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Weeks 4 and 5 have brought a lot of rain! In fact, Week 4 was a complete standstill with construction due to rain, but this week, we can report that our basement floors were poured on July 15! We have to give a lot of kudos to Perry Culberson, our concrete man, and his crew for timing it just right to get the job done when it was not raining! We ordered “Butterfields SG-06” as a buff color for the floor. That means that once Brad has thoroughly cleaned the floor and applied the concrete sealer, we will not need to purchase any additional flooring for the basement area. We are told the floor can take up to 28 days to “cure” and completely reveal its final color, but we like what we see so far.
We also are excited to report that our road has been repaired with a huge haul of gravel from the county. Brad talked to County Commissioner David Gogel, and we’d like to publicly thank him for addressing the situation. We were facing some huge ruts getting up the hill, and now we are confident that the road has been repaired so that the lumber trucks can get to our building site. My little green Fiesta can even make the trip now!
On Week 4, I made the trip to visit the site and make some interior decisions, and Brad and I confirmed our upstairs flooring samples and bathroom tile (picture in slideshow above) with our vendor, Owens Tile in Owensboro. Sal Owens is a church friend of my parents, and we were happy to find his shop, where we get straight answers and a person who will work with us on what we want and within our budget. We will be taking the floor samples with us in a couple weeks as we make further decisions about sink cabinets and other interior issues. We have chosen a “luxury vinyl” flooring for the upstairs. Luxury vinyl is an old technology that has become popular again with many new color and texture choices. To ease your mind, this is not linoleum. Unless you’ve seen it in person, luxury vinyl may be difficult to visualize. Our floors will either look like wood laminate or your normal bathroom tile, until you get down on your hands and knees and look very closely. We aren’t expecting too many guests to be doing this. We chose this type of flooring because it can be cleaned by mopping, which is best for my allergies. Hardwoods and laminates that cannot be cleaned with a thorough water mopping can be an allergic person’s nightmare, even though they do look very lovely. Carpet (other than “throw rugs”) are of course, out of the question for me. When you live with allergies, you have to ask a lot of questions about how things can be cleaned. It isn’t all about the aesthics.
We haven’t been all business. We had some fun on Week 4 attending the St. Bernard Social in Rockport. My whole family went to try to beat the heat and to consume all-you-can eat fried chicken. (What’s not to like about that?) Brad learned the difference between a dumpling and a noodle and then was schooled on what creek fries are. He will be speaking “southern Indiana” before you know it!
At the social, we met up with my best friend, Kim Bruggeman, and her family and then took them up to Maisto Mountain afterward to see the progress on our home. The Bruggemans live in the countryside of Perry County, and Kim’s husband, Brad, built their home, so they understand the process we are facing. Kim has been my friend since we were 8 years old and in second grade. She’s the kind of person that I don’t have to talk to every day, but when I see her, it’s as though no time has passed. It’s a treasure to have a friend like this, and I lovingly call her parents my, “Catholic parents” or “second parents.” (We got to hug them at the social, too!) Kim says the same thing about my parents being her “second parents.” You see, when we were at each other’s homes as kids, our parents didn’t hesitate to correct us as though we were their own children. I might have had as many lectures from my “second mom” as a teen-ager as I did my own parents. But that’s OK. I think I turned out better because of it, even if I didn’t appreciate it at the time. I do believe both my brothers had families like that, too, and we’re thankful. I’m even more thankful that I will be moving just “down the highway” from these wonderful people and get to see them more often. As you get older, you realize that you cannot put a price on wonderful people, and some friends just might as well be family. We have other great friends and family in the immediate area where we are moving and are looking forward to being close to them, too.
We expect the lumber to arrive soon and the framing of the home to start to take place. This phase will really be a reality-check of the size and structure of the home and be a very exciting step.
Until my next post, everyone stay dry!
We also are excited to report that our road has been repaired with a huge haul of gravel from the county. Brad talked to County Commissioner David Gogel, and we’d like to publicly thank him for addressing the situation. We were facing some huge ruts getting up the hill, and now we are confident that the road has been repaired so that the lumber trucks can get to our building site. My little green Fiesta can even make the trip now!
On Week 4, I made the trip to visit the site and make some interior decisions, and Brad and I confirmed our upstairs flooring samples and bathroom tile (picture in slideshow above) with our vendor, Owens Tile in Owensboro. Sal Owens is a church friend of my parents, and we were happy to find his shop, where we get straight answers and a person who will work with us on what we want and within our budget. We will be taking the floor samples with us in a couple weeks as we make further decisions about sink cabinets and other interior issues. We have chosen a “luxury vinyl” flooring for the upstairs. Luxury vinyl is an old technology that has become popular again with many new color and texture choices. To ease your mind, this is not linoleum. Unless you’ve seen it in person, luxury vinyl may be difficult to visualize. Our floors will either look like wood laminate or your normal bathroom tile, until you get down on your hands and knees and look very closely. We aren’t expecting too many guests to be doing this. We chose this type of flooring because it can be cleaned by mopping, which is best for my allergies. Hardwoods and laminates that cannot be cleaned with a thorough water mopping can be an allergic person’s nightmare, even though they do look very lovely. Carpet (other than “throw rugs”) are of course, out of the question for me. When you live with allergies, you have to ask a lot of questions about how things can be cleaned. It isn’t all about the aesthics.
We haven’t been all business. We had some fun on Week 4 attending the St. Bernard Social in Rockport. My whole family went to try to beat the heat and to consume all-you-can eat fried chicken. (What’s not to like about that?) Brad learned the difference between a dumpling and a noodle and then was schooled on what creek fries are. He will be speaking “southern Indiana” before you know it!
At the social, we met up with my best friend, Kim Bruggeman, and her family and then took them up to Maisto Mountain afterward to see the progress on our home. The Bruggemans live in the countryside of Perry County, and Kim’s husband, Brad, built their home, so they understand the process we are facing. Kim has been my friend since we were 8 years old and in second grade. She’s the kind of person that I don’t have to talk to every day, but when I see her, it’s as though no time has passed. It’s a treasure to have a friend like this, and I lovingly call her parents my, “Catholic parents” or “second parents.” (We got to hug them at the social, too!) Kim says the same thing about my parents being her “second parents.” You see, when we were at each other’s homes as kids, our parents didn’t hesitate to correct us as though we were their own children. I might have had as many lectures from my “second mom” as a teen-ager as I did my own parents. But that’s OK. I think I turned out better because of it, even if I didn’t appreciate it at the time. I do believe both my brothers had families like that, too, and we’re thankful. I’m even more thankful that I will be moving just “down the highway” from these wonderful people and get to see them more often. As you get older, you realize that you cannot put a price on wonderful people, and some friends just might as well be family. We have other great friends and family in the immediate area where we are moving and are looking forward to being close to them, too.
We expect the lumber to arrive soon and the framing of the home to start to take place. This phase will really be a reality-check of the size and structure of the home and be a very exciting step.
Until my next post, everyone stay dry!