merry Christmas

from the littlest building inspector to you!
now get back to work.

port-a-potty + walls = happy littlest building inspector

so this showed up somehow. i prefer to call it the "manager's office". it also means that somebody is actually at the site long enough to have to use the restroom, which is a good thing. i doubt martha stewart has portable toilets on her list of "good things", but we have slightly different values out in the leefield area.

and by some miracle, these also showed up. imagine what could happen out there if framers worked 5 days a week? whats that? they are supposed to? oh i thought a framers week was from monday to wednesday. mine mentioned something about how they don't boat to work.i think the littlest building inspector has spotted something that doesn't look right to her. probably trash. i swear if she asks for rubber gloves for Christmas, i may have to quit taking her down there until the house is finished.

i am wondering if i am always going to have to use that ladder to get into my bedroom. you laugh, it could happen. "oh you wanted STAIRS? somebody unbolt that ladder pronto."

all in all, good progress. the littlest building inspector is happy.

as an aside. for some reason i have that old country song "lying here with liiiiiiinda on my miiiiiiiind" stuck in my head. no idea why. oh conway, you are slick.

what went down this weekend

more stuff is going on at the current house, than at the new house. so to fill in some space, you gonna have to listen to that stuff too.

i made some delightful cinnamon honey butter for bo's teachers. that's right BUTTER. with honey and cinnamon. it doesn't get any better than that. bo thinks it's kind of a cruddy gift since 1) she didn't help and 2) they don't advertise for it on nick jr.

i also spent saturday with mom, deborah and jodie making accessories for one of bo's christmas gifts. which i will not disclose any more about that on here, because i'm not altogether convinced that bo doesn't know how to use the internet.

also made some christmas balls for sweet maria. damn a cat. those things are tricky. in real life and in the 2d world.

oh yea. and the house. well some things happened out there as well. the decking is all down. so there is a "floor" of sorts. good times.

and the garage is almost framed up. it is WAY tall. but i guess if you drive a monster truck. you need a lot of clearance.

jim cantore, who apparently hates me, has scheduled more rain for today and tomorrow. so who knows what will happen out there this week. maybe a wall. on the house.

build it and they will come

and by they, i mean the rain. it won't quit raining long enough to finish the floor on the house, sooo... the garage is being attended to. and is sort of moving along. in between monsoons.

apparently on the side of a 2 x 12 is where all of the very technical "figuring" as well as expressions of love are noted.

i didn't think we could afford a pool

as it turns out we can. its just not in a very useful place.

BUT! do you also see what i see? that is lumber, at the house. i thought the day would never come.

its not an illusion of my delusion either, its real.

it's a festivus miracle.

and on a different, but not unrelated note. i am hoping to spray paint some things this weekend. that should make for a fun update monday morning.

getting it done

this man was doing just that. and on thanksgiving eve to boot. they got the garage slab d-o-n-e. of course that means they want to get p-a-i-d then too.

ah and what a beautiful sunset it was on that eve. i am totally sure that is NOT what this guy was thinking at the time though.

you can't see the two other guys just kicking it on the trailer from this angle. so I'm sure his thoughts drifted somewhere to, "why are there like 5 people standing around looking at me, and one of them has a camera?".

littlest building inspector says "approved". now where are her kick back monies?

i'd never order anything from home shopping network

sike!

because i just did. bam. me and the old ladies are loving this rug for my living room. i might call in later after i get it to talk about how great it is.

and apparently termite prevention is happening at the site. there is no house, but we are spraying. its all about cutting them off at the pass out there. see i know this because i got a random call about how i needed to pay some monies for that. to which i responded "um i don't even have a house yet." to which she responded "where can i send the bill?" okay. its all fine though, because i had a coke zero at lunch and i am getting a nate berkus rug. so i am good.

whats that noise?

is it crickets chirping awkwardly or tumbleweeds blowing by? either one could probably be heard at the jobsite, because that's about all that's going on out there. we had to run some squatters off yesterday who said they thought we had abandoned the site.

in an effort to be patient, on to more pleasant things. specifically lights. oh good times. i bought a few at ikea on the now infamous trip.

kitchen...




half bath
and what about this for the dining room? with a couple of other wicker type fixtures. bear with me on this one. it has yet to be purchased.

and i am kinda liking this for the hallway...we will see. no commitment there either.

images via Ikea, West Elm and Unknown?

