Last in Line
You may recall from a few weeks ago our meeting with the site supervisor regarding our Bilco door entrance to the basement. As a refresher, the plans for our home said that the Bilco door entrance would stick out 5 ft. from the house. Because we got an extra foot depth in the basement, our doors stick out 8.5 feet. Using the Bilco doors was going to be difficult. I worried that if we ever went to sell our house down the road, the Bilco door entrance sticking out so far on the side of the house would be a buyer objection.
At the time, they told us that relocating the Bilco entrance was not a possibility so we came up with a different solution. It was workable but still not great.
Two days ago, we got a call from the builder representative telling us he needed to talk to us about our Bilco door. We figured they just wanted to discuss the retaining wall. We were wrong.
As it stands now, the building inspector will not approve the bilco in its current location. It needs to be moved. The representative threw some ideas at us like cement blocking the area that currently houses the bilco steps. Mr. BBM and I were irritated. Not only would it look different, but we were worried about water and structural issues since they’d be ripping another hole into our basement and trying to seal up the old hole.
We met with the Supervisor yet again yesterday and picked our new location for the bilco entrance. I pity the dude who gets the job of cutting through 10 inches of ribar-enforced concrete to create the new entrance.
We were prepared for a fight, but apparently the concrete guys think they can pour the wall in so it won’t look all that different from the rest of the basement. When all is said and done, we’ll be happier with the new location in the back of the house. We just wish they would have moved it as we asked weeks ago instead of waiting until our entire house was sitting on top of it, complete with plumbing, electric, and duct work for the heating and AC units.
As we were wrapping up our meeting I asked the Supervisor if he was going to now continue my rock wall. He laughed and said, "Or I could just rip the whole thing out." I looked at him disapprovingly and said, "You are going to finish my rock wall right?" He hung his head and said, "Yeah, we’re going to finish your rock wall."
I then questioned him on why the houses with later settlement dates are so far ahead of our house. I told him we need to settle on time. Our awesome mortgage rate that we relocked in this week expires two days after our proposed settlement date. "Don’t worry about it," he said casually. Apparently this builder does not miss settlement dates.
After we got back in the car Mr. BBM had to laugh. I don’t know what it is about these construction guys but I have absolutely no problem speaking up and telling them exactly what I want them to do. Mr. BBM has decided it’s best to just stay out of my way and let me handle it. Maybe if I had been more insistent a few weeks ago, this wouldn’t have been an issue. Lesson learned.
If you are a martial artist and you haven’t yet visited Bags of Character, please do so. My friend from the dojo has set up shop on my site and she sells awesome bags to house kobudo weapons and swords. I own a beautiful blue nunchaku bag and you should too. Check it out!
Shock and Awe
Filed under: Back in the Classroom, Building the BBM House
Today I collected 24 rough drafts. They were all typed and of the appropriate length. Did I mention I only have 24 students in this class? Do you get the significance of all 24 students handing in their paper on time?
In my speech course, all of my students who were scheduled to speak today showed up. They didn’t just show up though. They showed up dressed up and they actually seemed excited to speak. In fact, some of them were so excited to speak that they went way over their time limit and we ended up only hearing seven of the ten speeches that were to be given today.
These students blew me away today. Teaching college is different from high school, in that it doesn’t take long for them to get the importance of doing the required work and doing it well.
In other news, this week my house is being wired for electric and being chainsawed to make way for duct work. Yes chainsawed. It was rather loud. We met with the electrician today for about an hour. We went room to room and he wrote with a marker on all of our walls, detailing out where we want cable and phone jacks, electrical outlets and even the switched lights. It is completely overwhelming to have to pick the location of every single outlet in your house, so I only picked the important ones and left the rest up to the electrician. I’m going to trust that putting them all in the ceiling in one corner of the room would be rough on his arms.
He says he will be finished on Thursday which makes way for the insulation and drywall people. 40 days to go (and today we asked if they can move it up by three days). Keep your fingers crossed. Talk about "shock."
Moving, Moving, Moving
No, I’m not actually moving yet. Wouldn’t that be nice? What’s moving is the progress on my house. They have officially kicked it into high gear.
This week they finished our roof. The plumber roughed in our basement bathroom and drilled all the holes for the water lines he’ll put in this week. We meet with the electrician on Tuesday. We picked all of our carpet and tile this weekend. Things are coming along. . .
The progress at the end of the week, minus our poured basement floor, garage floor and front porch.
The family room, complete with all the windows and skylights.
The entranceway. Yippee! We have a front door!
The arched entryway and front porch are done!
The view from the back with the finished roof.
