Binkies and Briefcases

In case you couldn’t tell from the title of this post, we have now walls. ALL of our exterior walls are up!

Our water lines and electric are also run. I have an adorable little water pump out in the backyard where we will eventually put our vegetable garden so that we can connect a hose way out there. The front yard has also been graded and the footers for the front and back porches were going in.

On Monday we got to go to a kitchen and bath design center and chose our tubs, showers, and bathroom faucets. Our roof trusses are also being delivered this week and our kitchen cabinets are scheduled to be delivered into storage. (Ikea only delivers once a month to this area and if we waited until next month we would be past 90 days from the date of purchase since we bought them back in April during the kitchen sale. After 90 days they won’t accept returns, so if there is a mistake with the order we wouldn’t be able to fix it. Looks like Eddie’s going to be spending the next few weeks putting cabinets together inside of a storage unit…)

This is what the front of the house looked like on Monday afternoon:

and this is the back:

It’s starting to feel real now!

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!!!