and on a totally unrelated house note, we shipped my brother in law off to Qatar. Not in a banishment sort of way. he is going to coach basketball there. we will all miss him until he returns. jodie more then anybody (who may move in with me, good thing chris doesn't read this blog) and then bo, who loves her carl and his bee drawing skills. have fun carl! win some games and don't forget to send the monies home. and see if you can get somebody to look at that eye while you are gone.

here is really not enough time in the day for me. I cannot get any work done. And its mostly because I can't get off the internet. There is no end to the fabulousness that is coming out of these two blogs.....



http://www.littlegreennotebook.blogspot.com/


i am GOING to do something like this...
http://littlegreennotebook.blogspot.com/2009/10/office.html



and then just about everything from

http://www.isuwannee.com/

seriously, either of these ladies please come to live with me. i will give you food and drinks.

make it happen

that is our goal for the week. oh how i amuse myself. i like to throw that phrase around amongst my friends. like "get me a pizza, make it happen". rarely does anything actually happen though...


but, the block work is finished. here are the blocks. so patiently awaiting their friends, the woods to come on over.


welcome to our home. this is where our side door will come into the the house from the garage. so basically where everybody will come into our house. we considered not having a front door, but thought that would be weird. so instead we are going to have two.

ah, the courtyard, what i fought for. i am not sure who in the world has a courtyard anymore, but i will. and one day my pool will be in the courtyard. and we will lay out by it and have drinks and relax all under the shadow of the romantic damn alltel tower off in the distance. ah lovely. and check it out, a cell phone hardly works out there. i am thinking they just put it up for the buzzards to roost on, which of course only adds to the romance.

and finally the littlest building inspector. picking up trash. a grown man can walk by a trash can all day long and throw this mess on the ground, but a 3.5 year old can get out there and pick it up. i mean really? i am thinking i may blow this up poster size and attach it to the side of the dumpster. i mean how could that pitifulness not encourage you to just throw your trash away?

you know denny?

um, me either. and only my mom will get that. it has absolutely no relevance to this post, but she thinks its funny. and since she was the only one who would brave the IKEA, granite, used hotel furnishing buying trip with me. thats for her.

sooooooooo the most activity the jobsite has seen lately has been the delivery of the dumpster. now don't get me wrong, with chris' trash obsession this is a very important jobsite addition. and i also feel like it really adds to the ambiance around there. i.e. it makes it seem like a real jobsite. however, its not really the progress i was hoping for. maybe there will be lumber that shows up soon. wouldn't that be great? like wood, for your house? seems important.

as i mentioned before, my mom and i went on a whirlwind trip to atlanta to meet my cousin to discuss my countertops, also met my cabinet guy. then we headed out to the granite store to pick out a slab. see below. i was doing a better job of taking a picture of me taking a picture of granite, while my mom stood by and thought "what have i gotten myself into?".

i get it together a little bit better and get a slightly better shot. before you say or think it. yes that's black granite. yes its probably hard to take care of. yes it will probably show every fingerprint that ever touches it. but its basically the only way i will get granite countertops. (read: its the only color that chris says doesn't look like it should be in some mafia boss's bathroom. i'm not sure where he gets his interior design info.) so black it is. people, its either that or chris suggested he could build our countertops out of wood. i do not care how much that slab costs. i think my cousin who installs granite countertops would also chip in just so nobody gets wooden countertops.

so that part of the trip was pretty successful. we also hit up the atlanta contemporary jewelry show, which is non-house related but i somehow managed to buy something there too.

all that was left was IKEA, which was a major part of the trip for me. i loooove it there. i will move in there one day. anyway, i thought we should run by Homegoods on the way to IKEA, for a lamp. you know, because they don't sell them at our Homegoods. and low and behold at the stuff i bought there. its indescribable. all i can do is post a picture. i was in danger of not being able to get anything from IKEA, but between my mom's mad packing skills and my determination that damn it, i was going to buy something there, our car looked like this when we got home....

as a side note, we did NOT buy anything at Belks. see that is luggage.

so i know you are super excited to know what i got at IKEA, and that will probably end up being a whole other post. but there is lighting... for the kitchen!!! whoo hoo hoo! BUT it hasn't been approved yet. so we shall wait for that.

man, i am all over this. who would like to hire me to fill your house with random things???

