Brick, Stone, and Insulation!

Lots is happening at the Alvey house this week. The stone is almost all the away across the front of the house. The brick is finished on the back of the house except for on under the hearth room and it well on its way on the sides of the house. The insulation started today and our new front door framed was installed (the last one was wrong-arched at the top instead of square). Hoepfully by the end of the week the brick and stone will be finished. It is really starting to come together and looking like a house.

Back of the house and back of the inspector.

Insulation in the kitchen and hearth room.

Our much needed dumpster! Our neighbors will be happy.

Side of the garage with stone and brick complete!

Congratulations Eders and Elsburys!

We would like to congratulate our friends Tracy and Jason Eder on the birth of their daughter Lucy Marie Eder born on August 19th AND Megan and Shane Elsbury on the birth of their son Owen William Elsbury born on August 22nd. Wow that was a lot of babies in one week! Check out these cute first family pictures!

Tracy, Jason, and Lucy Eder

Shane, Megan, and Owen Elsbury

Let the Bricking Begin!

They started bricking the house Tuesday and they are flying. The to picture is today and the bottom picture is from yesterday. You can tell how fast they're moving. There wasn't any brick on the side of the house yesterday and now it's almost done. They have been staying out each night until about 8:00. Tomorrow they are suppose to start putting the stone on the front. Inspection for the inside is suppose to be Friday and then they are suppose to start insulation on Monday. By the end of next week our house should be completely bricked and insulated!

The Framers are back!

The roof was finished on Monday. The only thing that needs to be done is put the copper on the porch. The plumbing, electric and HVAC are near completion and should be finished up by this weekend. Brick and stone should be arriving any day and the back porch under the hearth room is going to be poured at some point this week. It was suppose to happen yesterday but the rain scared the concrete guys away.

Pepe and his crew found their way back today to finish up some odds and ends. The most noticeable is the framing of the fireplace and the master bath. Berkley is trying to figure out which tub is hers. I don't think she can figure out the master bathWe are now framing the bulkhead in the basement along with setting up the home audio and intercom systems. This is much easier for the constructionally challenged. We hope to finish that up Sunday but we are waiting on the cables to arrive in the mail.

Congratulations Kristen!

I would like to say "CHEERS" to my sister Kristen. Today, she found she is officially a licensed pharmacist in Indiana.

Scott and I proud of her for accomplishing her goals and getting her license. Now if we could just get her back to walking. If you haven't heard my poor sister broke her heel two weeks ago. We are the road to recovery and hopefully back to driving and working.

CONGRATULATIONS KRISTEN!

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Well as you can see the bath tubs have moved from the garage to new locations. The upstairs tubs are in place and I decided to test one out. The basement bathroom tub has moved out of the garage and into the middle of the basement but a least it is moving in the right direction.

The indoor fireplaces are in and hanging out. These and the tubs are the first things that make realize we are making progress on the inside of the house.

Hearth Room Fireplace.

This is the Great Room fireplace. It is just waiting for a lift and will be ready to be set in place.

Here is the daily look of the front of the house. They started caulking today and should be painting trim on Thursday and Friday. Roof should start on Monday.

This is unique view of the back of the house that we haven't taken before tonight. We spent sometime inspecting the back of our lot with our wonderful neighbors. Especially the handsome fellow below. This is from the Northwest corner of our lot.

Jack trying to keep the sun out of his eyes.

Jack trimming the "Albey's" lawn on "Jack's Tractor" as he would say.

Cardinals Party Suite 2008

The annual cardinal party suite game was this past weekend. I know, I said I wasn't going this year but, I gave in and went one last time. The good news is Scott and I made it two consecutive years without getting in a fight which means we are maturing or we are drinking less, either way it makes the trip home a lot easier. We saw a good game with lots of runs. We always hope for lots of runs ( or a rain delay which we have never gotten) because the more runs the more time we get to drink before they cut us off in the eigth inning. We also found a new place to go before the game. J. Buck's was a new downtown resturant that really treated us well.

