Lots of Progress

Not only do we have concrete but they have started framing.  We think we are still behind schedule probably at least a month.  Here are some of the latest photos.

Here is a before and after photo of the large oak in front of where our house will be.  Rob has been clearing out all the cedar from under the tree and now it looks beautiful.

This is the garage and the start of the framing for the utility room (on the right), pantry and spare bedroom closet (on the left).

Framing for the exercise room.

We hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season and are looking to 2013 as much as we are!

Close to concrete

Is it possible to be this excited about concrete?  Well yes it is.  We visited the property yesterday and they are close to pouring the concrete.  There is another Jimmy Jacobs home under construction down the road from us and they are about a week or two ahead of us.  So we are going to start stopping by there to see how that progress is going and that will give us a good idea what will be coming up for us.  Last week when we stopped by they were at the same point we were yesterday so we are hoping they will pour concrete this week.  Concrete takes time to cure so more than likely after it's poured nothing else will happen till the new year.

Here are a couple of  photos.

This is going to be the garage.

This is a view from the back left corner of the house.  This will be the exercise room.

This picture is taken from the back side of the house also looking into the exercise room.  We have a few floor electric boxes being installed in the exercise room, great room and office.  So this picture just shows where one of those floor will be.

This is going to be the master shower.

The black heavy plastic is the water barrier they put down before pouring the concrete.  The black plastic is covering packed down rock and sand mixture, that make up the base, all the paths/tunnels are where the concrete footings are going to be, which distribute the weight of the house.  The white tubes that are sticking up are the water drainage pipes.  Construction is very different when there is no basement.

Hopefully the weather will continue to hold up so they can continue to make progress.

Otherwise life in Texas finds us doing well.  I'm coming up on 2 months with NewTek.  We attended the company holiday party last week which was held at Howl at the Moon on the Riverwalk and was a great time.  Rob has been spending spare time cutting down trees on the property.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Texans for 3 months

Yesterday marked 3 months since we moved to Texas, some days it still feels surreal that we are finally here.  Of course as always we miss our friends and family back in Maryland but that is what email, Facebook, Google chat, telephone and vacation is for.

It's a bit weird trying to get into the holiday spirit with the weather being so nice.  It's still in the 70's and we still have the air conditioner on and are wearing t-shirts and shorts but everyone keeps saying it will start to get cooler soon.  I'm not too upset, personally I don't miss the cold weather.

Work continues to go well and tomorrow will mark 6 weeks.  The company holiday party is next Saturday and thankfully I don't have to go out and spend a bunch of money on a fancy dress, shoes, purse, getting my hair done, hotel, etc.  The party will be at a local piano bar and I have at least 4 dresses that  I can pick from!

Construction on the new house is moving along, although slow.  They are hoping to do the concrete slab in the next couple of weeks.  We are waiting for some revisions to the drawings as we may be able to change the elevation to reduce the cost of the slab.

Rob got his early Christmas present last week with a new chainsaw.  He went out to the house on Friday and started cutting down some of the dead trees and cedars that are suffocating our oaks.  We also met the neighbor yesterday, very sweet lady.  We are excited to meet her husband and sons and looking forward to developing a friendship with them.

Construction has started

The moment we have been waiting for has finally arrived, they have started working on the house.  I went out yesterday and took some photos of what they have accomplished so far (it's early in the process folks).

As I mentioned before I'll post the progress here on my blog.  I'm not posting all the pics I'm taking because you all would hate me for that.  I was shocked that I took 50 photos yesterday without realizing it.  But since Rob is still in Maryland I needed to take as many as possible to give him a good idea of what is going on.

Right now they are working on clearing the build area and setting the forms for the concrete slab.  You don't find too many houses with basements down here because the ground is mainly rock.  Next time I'll try to take a picture of the rock they dug through to level our neighbors build site.  Our lot is slightly sloped to the front so there will not be as much digging.  We went with a single story plan so we don't have to deal with stairs as we get older.

Hopefully in the next 7-8 months we will have a beautiful new home.

A few folks have asked about the floor plan so this first picture is the floor plan and a drawing on what the front will look like.

This next picture is the driveway, temporary of course, it will actually be paved when they are done, but before they started construction there was no driveway.

This is a picture of what will be the back of the house.  To compare to the floor plan, right in front of where the bobcat is will be the exercise room.

This is NOT moving in with us and  I don't think the picture does the size of this spider justice but I was not getting any closer.

This is a picture from the driveway looking toward where the house will be.  I think this is the front corner of the garage.

That is it for now.  Going forward I'm not going to keep posting the updates on Facebook so if you are interested in seeing the progress then bookmark my blog page.

Hopefully the weather will continue to stay nice so they can get that concrete done before it starts to get cold.  This week we are scheduled for lows in the 60's and highs in the 80's.  Have to love Texas, sorry my east coast family and friends I know it's not as warm there.

Finally employed again

So excited to say that I'm no longer among the unemployed.  I have a new job and started working this past Monday.  I'm the Manager of Customer Support for a small company based out of San Antonio.  Of course starting a new job is a bit scary because you don't know anybody or anything but that's the good part of scary.  I'm so excited for this new challenge.  I'm sure Rob is equally as excited because I think I was driving him up the wall!

Sadly still no construction :<(  I met with the cabinet contractor last week so that piece is done.  However, we did find out who are new neighbor are.  We haven't met them yet but this family will be living next to us.

http://www.ksat.com/news/Local-military-hero-receives-wheelchair-accessible-home/-/478452/17032890/-/oxclle/-/index.html

What an honor to live next to a hero and his family that make sacrifices that most of us can't imagine!!