Wide Screen

There's a porch on my house! I have wanted a big front porch for as long as I can remember and now I have one! It will have some lovely columns and stonework when it's done but having it 'roofed' makes it real! This is my favorite part of the house and where I hope we will spend a lot of quality time as a family and with friends on warm summer evenings (they DO have those in South Bend don't they??) and after football games etc. etc. (Although maybe not those September games...well, we could go sit on the porch just probably not sleep at the house!) Anyway...the porch pulls the rest of the house together and now that most of the house is 'under roof' it is starting to look like I pictured it. And we'll have fewer puddles in the dining room. They should have it all covered by the time it is supposed to rain again tomorrow! Have I mentioned how much I love the weather in the Midwest?? (BTW, the house is perfectly level - not leaning as it appears in this pic. I took it through the window of the car on a drive by -- not my best work!)

It's a little more house than we imagined from the outside...Brian has taken to calling it the "big-ass bungalow" but as they close it up, I feel more comfortable with its overall size. Now that we can't make any more changes I think it's normal to begin/continue second guessing all the choices we made. So I keep reminding myself that we made them for good reasons and it's all a big puzzle so there was no one perfect solution. If you really want to feel like you're living this adventure with us...open a bottle of wine, pour a big glass and repeat after me..."It's going to be great, it's going to be great, it's going to be great...."

Cameo Appearances

We gave our first house tours to out of town visitors and as they were so full of compliments and encouraging words, I thought they deserved a shout out. Melinda Sherry and Carrie Buchwald, both Chicago-area residents from the class of '84 (and thus particularly honored guests!), came for the free tour on a beautiful spring day in South Bend. They were very gracious about listening to me ramble on about all the minutiae involved in house planning and making the million little decisions. Melinda also got an earful of my anxiety and was great at helping me see the bright side! We know they will be back when the house is finished to enjoy a cool beverage on the porch and hope many of you will join us as well. (We picked out the railings with the flat top specifically so they could be used for beer rests! Now THAT's good planning wouldn't you say?!?)

Cliffhanger

We have STAIRS! Going up anyway...it's a little precarious as the stair installation precedes the wall installation so you need to watch every step, especially because all the diagonal support beams are still scattered around. They've removed them all downstairs and put up exterior walls so it is starting to feel very much like a real house. But the second floor feels more like a treehouse! It has, however, really taken shape over the course of the week and despite an anxiety attack over the high roof line, I am now convinced that once ALL the pieces are in place it will be terrific. I just don't have much vision/imagination when it comes to roof lines (again, that spatial deficiency!)

The upstairs consists of the master bedroom suite, Conor's room which has a 2nd huge walk-in closet (that kid's got A LOT of stuff!), a hall bath which will have the only bathtub (a nice 6' shower/tub combo for this long-legged family), a guest room and a hall linen closet. As I mentioned, the master sits in the dormer over the front porch. It is supposed to have sloped walls and a nine foot ceiling. However, after they framed in the roof, Brian and I both really liked the peaked roofline from the inside, so we asked them not to level off the ceiling at 9' but, rather, take it all the way up to the peak. However, I just talked with the builder and, as is often the case, it is more complicated than we anticipated (& therefore more expensive) so I think we'll just leave well enough alone. The sloping slides will add some interest (& remind me of the room I grew up in on Sheridan Road).

As you enter the room there's sort of a little alcove which has a lower ceiling and a built in bookcase which eases the transition to a new space. Or so it says in my new house bible The Not So Big House (great series of books btw). It amuses me!

Here's the north side of the house with Conor's bedroom under roof. He'll have a normal 8' ceiling with a nice big window. The garage roof trusses will come to a peak, they're still working on it. When I went over this morning the first floor was all puddled (it rained pretty hard last night). That's very disconcerting even if rationally you know it's because you don't have a roof yet! They tell me they'll be done with everything (except the basement) by the end of next week. The cement floor in the basement hasn't been poured yet (need to check with Dave on when that is scheduled to happen), so they'll come back to frame in the basement and build the lower set of stairs.

Stunt Double

It was quite a stunt to see them double the size of our house. Two guys had to walk the I joists up ramps leaned against the side of the house for the new floor. Apparently, as the mildly disgruntled workers explained, it could be done with a fork lift but there wasn't one to be had! I wish I had pix. Though they made it look easy, it was a lot of trips. I'm getting used to the size of the downstairs rooms, but from the ground level looking up the bedrooms look REALLY small. They aren't -- the master is 14 x 15 1/2 and Conor's is nearly as big, but the perspective is way off. The master basicallly fits in the box in the middle of the house. The master bath and closet are to the right and Conor's closet is just to the left.

