Exterior Color

We decided to do a very light grey for the exterior. We chose Collonade Gray by Sherwin Williams.

 

Saving Grace: Flexible Kiddos.

The two months of homelessness started a week ago. We first headed to my mother in law's house. She took the girls the night before so I could help my husband pack up the rental house. After getting the wrong truck saved for us at UHaul, can you say 10 foot truck to haul an entire house plus an entire ikea kitchen PLUS 1800 square feet of hardwoods!? It took so many trips I cannot even talk about it.

I ended up pulling into my mother in law's at 2am and my littlest was up with the sun at 6:30. After fielding some "where is daddy" and "let's go home" questions, the girls settled in. Settled in to new beds, new people when they wake up, new things to do during the day, all familiar things except a few that they could carry packed away. They went to bed on time with out a fuss and woke up happy as clams. They seemed excited for new adventures a new town brought. We did have some three year old emotional outbursts for the record books, as witnessed by my best friend Mandy, we faired pretty well.

On Sunday night, we made the hour long drive to Seattle to stay with my parents for the next bit, which is until they are completely sick of us I guess :) We got a late start and the girls did get into bed until almost 10 but there were no complaints. They are sharing a room here, something they had never done before and I was very nervous about because my little one is a talker. She must tell about 30 minutes of stories to herself before falling asleep. What has happened the last two nights is big one crashes, little ones talks and laughs so herself and that is the end of it.

I am so beyond proud of them. They miss their daddy like hell, as he is staying in our old town to do the finish work, and they get sad about it but for the most part they seem to understand this is an adventure.

We picked a paint color and got started painting the house, I love it!

I don't have any "good" photos of the house, just what my husband send from his phone. Here is a trimmed out window:

Mid-Build Stress

Holy stress!  I have had a headache every day for the past two weeks. Most of it has been due to unforeseen financial expenses (the power company quoted $900 for a ditch and the bill was actually $2300, we had to pay the electrician an extra $2,000 because the lighting plan we had originally was too dark, we decided to bury our propane tank for $800 more and we changed tile in the shower at +$300) all in the past month. That is a lot of check writing!

Beyond that, I have had the ongoing current housing situation where our rental house is on the market (has been since September) and we are constantly having to haul the kids out of the house on weekend mornings, right when I want to lounge around, so someone can see the house. I like the house to be clean for showings because what is even the point if the house is a wreck? Have you ever tried *really* cleaning a house with two tiny children running around? A bit like gardening in a tornado. Not to mention the dryer has been broken since October and we have to blow the steam out the garage door. And there is no insulation and the heating bill is $500/month.

I hit my breaking point when an agent asked to see the house last minute on Easter and I told her no and she came anyway while we were at the store and showed people our house (which looked like a bomb went off because of Easter festivities). It felt like a huge invasion of privacy and I may or may not have called the agent and said not very nice things. But c'mon, respect that I am renting here!

Our lease ends April 30th and the new house will be done July 1st. So I will be moving in with family and my husband will be staying on the island since he is doing most of the finish work. For two months. This is also cause for headaches as my parents only have ONE extra bedroom for three of us which means my two little people will suddenly be sharing a room and I will be on the couch.

As if that is not enough, have a mentioned I have a 2 year old and a 3 year old? Nothing more needs to be said on that matter.

We having been having rainy weather but last week we caught some sun so I made a point to head out with my girls and enjoy this beautiful place and do my favorite thing in all the world: take pictures of my babies (and their friends).

Siding is done.

Next up on the exterior is wrapping the porch post and beams and the soffits. The heating and electrical rough in should be done by Friday. Then we start drywall and insulation.

Shingle siding has started!

We lucked out with our siding crew. They are so detailed oriented the house just looks amazing. Sometimes I think there is this assumption that you cannot have detailed house if you are on a budget. But the details like how the windows were trimmed out or the size of the belly band are things that make a huge difference if you just take time to think about how they will look. They are going to trim out the windows anyway, so why not be picky about it? Just because you are not building a high end home doesn't mean you cannot care about details.  We researched window trim until our eyes were going to fall out of our heads. We personally looked at exterior trim on probably 500 houses. There are parts of our budget where we came in under the average (such as our kitchen and our hardwood floors with my husband installing) and those are all well worth it seeing our beautiful shingles going up. They are Hardi and are primed. We will paint them grey with white trim.

Roof is on!

Ready for a roof on Monday!

Littest babe exploring the land.