An early Christmas present..

Bobby and I got a phone call very early this morning (well, 9am...early for me on a day off) that we needed to head out to the construction site to talk with our builder about some problems with the floor plan. We got there, but found no problems, only a few ways he had found to give us a little more space in our master bathroom area. It was a relief!
We went around town today and in addition to running the normal errands before we leave town, we went and checked out a store that gave us some ideas about tubs, faucets, sinks, and toilets. Fun stuff! Now I have lots of reading material for the car ride to Raleigh tomorrow!

We went back out to the land for one last look before we left town, and when we got there, we found an early Christmas present!!

Our first walls have started going up!!! What a great way to end our day!! Here are a few more pics of our earliest Christmas gift!

Merry Christmas!!

The Big Snow

Well it has been an eventful week or so in our housebuilding process! Last week the crew got a lot done in finishing the foundation and putting down the subflooring. Here were some of the pics we got during the week of December 14th:

Bobby's good friend Rob came up to visit and also came to visit the house site:

and this is when Rob said, "Look! There's a quarter!"

and then....The Big Snow Came!!

It started on Friday morning. Schools were closed because we were under a winter storm warning. Bobby took me to work and then went out to the land. They were trying to lay as much sub-floor as the could before the big snow hit. It flurried from about 8:30 until 11am, but then the big snow started. It snowed for about 3 days straight. Here are a couple pictures from our current residence of the snow:

On Monday, we were finally able to dig ourselves out so that we could go visit the new construction. There we shoveled out our living room, dining room, bathrooms, kitchen, etc.. in the hopes that the rest of the week will bring good weather for the guys working on the house!!

I have never shoveled so much snow in my life!! It has left me sore in places I didn't think you could be sore :)

In addition, we also met with our builder Mark to talk about doors and windows this week, and made our requests. I am always amazed at the number of choices...grilles, no grilles, grilles inside the windows,3 ft, 4 ft, how high off the ground, strange shapes or not, what color the trim needs to be, how many on the front of the house, how many on the back, and the options go on and on! I think we made smart choices but I guess we will find out soon!

We are getting ready to head out the door to see if our shoveling paid off! Merry Christmas friends and family!!

To bring you up to speed...

I have started this blog to be able to share our experience in building a home! We have a hard time remembering to e-mail photos to everyone, so I will try to keep this blog updated with photos and video from when we go out to our home site. I may even throw in some other fun stories from life in Boone as we go along the way!
We bought this piece of property in August of 2007, and in October of 2009, we were finally able to break ground with our house plans! The plan we settled on was really designed by Bobby. It is based on a plan we found on the internet, but he made major modifications to it so that we would have a true master bedroom suite, a bonus room above the garage, a laundry area, several more closets, and a breakfast nook.

So to bring you up to speed, here is how we got here:

This is me, Meredith, with my husband Bobby, in front of what will soon be our garage in the home we are building just outside of Boone. This picture was taken in early December by our builder's wife, Gail.

She and her husband Mark have been a huge help to us in figuring out our house layout and design.
Most recently, the block has been stacked on top of the footers they poured..

and unfortunately, the block covers up where I had carved our initals into the footer.

Before the footers could be poured though, a lot of grading had to be done on our land. Here are some before and after pictures so you can see the difference after the grading.

And here are just a few more of my favorite pictures from the house building process so far:

We have also taken some video as we have gone out to survey the progress, and as I get better with blogging, I will try to share those as well. But for now, these pictures should bring you up to speed with where we are in the process. Thank you to everyone who has been helping us with this process so far...it is a lot to take in and figure out, but we are so blessed to have great friends and family to help us! We would love to take all of our friends and family out to visit the land whenever you have a chance, so please let us know if you would like to go! To close this post, here are pictures of our visitors so far...you saw Gail earlier in the post. Here are my parents and Bobby's mom who came to visit on Thanksgiving:

and our friend Kenan from Raleigh who came on the day after Thanksgiving:

Let the fun times in Boone continue!!