However, unless I take up pole vault it will be awhile before I get upstairs since this is what our stairs currently look like. Conor had to explain to me that that's what they were -- I am spatially challenged!

The trusses are up on the garages. When we first looked at the plans, we thought it looked like we were building a roof with a little house below it instead of vice versa. But now that it's in 3D it's all very proportionate and the roof line doesn't seem nearly so overwhelming. The patio will probably end right around where the pile of junk starts!

Here's the north side of the house. The library window is covered up, they'll cut it out tomorrow. I gather it is easy to put up full sheets of plywood and then cut out the opening rather than cut first and try to line it up. The opening above is Conor's window -- he'd have preferred a lake view but we tell him that life is full of little disappointments! Behind his room is the hall bath, but it does not have a window.

This is the south side of the house, You can tell where the 3 windows are by the headers at the top. The front window is the shower/toilet part of the master bathroom. The middle header is the guest room window and the back one is the stairwell landing.

When we get under roof upstairs, I'll post some more pix. Thanks for checking in.

24 frames per second

They are cranking right along on the framing of the house. We've been just patroling the exterior of the house, but today Chuck invited Conor and I up into the first floor to walk around (carefully, so as not to fall down empty stairwells etc). We really got a good feel for the layout. Very cool. The kitchen seems small but I'm waiting for the drywall! Dining room looks huge already. At first I was worried that it seemed a little dark now that the second floor (just the floor not the walls) is in, but it occurred to me that with no walls to bounce the light off it is probably darker than it will be when it is done (and Conor mentioned some amazing new technology called the 'light bulb' in a tone that can only be called "indulgently sarcastic"). Today was actually a very sunny day. The good news is that the kitchen was very bright already (at least at 3:00). Here's some pix that might help you 'see' the layout. Remember to click on them to make them bigger. This is the front of the house. The overhang over the door is the base of the dormer that is the front wall of the master bedroom. The door is a nice wood 8' door with dentil molding under a high window. It will be stained, probably to match the interior hardwood floors.

Here's the view from the front foyer. There is small alcove/hallway where the powder room and hall closet are. Visually that takes you all the way to the back of the house. Immediately to the right is an 8' opening leading to the family room. Below is looking in from that opening. I think Dux (the media/stereo guy) has reassured us about putting the TV over the fireplace. I was very against it initially, but it makes much more sense from a furniture arranging perspective and I don't think it will be too high, which was my other concern beyond just the aesthetic. But we weren't going to hide it in a cabinet anyway. I'm still mulling this over, so any thoughts are welcome!

This pic is looking from the dining room into the kitchen. There is a door framed in on the right that leads to the patio and a window straight ahead. The dining room will be flanked with floor to ceiling pantries which make it look a little more separate (and give us boatloads of storage) but the 7' entry makes it feel very open.

This is what the side door will look like. Enough of it is sort of frosted/opaque that we are hoping it will provide a nice balance between allowing in light and giving us some privacy! There is a matching transom that will run over the top. The door is fiberglass and will be painted to match the trim inside and an accent color on the outside. (We're still working on house colors).

That's all the news for today. As Brian liked to say when he was working on the Code at Fannie Mae, "It's all coming together!"

In the Green Room

There's always food in the green room (or so I'm led to believe -- my only green room experience was with Conor's recent dramatic debut in Willy Wonka Jr.), thus it seemed a fitting title to talk about the kitchen. We're almost there on the layout. I keep thinking I'm done and then my husband adds his 'helpful' suggestions and we're back to the drawing board. Actually, his input has been very useful as he is not so lost in all the details that he often picks up on trouble spots that we've overlooked. Cabinet style and finish are still decidedly in the undecided column but we've narrowed it down. We have made a couple firm decisions though (and we need to celebrate those) so here's what you'll find in the kitchen.

A MoenStone black granite sink - a single 33" bowl that won't scratch or stain and is impervious to heat. Love it alot! It will be undermounted under the kitchen window along the south wall of the house. We went back and forth about single or double bowl but decided with the offset drain and the ability to soak large things like sticky cookie sheets, this was the best option!

A Delta Victorian Pull-Down Faucet in Stainless. The end pulls out into a sprayer and has two water settings. We are not getting the soap dispenser (unless someone has one and wants to rave about it and convince me that we really need one). Brian thinks it makes it look too cluttered (and I don't feel strongly enough about it to disagree!). I had picked a different faucet, the Leland, but Brian thought it was too tulipy. Bet you never heard that adjective used with a kitchen faucet before! (It was, as my British S-I-L might say, Spot On!)



