Brown) is the father of one of my great friends. They have been so kind to work with us and help keep things in the budget. Mike does absolutely BEAUTIFUL work and I feel so fortunate to have him designing my kitchen. If you are in the area and every have kitchen needs I strongly suggest looking him up. We have been so blessed to have good people working on every aspect of our house. Lots of people we are friends with from the community are doing the work. We know and are friends with the man that cleared our land, our builder (Jenks construction), our plumber, and our electrician. It makes things much less stressful when you know you can trust the people you are working with.

As things progress I will try to update the blog as often as I can and post new pictures. We are using Picasa for our pics but I have had trouble linking the albums to the blog. If you have and account with Picasa look us up. All the pictures are for the public so you can keep track of what we are doing. I will continue to try and get the link up.