By the end of this week, maybe we’ll have some siding and stone!
In other news, a friend of mine from the dojo has started her own business. If you’re a martial artist, you have to check out Bags of Character. She has set up shop on my site and accepts payments through paypal. I happen to own a beautiful blue nunchaku bag and you should own one or eight too. Just so everyone is clear, I have no financial interest in this endeavor, although clearly I wish I would have thought of it myself (oh, and also that I could sew).
The Candy
This was our house at the beginning of this week:
This was Tuesday night:
We arrived last night at our house to find that many things had been delivered. I felt like a kid at Christmas. My jacuzzi tub was sitting in my garage along with my staircases.
My windows and doors are just waiting to be installed, skylights too. My front door, with the satin nickel sidelights (picture above), looks so cool. The box containing the soffit pieces and the boxes with my window heads are all there. Even some of the door levers have been delivered.
Inside, we found we were under a roof. While Mr. BBM and I checked that everything was straight and as it should be, the girls stood in the dining room window area and serenaded the neighborhood. I think Lil C is starting to get it, that this will really become our home soon.
The framing crew worked hard today to finish building the roof. Tar paper is installed on a third of the house and it won’t be long before our shingles are being delivered. It’s exciting. It’s like the jewelry of the house, the candy for the new homeowners; and I am getting more and more excited every day.
On an unrelated note, I have remained in the top 12 for the Hot Blogger Calendar contest and I want to thank all of you so much for all of your votes. Voting continues until August 31st, so if you haven’t yet voted, please go throw another one in my direction, because every calendar needs a picture of a girl in a gi.
And Then There Was a House
Yesterday I walked through my front door entrance and joyfully gazed at all of my downstairs rooms. Those guys move fast. There was not a doubt in my mind that as of tonight, I will have at least a second floor and I was right. It is finally feeling real.
I walked with the girls through all of the framed up rooms and imagined where I’d place my furniture. It’s going to be so much fun from here on out. The basement isn’t really my thing. The actual rooms are so much more exciting.
The girls wandered through with me for a while until they got sick of me telling them to please not fall through the hole into the basement where we have yet to get stairs. Then they decided to jump on a piece of plywood for a while, careful to avoid the discarded half of a hot-dog and the other trash that I’m hoping will get put in a trash can instead of just buried in our yard. I actually spent some time picking some of it up and throwing it away. When there’s a trash can in your front yard, and a dumpter directly in front of your house in the street, there’s just no excuse for that.
While they may not be the cleanest bunch of dudes, they are certainly hard working. They were already hard at work at 7:45 a.m. yesterday morning and they were still there at 4:15 p.m. after Big I had her "meet the teacher" social at her new school.
I think she’s feeling a little better about school and I know that I am as well. Her teacher is a veteran and seems very nice. From the other kids and parents, we learned that she loves art and she’s the only teacher in the school that has an actual piano in her room. Apparently she likes to sing as well. While we were standing there, another little girl came up to the teacher to meet her and I instantly recognized her and her Mom.
Her Mom was my Sunday school teacher many years ago and her daughter played with Big I at Vacation Bible School last summer. Although they didn’t remember each other, the fact that they are in the same classroom made me so happy. After we talked for a while, the Mom introduced Big I to another little girl who seems like a real sweetheart as well. It was such a relief for me to know that she’ll know two kids when she shows up next week for class. Although she’s still a bit apprehensive, I have a strong feeling that she’s going to really like her new school.
Now, without further delay, I give you the BBM house as it stands as of yesterday (we didn’t get pictures tonight because it was dark by the time we could have gone with a camera. We’ll go back in the morning). . .
This is the view from my front door. Straight ahead is the family room, to the left the dining room, to the right the living room, straight back and to the right is the office and straight back and to the left is the kitchen, laundry room, powder room (not visible in this shot). . .
This is a view of the family room from the kitchen area. The family room, with its high ceilings, gas fireplace, quarter round windows and skylights is my FAVORITE room in the house.
And here is the view from the front. Tomorrow, I’m betting I’ll be able to show you our second floor.
On another completely unrelated note, I found that my blog was being linked from HotBloggerCalendar.com tonight. Apparently I’ve been nominated to be on a hot blogger calendar? Who knew that something like this even existed; and more importantly how the heck did I get on that list? I must look way better on this blog than I do in person. Cool. While I have no expectation of winning a spot, I would like to thank the anonymous person who nominated me. So, if you’d like to fess up, I’ll thank you properly. It was very sweet, even if you do stay anonymous.
I also desperately need to fill up a spot in my fantasy football league. The draft is tomorrow night. Interested? If so, email me asap!
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