The countertops will almost definitely be Black Pearl granite. We had just put Emerald Pearl in our house in Vienna, but this is a little more neutral and will go well with any of the cabinet finishes we are currently considering.

We'll let you know when we get the rest of the kitchen decisions made. We're almost there with appliances. That's a tough one, though. There's so much conflicting info on the web that's it's hard to hone in on what's really important. If you've bought a new appliance recently and want to share your experience, I'd love to hear what you love and what you hate (and why)!

Blocking the Shot

The sun came out, and then the rains came down...but our framers have been busy regardless of the weather. The basement is 'under roof' and we have a skeleton of a first floor. All the openings for windows and doors seem to be properly placed! Conor confirms what we've been told by those who've traveled this road ahead of us -- the house looks small when it is just framed. Small and cozy is OK with us - small and cramped is what we're hoping to avoid. Here's a few pix of the progress as of Sunday night.

Taken from the back corner this is how it looked with the first floor laid. This is where the steps leading to the patio from the kitchen will be.


Here's the front of the house. The flat headers flank the front door and will house two picture windows each. On the left is the library and on the right is the family room. It's hard to tell from this vantage point but the ceilings on this floor will be 9' (in the basement too!). The large pile of sand is a little perplexing. Apparently we needed a little more fill dirt, but it's unclear where all the dirt that was IN the hole disappeared to!

This picture is looking through the fireplace wall on the south side of the house. It's a direct vent unit so no chimney. We went back and forth about wood-burning or gas and finally decided that 1) the winter's are long and 2) we're pretty lazy ... so we went with the gas. Since the woodpile would be buried under snow for much of the winter it just seemed like too much work. There will be built-ins on either side of the fireplace and windows above.

The part that juts out on the north side is the dining room windows (3 that run floor to ceiling). To the left of the dining room is the laundry room and below is the rec room in the basement. The black tubes have something to do with water/sewer.

Tomorrow we are meeting with Dave (our builder) and Andy at Big C lumber to order windows (Andersen), doors and knobs, trim and the roof (black). Five decisions down and only 327, 548 to go! (OK, that may be a slight exaggeration!)

Freeze Frame

It was supposed to be near 60 today but, as the framers can confirm, it was barely 40 degrees when they were beginning to build the framework of our house! A little nippy...but I'm sure they've worked in colder. Now is when things start to get interesting and there will be lots to see and stay on top of as they build our house stick by stick.

This first picture is taken from the rear of the house. Our foreman is standing on the ladder in the forefront. In front of the beam he's working on is the stairwell and his ladder is standing in the pool table area. His head would be coming out through the stove in the kitchen above. The beam directly behind him walls off the bathroom and the guest bedroom just behind it.

Here's the egress window for the guest room. The utility/storage room will be directly behind it.


Here they are swinging the TJI floor joists over to the foundation. These are what will ensure that our floors never bounce or squeak. They span the full length of the house! Watching these guys manuever the equipment around is pretty impressive. The guy driving the backhoe to dig the sewer and backfill around the foundation had that machine balanced in some fairly precarious positions (sorry, no pix) but never seemed phased and managed not to topple into the basement!

The sun has finally come out so I will swing by the house again in a little while to see how much progress they made. When the sun is shining in South Bend anything seems possible (and there were daffodils in bloom on campus this morning!!!). Look for more pix tomorrow.

More Pre-production Notes

For most people, this stage of the building really wouldn't merit blogging but, if you are at all aware of the recurring theme in our lives during 2007, you'll understand why I make mention of WATERPROOFING! (For those of you who missed all our water dramas, here's a quick recap: flooded my father-in-law's townhouse while he was out of the country, our basement drain backed up and flooded the basement 10 mins before we were showing our house in July and the bomb shelter basement in our rental house has had water on two separate occasions!) Needless to say, we now carry divining rods at all times! Fortunately, the soil is very sandy in Indiana which is far better for drainage than the lovely red clay of Virginia so if we can just keep on top of any malfunctioning toilets we'll be in good shape! Anyway.... (Note: what looks like black paint is the sealant and the front is waterproofed on the interior of the porch).

