One year ago

It was one year ago today that ground was broken on the lot.

Now we’re in the house and grateful every day for it.

Thanks to everybody who joined us on our adventure. Come by any time!

New pad

How about this new driveway pad. Plenty of room for activities.

The drama continues

More excavating, the concrete work begins, and our sprinkler heads are offensive.

The company who charged us up the ying yang to install our fire suppression system in the house installed half of the heads incorrectly. All of our sprinkler heads were supposed to be flush with the walls and have a nice little cap on them. Their solution was to cut holes in our new walls from stud to stud to trim back the pipe in the wall to fit the new heads. Not gonna happen. So we’re in “negotiations” with them about resolving the situation.

It’s official

We closed on the house this morning and we’re homeowners again! Yaaay! It’s been a long ride, but we’re close to the end.

There is still some work to be done, so don’t tune out yet. There are some finishing things in the kitchen, paint touch ups, more excavating behind the house, followed by concrete out front and on the first 50 ft of our driveway (thank you city of rapid city). But things are winding down.

Oh yeah, and we should probably get some furniture. Although we’re kind of digging the minimalist look.

Not closed yet

We thought we would be able to close on the house early in the week, but there are little roadblocks popping up all over. Half finished work, miscommunications, conflicting schedules and no sense of urgency are the battles we’re fighting now. This is the longest week ever!

Our counters finally got finished 2 weeks after he said they’d be done. Even better, we found out this guy lives around the corner from us.

No touching or setting anything on these bad boys for 72 hours.

Handcrafted

Custom bar kick, custom shelves, custom mantle, custom curtain rod. This house is one of a kind baby.

Oh yeah, the island showed up.

Carpet and the missing countertop

Somehow, some way, through the wind and sleet and snow, the ironmen of BH Interiors climbed our impassable driveway three days in a row, just to lay our carpet. We’ve been so impressed with that company since we started working with them. Customer service is NOT dead!

…until you wander over to the countertop shop that shall not be named. There, the owner is maybe on drugs some of the time. He takes your order with a glazed smile, along with half of your money and then magically disappears for 3 months. He only reappears when he wants the other half of your money one month before you close on your house. At which point he says he will not do any work on your counters until he is paid in full. After you negotiate this with your bank (who would prefer to see work being completed when they hand out money) he tells you he’ll have your counters complete by the end of the month “easy.” Then he’ll call your builders and schedule time to not show up two days in a row. Then a rainbow of excuses flows quite readily from his mouth. Uh oh, here comes the home show that has only been on his calendar for the last year, here comes a winter storm that prevents him from making it to our house, can’t find any helpers to carry it, better disappear again. No contact, no progress, no closing on the house.

It’s a small town sir.

But we have carpet! And the Nest is on the wall (energy nerd)! And the cabinets are done! And so is our chimey! Its not so bad.

Thank you

A humongous thank you to all the people who helped us move yesterday. You made a long day of moving much shorter.

Allison
Kathy
Dennis
Scott
Shannon

But the biggest thank you goes to Jason. Thanks for sticking it out with us all day. We owe you big time.

One more week!

Behind the blue door

Hi there. Come on in.

Oh boy oh boy

We had several new additions to the house since the last post. Dennis built us a bench and some cabinets for the mud room. We had to do some acrobatics to get everything in the room, but there were no tears, so it was a success. Some of the fixtures and new appliances were moved in. We even got a doorbell.

Today was a bee hive of activity. The plumbers, electricians, builders, and even some family members were all in attendance today. We got a lot done.

Mrs C and I started packing up our tiny domicile tonight. It should only take us another five minutes or so.