Plumbing has been installed through the walls, including the exterior hose bibs and gas lines for the 3 fireplace gas starters and the gas oven range.
With plumbing, electricity, and low voltage 4K/speaker/internet WAPs run, the insulation has begun as well. It’s interesting, because most of the windows and doors have the glass covered for painting and the insulation makes the rooms feel much darker.
The job site has been a mess, pretty much from day one, but for some reason when I saw an open bag of Doritos and what I think is some ground meat from a burrito on the stack of drywall, I sort of hit my limit and began sweeping and cleaning. Seriously, do the crews have competitions as to who can be the biggest slobs? In the huge garbage pile out front we even found a pair of men’s size 10.5 sneakers.
“Before”
Come on peeps. I feel like I have a house full of teenage boys. Especially as I swept up empty cans of Budweiser…
After
But the cleaning up gave me an idea. I saw a suggestion on Pinterest and other blogs about building homes on which some people write sayings, quotes, or Bible scriptures on the wall studs or on the foundation (assuming it will be covered up by drywall or flooring) as a way to bless the house. I realized that there are many great literary and other quotes that are emblematic of how I want our home to look and feel. So here’s what I chose:
I saw the blessing above for a home and thought it would be perfect for our entryway. It says: May your walls know joy, may every room hold laughter, and every window open great possibilities.
For the library/John’s office, I chose this quote by C.S. Lewis: “Now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story no one on earth has ever read, which goes on forever; in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
For the Butler’s Pantry: ” Our homes should inspire us to go out into the world, to do great things, & then welcome us back for refreshment”
For the Master Bedroom, I chose a common quote for weddings: “I love you, not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.”
In the Master Bathroom, a great quote by Coco Chanel: ” Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself”
And my favorite, by J.R.R. Tolkein from The Hobbit: “That house was a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep, or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear, and sadness.”
So what would you choose as quotes that represent your home? I’ve thought about Walt Disney’s famous quote, “To all who come to this happy place, welcome.” – Maybe for a guest room? I would love to hear your thoughts and thanks for stopping by!
Yesterday we took a road trip to Lockhart, TX, the “BBQ capitol of Texas”, to make some cabinetry selections for the ranch. But first, barbecue!
There are multiple barbecue options in Lockhart and we selected Black’s Barbeque – the oldest restaurant in the state of Texas continuously run by the same family. Started in 1932, it is now run by the 5th generation and is open every day. The restaurant has also been highlighted in several TV shows from Food Paradise to Burgers, Brew, and Que, to Giana’s Weekend Getaway (Austin).
Don’t worry, we did not eat all of this or even 10%
After a great lunch of smoked chicken for me and brisket and sausage for John, we headed out to our cabinet makers location.
Master bathroom cabinets!
I was surprised how far along they are with the cabinets! They are made from knotty alder and I know from previous remodeling projects (hello lake cottage), that this wood has a slight pink/reddish hue and takes stain similarly to cherry wood. Not pictured is the outdoor kitchen, which will be made with cypress wood. Whoa – exotic!
Bar sink
Bar back
Library bookcases
Bar front
While at the cabinet maker’s shop, we had to make a couple of decisions. One – which door profile to choose and two – did we want exterior handles installed or fingertip groove pulls cut in to the doors and drawers. After discussing the handles a bit we quickly decided to have exterior handles added to the cabinets. Damon, our cabinet maker, warned us that we would see scratches in the cabinets with the fingertip grooves. We also discussed how the drawers with the soft close option and any appliances (especially dishwashers) are difficult to open without handles. I told Damon that I felt like Joanna Gaines (from the TV show Fixer Upper) in his shop and he is my Clint Harp!
That left us with the door and drawer profile choice. Which would you choose?
Above is option A – the “busted edge” profile.
Option B above is the “3/8 roundover” profile.
Finally, option C is the “ogee” profile.
Which is your choice? I’ll reveal our choice (actually, John’s – YES, sometimes I let John have his way…) when the cabinets are installed in 3 weeks time. Until then, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks for stopping by!
This week is all about the various trades coming in, from the electrician (whose team was wiring away today,) to the TV/AV wiring team, to the plumber coming Thursday, and the roofer beginning this week. We met with the electrician yesterday and his team of 7 (?) was in full swing today.
Today we also walked through the house with the cabinet guys. The last time we met with them, John and I asked the cabinet guys to include some extras like taking the cabinets in the kitchen and bar up to the ceiling, as well as paneling in the library. Since then we got the total for those extras and let’s just say some of the extras were a bit more than we want to spend. So with today’s walk through, we made some significant cuts on the nice to have elements that halved the overage costs.