Shortly after this they also dug along this wall to install the sewer and we got some good news there! The sewer line had been rebuilt recently from the road to our connection point. Our builder had warned us that given the age of the South Bend infrastructure that had sometimes been a problem with other neighborhood houses. We were delighted that we wouldn't be literally throwing our money down the drain! Given the size of the potholes above ground, we're a wee bit nervous about what dangers lurk below! (Now that we've been backfilled, the pothole in front of our lot is the biggest hole on the street!)

Remaking a Classic

Now that I am dabbling in the blogosphere, I Googled 'bungalow blogs' to see what other bloggers are doing (very humbling). I can see how writing and reading blogs can take over your life and am going to try not to get sucked into that void. One thing that struck me, though, is that all the bungalow blogs were about renovation, not new construction. One of my cousins said that as well, "I've never seen a new house built in that style". While the remake is rarely thought of as favorably as the original, I am confident that whatever headaches we face in building will be nowhere near as stressful as renovating, especially if you have to live there during! Of course, our house will not be an 'authentic' craftsman bungalow. That level of woodwork and detail is far too costly to replicate (and doesn't make any sense in the South Bend housing market!). However, we tried to incorporate enough suggestive touches throughout the interior of the house to give it that sense of an older home. We are grateful that instead of boxy little rooms we'll have a very open floor plan and all the modern conveniences. We'll see how it all stacks up at the premiere (coming to a street near me in July? August? September? October?). Stay tuned!

A Place to Check Your Makeup

In addition to being informative, I'm going to try and use this blog to keep track of my 'decisions' (in quotes because even when I'm absolutely certain, they have a way of changing!) If it gets to be too much minutiae to be entertaining, please let me know. I'm also adding some surveys to the neglected right side of the page. Don't worry, I think they are anonymous, but feel free to leave more detailed thoughts in the comments section. Thanks for your input!

There's not much happening in the hole this week. I think the cement foundation is curing but that doesn't make for much of a show. However, now that there IS a foundation the house is starting to feel real which means all my magazine flipping and idle musings about 'wouldn't it be nice' now need to be turned into actual choices of what is going into our house. Yikes. So yesterday I spent 2 1/2 hours looking at faucets and bathroom fixtures and today it was 3 hours at the cabinet and granite fabricators. At least when we did the kitchen it was just one room. Now it's one kitchen, one laundry room and 4 bathrooms...didn't I say we were building a small cozy house????

But all meetings were productive and we've at least narrowed the choices down dramatically even if the final, final decision (not to be confused with the "yes this is it" statement that is followed by the late night email saying "oh, wait on that!") has yet to be made. Two bathrooms down and 2 to go! I picked out a pedestal sink and matching toilet for the main level bath. I wouldn't call it any particular style but something about it is suggestive of 'old' so it seemed to fit the house when I saw it. We'll probably stick with white. It meets Brian's two favorite criteria -- classic and timeless (he usually throws in "like my wife" but that's just sucking up!). The set is Bancroft by Kohler and we're getting the matching faucet as well because I really liked the flat handles. Now I only need floor tile and a wall color and this room is done -- ok, except for towels and something on the walls....(it never ends!) I'm going to look at tile tomorrow and I confess that it scares me more than cabinets or fixtures.

For the basement bath I decided to go with more of a furniture look for the vanity rather than a built in and after many hours late into the night on the internet I found two that will work so I felt confident deleting it from the cabinet listing at Modern Kitchens. While I was looking for something else, I came across this picture which was my inspiration. I love the wainscoting and the floor! This particular cabinet is a little overpriced but I found two others (with more storage drawers) that will fit the space perfectly. Both of them come with either a white or black marble granite top (see survey). The toilet will be white and the shower is a white 36x36 fiberglass model. I also saw a really cute toile fabric with Da Vinci-like flying machine sketches in white on black for the shower curtain but who knows if I can find the actual fabric. Lots of black and white choices out there though and THAT decision can wait a good long while!
Makes me wonder how anyone ever built a house without access to the internet. I guess you only bought what was for sale in your local store or the Sears catalog and there's actually something very sane about that approach but I'm enjoying the process so far. By June I may have had enough, but I keep telling myself that too much choice is a good kind of problem to have!

I think we have the kitchen floor plan all worked out -- we fixed my issues with the island having a big enough eating area while not looking like a big box and moved a few cabinets around so the design is good to go. I still haven't settled on a cabinet style or color. I think I'll have to drag Brian over there to help with that. Same is true for the upstairs master and hall bath. We're adding a tower on top of the vanity in the master and Conor's is pretty straight forward but I can't decide on the color until I pick out floor tile (did I mention that tile scares me?). It will undoubtedly all come together.