like a phoenix rises from the ashes

...so does our house rise up out of the ground. ok that is a bit melodramatic, but in my about 2 minute research of the very reliable internet on the origin of that phrase, i have learned it is sometimes used to mean "learn from your mistakes" and "pick yourself up and dust yourself off and keep going". i could and might write a book on learning from your mistakes, and nobody has dusted themselves off more than chris. it also refers to ancient roman funeral pyres, but we aren't to that stage of the project. yet. i wouldn't totally count out the probability of us pushing something out into the middle of the pond and setting it on fire.

so we are finally coming OUT of the ground, instead of going into it. whoo hoo!

as i understand it, the block work is about half way done at this point. the continuous wall of block in the right corner, is the beginnings of where our bedroom will be. my mother told a dirty joke about hallways while she was inspecting this part of the house. if you know her, you probably know the joke. if you don't know her, well you are better off not knowing the joke.

a close up of the bedroom. and no, i am not telling the joke.

i am honestly flabbergasted that this piece of trash continues to remain on site. chris must have some sort of special plans for it later.

the littlest building inspector said it all looked good to her. she can't be trusted tho. she had a bag full of halloween candy and a pumpkin headed flashlight. so she probably wasn't totally on task.

obsessive? who me?

while we are all anticipating an exciting house post soon, here's a little of what i do during the times i am waiting to see progress. which is often.

i could look at color samples all the time. i look at the fan deck no less than say at least 5 times a day. pure joy to me.

do block layers work with umbrellas?

i am pretty sure they don't. which means nothing is happening at the job site right now. there is block on site, so that is good. but i am ready for the house to start coming OUT of the ground, as opposed to going in it. which thus far is what is happening. of course, all of this is completely necessary, so i am told.

all of the footings have been poured, and there is such a maze of re bar and string that we could probably host our own halloween type maze thing out there. which is a thought. also notice, gasp there is some trash out there in the middle of the house site. if it wasn't like some sort of agility course out there, chris would have had that picked up before it hit the dirt good. he is adamant about a clean site. i am surprised he hasn't been out there with some sort of pole contraption to hook that box and get it out of there.

people have told us that the hardest part of building a house is getting it started and getting it finished. and what i hear out of that is the hardest part of building a house, is building a house.

b.l.t. and i wanted to put our initials in here really bad. but we restrained ourselves as we may have gotten into some sort of trouble. its strict out here i tell you. strict.

one step ahead of where we were before we took 3 steps back and started over

so now we are actually ahead again. for a day or two. enjoy it while we can i say. i am sure the dosey doe will start again soon.

so the footings have been dug, and rebar has been installed.

this is for the garage. but the same idea applies for the rest of the house. i do not understand any of the words i just typed, or what all this stuff actually does.

i do know that this is the view of my driveway as soon as you turn off the road.

and that now we are in compliance with the building inspector. the big one. not the little one. we will never be in compliance with her.

i realize these aren't the super exciting house shots you may have been expecting. but in my defense, there isn't a heck of a lot to take pictures of at this point. chris and i are considering boxing matches on friday nights to determine key elements. we will charge admission. for example: chris vs. jamie in the kitchen cabinet match. then we will have good pictures to post too. its a win win for everybody. except the loser of the boxing match. so, chris. i am very determined to get what i want.

in light of recent events

we do not regret to inform you that we can no longer accept opinions at the job site without at least two of the following: 1) a specific request 2) a monetary contribution 3) a donation of back breaking labor out of the kindness of your heart. if you do not fall into two of these categories, then we cannot accept your opinion at this time due to a system overload. we are not working to get this glitch repaired, so please be prepared to hold onto your opinion for some time, or until you qualify under the above restrictions.

on a lighter note... i just ordered some fabulous fabric. ok ok, i have sort of a fabric addiction and buy it for no apparent reason. but i do have a project in mind for this AND i have had my eye on it forever! it is vintage french ticking material. which is what they used to make mattresses out of. i am under the impression this DOES NOT come with bed bugs tho, in case you were worried for me.

also, we should hopefully (keep your fingers crossed) see some progress this week, and if so i will post pictures from that. i know you are hanging on my every word here. but i think bo summed up the progress thus far the best in the following recounted conversation:

bo: "mama, i want you to put those pictures back in my room that you took out the other day."

me: "maybe when we move to the NEW house we can put those pictures in your NEW room."

bo: "mama, that is not a house. its just a dirt pit."

i mean, you really cannot argue with that kind of logic.