Comfy outdoor living

White wicker furniture has been the plan for the house before the pilings went into the ground, and finally here it sits. Now if we can just get past the scorching heat and the mosquitos, we'll be able to enjoy it. Maybe in January...

Boy's toys

This is Ian's new love. I am not really sure which he enjoys more: turning the tv on and off (it makes this cute little sound) or turning the fire place on and off (it came with a remote control).

All I know is that I have no idea how to work the Direct TV and Ian won't show me how. He says he is living every man's dream...or something like that.

Pond or no pond?

The idea was to have a little planter here in front of the house for a nice palm tree or something of that nature. However, with the incredible amounts of rain we've experienced in the last few weeks, it has turned into a pond. Really, a pond- it has remained full of water for so long now that there are actually things growing in it; tadpoles, etc.

I vote it stays a pond; put some cool water plants in it and a bunch of koi (to match the house). Ian is still on the palm tree track, but maybe keep a small section for a little pond. We'll see.

Several neighbors -on the other hand- are thinking pool...

The Stairs and Railing

Ah, the much awaited front entrance. We decided on a temporary white railing, but the plan is to eventually weld a galventized one.





















Monte doesn't seem to mind to change of scenery.

A glimpse of the living area

Here is a quick glimpse of the dining area. I took some pictures of the kitchen area, but for some reason the blog does not want to take them. Note the big clock! Our house warming gift (in addition to all the work they did) from the Millers- thanks Mom and Dad Miller!

Granite

Desperate times call for critical measures. The granite almost created some difficult times like the appliances, but all in all it worked out well.

Basically (before we knew how challenging the hot water heater was going to be) we wanted water for our holiday company and to get water, we needed sinks, but to get sinks, we needed granite. Of course the glitch became that to get the granite in the house, we needed the front stairs, and to build the front stairs we needed a driveway.

Now, mind you, we realized this on a Thursday and the granite would be delivered the following Saturday. Plenty of time...until the rain started. It rained all day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Luckily we got some nice weather and were able to pour the driveway on Thursday, the framer put the stair stringers in Friday and Ian put the treads on Saturday morning.

All that, and the granite got postponed till Tuesday. Well, at least it was done and it made things a lot easier for moving!

Kitchen in working order

Our appliances arrived two weeks ago Saturday. You think this would be an easy part of the whole building deal. Drop 'em off, put 'em where they go, voila! A Kitchen!

Hardly.

We chipped the slate on the porch getting the fridge into the house, the dishwasher leaked, the stove was installed only after three trips for the plumbers and an uncountable number of runs to Home Depot, the microwave (which was bought specifically to fit a custom built hole) didn't work, and was no longer available for purchase, and last but NOT LEAST...the water heater...

Where to begin?...well, we have some friends who bought a tankless water heater. They didn't realize the amount of money and work they would have to do to accommodate their older house for the new technology, then they lost the box and couldn't return it (maybe this is where the bad karma began?) so we bought it from them.

A third of the price; good deal, right? Wrong.

So then, the plumbers who have become increasingly living up to the stereotypes that surround the profession, hooked the darn thing up with too small of a gas line. My loving husband Ian, who was done with cold showers decided he was going to fix the thing one way or another.

Let's just say...after that, bad simply got worse and we went from cold showers to just a little trickle of water from any given faucet. Clearly, this was right about the time we all needed to clean up for a boat ride which lead to some very "clever" showering techniques. This was simply unrealistic for five people for a week, so we bit the bullet and sent the boys to Home Depot to buy another one. Well, don't you know the darn thing is a special order item which takes 10 days to arrive. Great. So, we bought a temporary one for the time being and that is what were using to date. It works fine and our showers are piping hot!

I am just hoping that when the new one arrives we can return something. These tankless deals are not cheap and now we have 3.

2 out of 5 isn't so bad

We have at least set up 2 of 5 bedrooms (that is, of course, if you don't look in the closets). Really 2/4 because -as the previous post indicates- one bedroom will be used as an office. These are the two down stairs bedrooms. We were lucky to acquire a bed from Tiffany -thanks Tiff!- in order to have a place for some company. And just in time too as we had the Miller crew join us for the fourth of July...or was it the Jourth of Fuly?

Movin' on up...

We did make the move...almost two weeks ago. Sorry, blogging has taken a back burner to other random tasks. In any case, we are now residents of 211 Oak. As you can see, however, most of our belongings reside in the smallest of 5 bedrooms.

This will -hopefully- some day resemble an office area. At the moment, I believe it could be a little bit of anything!