Here are some of the cleaner pictures from the evening. For those of you that attended, I did delete the butt or no butt pictures so you won't be getting copies of those in your christmas cards.

Brotherly Love.Scott with his brothers Tim and Jeff.

Berkly Update!

Hanging out at Casa de Rental.

I know most of you reading our blog don't really care what is going on with Scott and I, you just look at it to see what Berkley is up too. Well we are in the dog days of summer, which for Berkley means lots of indoor time. It is too hot for this furry animal to go on errands in the car, house inspections, or walks. She does occasionally kick back and enjoy a tasty beverage though. Most of her time is spent napping, hanging out, chasing a ball in the house, or chewing/licking her favorite toy.

Loving her one eared bunny.

House Update!

The house is progressing but most of the progress has been in the inside. The above picture shows the current outside of the house. The trim work is all in place and the front porch is built. They are supposed to start painting the trim early this week and starting on the roof by the end of the week. Our shingles have been delivered so all that is delaying the roof is the trim painting. The brick and stone will be started as soon as the roof is finished.



As for the inside, the electrician, plumber, and HVAC man have all paid us visit. We did the walk through with the electrician on Saturday to mark outlets, cable jacks, phone lines, and light fixtures. The plumber has started putting in all of the pipes and drains. The furnace is in place and the duct work is about half way finished. Since the duct work is almost all in place, this brings us to the point were we will need to finish our framing project in basement and running of network cables for the speaker system and intercoms. Good Luck Scott! When we were working on the framing in the earlier stages the house was nice and cool, but I am afraid the second half of our project is going to me much sweater!



My major stress right now is deciding on cabinets. There are so many choices and they are so expensive. The kitchen design is such a big decision and everyone we meet with has their own opinion. Scott really doesn't want much involvement with this step. This leaves me with a lot of responsibility. Wish me luck!

Trim above the garage.

Furnace in the basement.

Duct work in progress.

Plumbing in the laundry room.

Bathtubs waiting patiently in the garage for instillation.

Windows and Trim!

As you can see, our workers are wasting no time. Yesterday the windows were delivered and they are all installed except for one small one in the master bathroom. The trim crew also started today and they got about half of the trim done on the outside. The front porch was also started on today. I am really amazed by all they can get down in a day. There are still a few odds and ins to finish on the framing. We are told the next steps are HVAC guys will start and roof will be started after trim.

The Great Room Windows. I am really pleased on the way these look.

The Back of the house.

The Inspector's Visit

Here is the Inspector!

Here are some of things that the inspector sniffed out over the weekend.

The Front Entry!

The Front Stairs! She was a little scared of these!

The Great Room!

The Kitchen but no food!

One of the Bedrooms!

The Basement!
Another view of the basement. Look at that Great Framing!

Just inspecting the front yard from the sitting room!

Framing Nearly Complete

So the framing is nearly complete. Framing should be complete before the end of the week. They have a few things to fix on the interior and finish out the garage. The windows should be in this week. They will start to go in along with putting up the trim and the hvac guy should be coming. We have finished most of the basement framing. We were waiting to finish because they had to put in the framing for a window and they did that today. We should get the rest of the basement framed this weekend. Barring major setbacks, we have been guaranteed our goal of getting in before Christmas.

Framing Update!

As you can tell from the picture above, the framing is really progressing. We were told today that the framing my be done by the middle of the next week and then we will be moving on to the next steps. The next things to come should be the outside trim, roof, and windows. We have posted a lot of pictures from the front but here are a couple of pictures of the back.

We did spend a lot of time on Sunday doing the framing in the basement. We are definitely not experts but we are getting more comfortable with power tools. I personally got to use the circular saw, nail gun, and a thing called a remington that drives nails into the concrete via of a power charged burst from shell that looks like a bullet. I know you are all surprised that Scott would trust me with items like this but I was very well behaved. Scott Matthews has been very patient with us and given us a lot of help. Here are some pictures of Scott and Scott working hard.