House Progress

Our house is starting to feel like the house that we've seen on paper for the past couple years!

 This week, the trusses were fastened to the top of the first floor making way for the second story of our house. I just LOVED all the lines that filled the first floor.

 The subfloor was glued and screwed down onto the trusses and just like that a whole other world opened up! It was absolutely terrifying to me to be up on the second floor without any walls. I lasted for a whopping minute or so before heading back down the ladder.
We had some incredibly windy days this past week which effected the work on the house. 40 mph wind is no joke and I was glad the crew was careful and quit working when they needed to.
But, Friday the weather was decent and an amazing amount of progress happened at the house. I was busy in the house and then looked out and suddenly we had an east wall!

 And then our roof trusses showed up!

 Jeremy checked them over, and apparently they passed his test because suddenly the truck left.

 And by the end of the day, all the outside walls were done and bunch of the interior walls, too!

 You're looking at Levi's bedroom on the left, a bathroom in the middle and Noah's bedroom on the right. Plus a huge, you-might-die-if-you-fall-into-it hole where our staircase will eventually be. I cannot wait for that to happen.

 I detest the ladder. My palms start to sweat every single time I have to go up or down the stupid thing.

 So ummmm....our house grew this week! It was amazing and scary all at the same time. I've known all along that it would feel tall when it first went up and I was right. On Friday afternoon, I stood about where Levi is in this picture and felt giddy and overwhelmed. It's an amazing process to watch and I'm very grateful that we're right here and can keep a close eye on the progress each day.

 While trenching and electric boxes don't make for very exciting photos, they were certainly welcome happenings on the job site this past week. Although Ben did have to re-pour the concrete slab that the green box is sitting on after the trenching machine drove over part of the original slab and busted it.

So, just for an overall view...here's the farm from the end of the driveway. 

Hopefully the weather will cooperate this week and the roof trusses will get set! I've got my fingers crossed.

House Progress

What a fun week it's been watching our house get framed! It transformed from a weird-looking concrete structure to place with rooms, doorways, and windows (well, openings for windows).

 It struck me on Thursday how nice it is that I know, and have known, three of the four guys working on our house just about my entire life. I think that's why I feel like telling them "thank you" about a hundred times a day. I understand the basic process of building a house in theory, but to watch it happen is fascinating. I found myself wanting to tell the guys, "Hey, that's a really nice wall you just put up." But so far I've kept those comments to myself....I think a comment like that would catch them off guard and I'd get an awkward, "Thanks..." in return.
Hey look! That's our front door and Ben and Levi are standing in a bathroom (I'm sure Levi's making a joke about going to the bathroom, he's only made about 20 comments about it since he found out where the toilet will go)!

 Kenton and Jeremy

 2x4 scraps anyone?

We were worried that Harold would cause a lot of trouble for the constructions guys, but it turns out that for the most part he leaves them alone - except if we're out there. So far he's made off with some gloves and a doughnut. The gloves were returned, Harold kept the doughnut.

 Ok, so the sun was not my friend for these photos, but to give an overall view of the progress here goes, the front of the house:

 The south side of the house (the north side is garage and therefore not too interesting at this point):

 And finally the west side, with our backyard of dirt in the foreground (I'm open to all landscaping ideas at this point):

Next week they'll make it to the second story!

First planting

Amazingly, on the first day of spring we had wonderful spring weather. Ben and I took advantage of it and got our garden tilled, put up chicken wire around the whole thing (no dogs or chickens allowed) and planted onions, potatoes and spinach. 

 It was wonderful to dig in the dirt and hear frogs croaking, birds chirping and the clanking of hammers pounding nails into the studs of our new house.

Now the watering and waiting begins...each year I think nothing will grow and each year I'm amazed when the garden is suddenly full of life.

House Progress

Things are really picking up around our new house! Lumber showed up:

 Floor joists were attached:

 And then the floor was glued and screwed down.

 There's just this one area that's open to give access to the crawl space and the boys LOVE to run around down there.

 Peek-a-boo Noah!

 It's amazing how many tiny things go into building a house...it struck me the other night just how many screws and nails will be holding our house together. It's good to appreciate small things that have big jobs.

 His very own basketball court!

Playing with Rylee

We lucked out and had Rylee at the farm all day on Monday. Levi especially had a lot of fun playing with her. It was cool and windy, but the kids still convinced me to take them to the park. 

 While Levi and Rylee played on the playground, Noah was very busy shooting baskets.

 And doing his very best to dunk! He loves the goals at the park because they're adjustable (unlike our goal at home).

 It was wonderful to hang out with Rylee for a day and to enjoy a day of spring break with these three kiddos.

Basketball Wrap-up

Each year Ben is busy from mid-November until mid-March with basketball. 

He added junior college women's basketball to his calendar this year. His college season went well and he enjoyed the new challenges that came with it.
This past weekend he officially wrapped-up the season with high school state tournament games in Salina.

The boys and I like to watch at least a couple of Ben's postseason games, it's always interesting to see a new gym, crowds from other towns, listen to their bands and get in on the intensity of postseason games.We got that kind of environment when we went to his sub-state games in Marion a couple weekends ago.

 But we missed the fun/intense game at state that he had on Friday night. He was assigned the late game and I decided that it'd be best for the boys and I to wait and go to his game on Saturday instead of being out so late. Bad choice on my part. The Friday game ended up going into overtime and from Ben's report was the best game of his basketball season.

 Saturday we watched a girls 3rd place game and it wasn't much fun. The crowd was thin, the gym was quiet, there were no bands, and only parents in the stands.

 See? It wasn't much fun (although candy from the concessions stand did temporarily perk the boys up). We found a nice park right beside the gym where we ate lunch and we gawked at Salina's big water park too. A trip to the water park will have to happen this summer!

And just like that, the basketball season came to a close.

House Progress

Yep, there's actually been some progress on our house this week!

What was once a snowy, goopy crawl space is now a nicely sealed off solid hunk of concrete.

 There was a lot of work that went into getting that floor done including a layer of sand and a bunch of leveling to make sure it would all slope toward the sump pump not to mention rebar and then the actual concrete pouring. Ben got to help out with a bunch of that work (and has the sore muscles to prove it).  

 The boys were pretty excited that Jeremy brought out the high-lifter-Mustang-thing.

 And then today the lumber yard delivered more lumber, floor joists to be exact.

 The builders were busy today with the crawl space. The floor joists will get put in next week.

But check this out, they framed the whole crawl space today!

 Harold helped us check it out...

 The boys love to go and see what's happened

 We even discovered that Noah fits in the sump hole. :-)

 Next week we'll get to watch this thing go up...so that something besides our safe room is visible above ground. Now THAT will be exciting!

In other house news, Ben and I picked out all our plumbing fixtures today which only leaves us with about 6,000 more decisions to be made before this project is complete. :-)