Editing cabinets
The HVAC has obviously begun and some of the interior posts and beams have been framed out as well.
Dining room
Beam & duct work
Master bedroom
Laundry room
And finally the painters also painted all the trim and the chimney stucco, so the standing seam roof can begin this week.
Gotta love the pile of garbage in front of the house (*sigh*), and with the recent severe storms over the weekend, we lost a few cedar trees. Thankfully nothing damaged the house or barn construction.
Thar she blows! All the damage we sustained from the severe weather last week.
Things are definitely hopping and it’s already been a busy week with house building decisions. Thanks for stopping by to check on our progress!!
Yesterday the drywall for the house was delivered as the exterior painters finished caulking all of the board and battens and the framers began working on the interior framing.
John pointed out that it had been a while (maybe early December?) since I had baked anything for the workers, so I made them a dutch chocolate cake with salted caramel icing. I also gave the painters a heads up to help themselves because I’m pretty sure Russell, one of the framers, could finish that entire cake by himself! 😃
Cake is served! It was gluten free, but they don’t need to know that!
The doors are now all installed, the new, non-supporting ceiling beam (long story for another post) was being installed, and the bar walls will begin soon.
Thankfully our builder can re-use this big beam since we opted to engineer the great room and master bedroom with scissor trusses instead of this heavy behemoth. Almost sounds like I know what I’m talking about, right?
Earlier this week we did a walk through with the sound, TV, internet, and security system wiring guy. Holy cow – the terminology is like another language from 4K to Cat6, 7, and 8, to 5.1 vs 8.1 surround in the great room… John and I are very lucky that we have friends with vocational and avocational interests in sound systems and they looked over and consulted with us about what we are doing (thanks Jet and Tommy!).
Outdoor speaker placement on the long porch
We have to fit that wiring in after the electrician but before dry wall. Things are really starting to move fast, and John and I are doing our best to keep our heads above water, as the saying goes. The electrician begins Monday, insulation goes in next Friday, and they sheet rock on Monday, 1/20/20. So we better get the stereo/tv/internet/security guy out there next Wed-Thursday, huh?
French doors to the dining room are finally installed!
But the big news is that they painted the house today. Before 1:30 pm…. Amazing.
By the way, that was color C for those of you who played my “Which color should I choose?” game. Although color C did get a vote on this blog (thanks Cuz Bill!), everyone on Instagram voted for D. But anyone who actually came to the home site voted for C (so don’t feel bad).
Above are pictures after a second coat had been applied. John and I like the body color but found that a BIG mistake had been made. The painters were mistakenly told to paint all the exterior doors (as seen below). Wrong! The exterior fiberglass doors have a fir wood finish so they can be gel stained to look like real wood doors. All the beauty of wood doors, none of the warping, shrinking, or maintenance. I immediately called our site supervisor and he assured me it will be fixed. Stay posted for that…
This is a major screw-up… but our builder immediately said they would remove the paint and it will be fixed.
I’ll try to stay on top of the barn construction as well since the windows were delivered today. Until then, thanks for stopping by!
While the framing, siding, soffits, and caulking wrap up on the ranch house, the metal structure, or red iron, of the barn has been constructed.
Caulking done on every batten on the siding
Although it is still just a metal shell, it’s provided us a chance to see the true size of the barn and how John can use it as his workshop, something he has never had before.
With the barn windows arriving this week on Thursday, the framing of the windows can begin and then the barn will be wrapped with the metal siding. As soon as the roof is on and it is “dried in”, we can move our belongings from storage (unfortunately located 1,000 miles away) to the barn as we wait for the house to be finished.
Looking back at the house from the barn
Looking at the barn apartment
The barn apartment will have it’s own porch looking into the woods, and I think it will be a great retreat and space for friends and family to use as home base for a week or so.
What do you think? When you (out of towners) visit, will you stay in the house or the barn apartment? Would love to hear your thoughts!
The framers are finishing the siding and porch ceilings, which is great – but it means that it’s time to choose our home’s exterior colors.
Private master bedroom porch
We have already chosen the colors for the barn. That was easy because there are far fewer choices for the metal building and we are NOT painting that bad boy.
Metal samples for the barn -the body will be the creamy beige and the sage green will be the accent color
We would like the house to go with the barn, but not necessarily match. We are also cognizant of our home on the hill sticking out when it is seen from the valley. I want it to be in harmony with the natural, wooded setting and with the cedar posts and other stained wood accents. So with that in mind, we are considering painting the house a shade of green with creamy beige trim – basically the opposite of the barn combination. We selected 4 color samples last week, but decided that they were all too light…
Original set of colors, 1-4
Round two colors were labeled A, B, C, D.
