Eeeek!

I’m deliriously happy about all the progress right now. Eddie has said he loves watching me be able to pick out different options and make decisions about the house because it’s “a different kind of happy.” It really is. It’s more like a soul-satisfied kind of feeling, knowing you are building your forever house and turning it into a home. So much is happening with the house, I’m having a hard time keeping up. I might have to start updating you more than once a week.

Most importantly, this week we got a crane and they started putting up the trusses for the roof.

Also, my mom decided to buy us a pool. Say what? And yes, please. Technically, she is buying her own pool and putting it in our yard so we can use it and maintain it for her. See, mom owns the land (2.4 acres) together with us and the next step after our house is complete will be to build a small cottage on the same property for her to downsize and be closer to the grand kids. She wants a pool for her own health benefit and for the kids to be able to use. Of course, we would love a pool too, but it would not have been in our budget right now.

After seeing the lawn all torn up and needing to be regraded and seeded and knowing we had to repave the driveway anyway, we all decided that now, while everything is already torn up and going through construction, would be the best time to add an in-ground pool to the property, rather than pay even more money to do all of that over again next year.   Since my mom’s cottage doesn’t exist yet and Eddie will be the one maintaining the pool anyway, the pool is going in our back yard and there will be a walkway that connects it to mom’s cottage eventually.

I’ve spent the last week getting quotes from different companies and visiting showrooms. We put down a deposit on a 14′ x 32′ salt water pool. We’re super excited and already wishing it was installed because it has been H-O-T.

We’ve been trying to spend as much time at the land as we can putting together our kitchen cabinets, but it has been so nasty hot that the kids can never last more than an hour or two out in the sun.

Right now my favorite, favorite (FAVORITE!!!) part of the house is the covered back porch. There’s one in the front too, but all of the living space is in the back of the house, and the back porch is bigger and it has a better view, so it is my favorite. Although, I love you too, front porch.

Much to the hubby’s chagrin, I insisted on the very last-minute change (We literally called the builder as they were framing the walls) of adding french doors from our master bedroom to the pool/back porch area. Eddy thought they were unnecessary and it was a little expensive, but I think we’ll really like having them and they will add a lot more natural light. They’ll also be practical when he comes in all filthy from doing yard work or when the kids are done in the pool-everyone can just go straight to the big tub in the master bath without dragging their yuckiness all over the rest of the house. 

We also ordered our refrigerator, washer, and dryer from hhgregg this week during their 4th of July sale and went back to Ikea because there was an issue with some of our other appliances being out of stock. The ones I chose originally have been out of stock since April and there is some sort of supply issue, so the staff didn’t know if they would ever come back in. We switched the oven and microwave to a different model. It was a little disappointing, but a pretty small hiccup in the scheme of things.

Once again, I think it’s fitting that the rooms that belong to our children were the first ones to start to get “a roof over their heads.”

It’s been a while since I gave an update on the house progress, huh? Sorry about that.

I haven’t been out to the site in a few weeks, but that will change VERY soon because we are actually moving back to Pennsylvania tomorrow!! We wanted to be closer to the land now that we are further along in the building process and poor Eddie is pretty sick of commuting 2 hours each way to work every day. We’ve managed to live with my in-laws for 7 months and we haven’t killed each other, but everyone is ready to get back their own space. So we signed a short-term lease on a temporary apartment where we will be until the house is finished. We move in tomorrow! It’s exciting and overwhelming. I’m not loving the idea of having 3 small kids and a dog in a second-floor apartment, and it is really expensive because of the short-term factor, the pet factor, and the laws in our area state that a family the size of ours has to be in a rental unit with a minimum of three bedrooms, but at least the complex has a pool and a playground.

Eddie got back from Africa this week and he went out to the site yesterday to snap some pictures for me.

We have walls, people!!!

I think it’s fitting that the first walls to go up were the ones that will eventually form our children’s bedrooms since the main reason we are building is to give them a forever home. Somewhere they will remember and come back to visit in 25 years. Somewhere for them to bring our grandchildren, who I will tuck into bed during overnight visits and tell them, “This used to be your mommy’s room.”

I’m SOOOOOO excited to see them finally go up and to be able to get a better idea of the size and layout of our rooms, windows, doors, etc. It’s also a little frustrating to be thisclose and know we still have a few months of waiting ahead of us.

Patience is a virtue and all of that.

Did I mention that by the time the house is finished this fall it will be two years since we found this land?

Two years. If that seems like a long time, that’s because it is.

But it will be worth it soon enough.

We have WALLS!!!

This week they continued adding support to the floor joists and started laying the plywood decking that will support the first floor. (I don’t have pictures of that yet.) The excavator is also planning to come back and dig out the areas that will have crawl spaces.

We also planted a row of young maple and birch trees that will eventually hide most of our view of that commercial property you see on the right side in the first picture.

Nicholas loves this survey wheel. It marks how many feet you walk. He likes to just walk around and around the property. Once he went over a mile!

Out of all of the kids, Abby takes the most interest in the building process. She likes to look at the plans on our computer and try to get an idea of what everything will look like or go stand “on the concrete” down inside of the basement. Sometimes I print the plans on a regular sheet of computer paper and she will use crayons to “decorate” her room.

It won’t be long now until the framing starts. I can’t wait to get a better idea of the size of the rooms and see it start to come together!

Last Wednesday our basement walls went in! The crew spent the rest of the week leveling and tamping the stone to support the concrete floor, roughing in plumbing, and doing other important stuff that I don’t really understand.

We chose to go with a company called Superior Walls because our builder recommended them and Eddie, who is a professional engineer, was really impressed with the kind of concrete they use and the way they are installed on top of many inches of stone. Apparently, the way they manufacture and install these walls is very similar to the way some types of bridges are built and, since a bridge is made to be much stronger than a house, this is a good thing. They are also more water-resistant than your average basement. Eddie says this is because of the fiber and steel-reinforced high-strength concrete that they use, which is continuously poured within climate-controlled conditions. Although they are more expensive up-front,  they come with insulation (R 12.5) and concrete studs with metal facing already in place, which means it will cost us less money and be a faster process when we go to finish the basement in a few years.

My favorite part, though, was that it only took about 3 hours for them to go up!

I spoke to Eddie at 8:45 and the crane was just arriving. By the time I pulled onto our land at 11:15, this is what we saw:

We went back a few times this week. Saturday we spent all day relocating a few baby trees and climbing giant piles of dirt.

The kids were in their element, especially Nick.

I liked being able to get a good idea of the size of the basement and see actual work being done! We’ve spent SOOOO long just waiting for permits and weather that it was an overwhelmingly happy experience to see it start to become a reality.

The concrete floors are scheduled to be poured today, but it has been raining all week so that might need to be postponed another day or two.

I’ll check back in next Wednesday. It will be fun to see how much gets done each week!

I’m strongly considering putting IKEA kitchen cabinets in my brand new kitchen in my brand new, custom-built house. (I say “I” and “my” because I have the best husband ever who has agreed to do whatever I want in the kitchen as long as I stay within our budget.)

When I tell people that I think I want IKEA cabinets they look at me like I’ve lost my mind. I thought the same thing for a second. Back in December I was minding my own business,wandering around IKEA window shopping for Christmas presents while my kids were in the playland and I found myself drawn to one of their show kitchens. I was shocked at the quality and the options inside of each drawer and cabinet.

But I already have high quality shaker maple cabinets in my budget quote. We are very fortunate to be able to afford “better” cabinets. WHY would I ever consider IKEA? I won’t even buy my children furniture from IKEA. I’m kind of a snob.

Something kept pulling me back though, and I took Eddie to the showroom and he was impressed too.

I started doing more research.

Apparently their kitchen cabinets are much higher quality than most other IKEA products. I was shocked to see how many professional cabinet installers, architects, and designers had chosen IKEA cabinets for their own homes. Even Sarah Richardson.

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This photo is from “Sarah’s House.” I LOVE Sarah! And she’s even more particular than I am. Did you see the episode where she made her crew rip out and re-do an entire foundation for a house because it was about 2 inches off? She knows what she wants, and apparently IKEA is good enough for her.

I came across so many designers in my research who said that because of the way IKEA flat-packs their cabinetry, they have to use stronger joints than most other cabinet makers. Their joints and hardware (drawer glides, etc.) are on par with cabinets more than 5X the price. Say what?

Yep. Apparently it’s a well-known trick of the trade for kitchen designers to use IKEA cabinet frames and then just put other doors on them. Why pay three times as much for the same quality?

My friend Satoko has them in her kitchen and she’s happy with them.

They come with a 25 year warranty, which is just about unheard of.

They performed very impressively in a study done by Consumer Reports. The basic IKEA model outperformed ten other brands of higher cabinet grades, including names like Thomasville and KraftMaid.  Direct quote from Consumer Reports: “The ready-to-assemble Ikea outperformed much more expensive units, despite its low price. High-quality drawer hardware and doors and a robust mounting strip helped.”

In researching them for the past 3 months, over 99% of the reviews I have found from owners are overwhelmingly positive. The only negative reviews I saw came from a renter who wasn’t even 100% sure that the cabinets in his house were actually from IKEA and one guy who didn’t use the mounting strip and was upset that his cabinet fell off the wall.

Also, I have heard (although I haven’t been able to verify this) that because IKEA cabinets have to pass stricter European guidelines, they do not contain the type of formaldehyde that most other cabinet frames manufactured for the U.S. market do. Formaldehyde in furniture has proven to have a negative impact on air quality and has been linked to serious diseases. If what they say about the IKEA cabinets is true it would be a big plus for me, especially having small children in the home. Who wants dangerous chemicals seeping out of the cabinets where you store your food?

They can be made to look really attractive and custom.

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I like their online design tool. I put my own dimensions in and started playing around. This is not my final design, but, even if we do not decide to go with IKEA, it helped me get a better idea of how many cabinets will fit in our space.

We also can’t ignore the fact that they are REALLY affordable. If we do go with IKEA cabinets I should be able to afford better appliances and counter tops and still stay on budget.

So far the cons are:

1. Some of the custom features I would like (but might not necessarily be able to afford anyway if we go with a different brand) such as a built-in, cabinet-front, counter-depth refrigerator, are not available.

2. It is going to be a major pain in the you-know-what for someone (not me) to have to assemble all of those cabinets.

3. The IKEA kitchen sale is happening right now. (This part is actually a plus) I could save 20% off the cost, which is a BIG savings on something like cabinets, but since the house isn’t built yet we would have to find somewhere to store everything or convince the store to hold onto it for an extra month or two. This also means I have to make a decision by April 28, before the sale ends.

Do you have any experience with IKEA kitchens? Do you love them? Hate them? Tell me why.

The kitchen is literally right in the middle of our house and open to all of our living space, so I’m scared to make a bad choice.

UPDATE: We DID go with IKEA. Our real kitchen layout looks like this: 

You can click over and see my post about installing our IKEA kitchen and more pictures.