I immediately determined that color A from round two is too dark. So that leaves us with B, C, and D.
The standing seam metal roof will go on after the house is painted
What is your vote? They will start painting in the next week, so I’d love to hear your opinion! As always, thanks for stopping by! Hugs, Libby
We are back in Texas and today John and I walked through the house and marked on the wall studs where we want switches to control certain lights or fans. It’s really all about the user experience. How do you turn on enough lights to get safely to the kitchen in a darkened house, for example? Do you want to be able to turn on hall lights from both ends of the hall? Yes, by the way. I’m hoping our preparations will make the electrical walk through Thursday morning go much faster.
Looking into the kitchen
The front porch now has its ceiling done and the cedar posts are in place. The batten is also being installed on our Hardie board and the chimneys have been stuccoed.
Living room chimney
Loving the stained wood ceiling
We are also beginning to look at exterior house colors. I’ve painted a few swatches on the siding and we are debating looking at more color options.
Tonight we are looking forward to walking to a local restaurant and bar for a fun New Years Eve. Our ability to walk to restaurants, shops, and a local grocery store is one of our favorite things about living in our rental home in Smithville, Texas. We will definitely miss that when we move into our forever home on 43.5 acres, because, yikes, that would be a long walk.
Celebrating New Years Eve at the Front Room Wine Bar at their black and white party.
On our drive down to Texas (it takes 16 hours), John and I reflected on 2019 and looked forward to 2020. It was a good exercise in mindfulness and conscious living. I think of it as a way to slow down, reminisce about our favorite moments, make sure we take the time to appreciate all the little and big things that were a part of our lives in the past year, and also to draw some conclusions about which kinds of things make us happy and which don’t. My goal was to start seeing more clearly and confidently what are our goals & intentions for 2020.
John looking dapper on NYE. I think this should be his new LinkedIn picture.
Maybe some of these questions will be a fun conversation starter for you and your family too.
Reflecting on 2019
What 3 words would you use to describe 2019?
What was your favorite destination in 2019?
What was your biggest lesson of the year?
What are you most proud of from 2019?
What was your favorite compliment from this year?
What worry turned out to be completely unnecessary?
What or who had the biggest positive impact on your life this year?
Looking forward to 2020
What do you want the overarching theme of 2020 to be?
What are your biggest goals for 2020?
What skills do you want to learn, improve or master?
Which personal quality do you want to develop or strengthen?
What do you want your everyday life to be like?
What do you want to achieve with your career?
How do you want to remember the year 2020 when you look back on it 10/20/50 years from now?
Me in my vintage fur stole
I hope that you and your family have a wonderful start to the new year and new decade. Thanks for stopping by and Happy New Year!
We enjoyed a wonderful week in the Midwest, seeing many friends and family members. In fact every lunch and dinner was booked with different groups of friends or family from Saturday to Saturday (why do I suddenly want to sing the song Popular from Wicked?). And we lucked out with incredibly mild weather for the Midwest. In the 60’s for Christmas week? Crazy!
Mom and me
But I’m also thinking ahead to when we get back to Texas and will be walking through the house with the electrician to plan out all lights, outlets, and switches. Our current rental house in Texas has a few oddly placed switches – on the hinge side of a door instead of on the latch side – so I know how this can be important. It also seems like I struggle to find outlets for plugging in the vacuum or so we can charge a phone.
Outdoor lighting is wired
For an outdoor fan
Wiring done as the porch ceiling goes on
Under the pool porch
We’ve already planned out the lights and fans on the porches because the framers were going to install the porch ceilings while we were away. We also added some outlets into the porch soffits for Christmas lights and those are all wired to a closet so we will be able to turn off the outdoor Christmas with the flick of a switch. They are wired to a closet so they don’t clutter an area that will have several switches already (and have guests flipping it on and off saying, what does this switch do?).
Outlets under the soffits
So here’s my list of outlets I think we need. Let me know if you can think of any others.
External Outlets
front (long view) porch
pool side porch
private porch off the master bedroom
outdoor kitchen island
Kitchen/pantry Outlets
under cabinets (see pic below)
on either side of the island
inside pantry for small deep freezer
inside an appliance garage for blender, toaster, etc.
Photo from Houzz
Living/great Room Outlets
on mantles for holiday decor
under the windows
in the floor for lamps near couches (already planned out)
Fall decor on the lake cottage mantle
Bathroom Outlets
inside the medicine cabinets for electric toothbrushes and shavers
inside the vanity for hair dryers, etc.
in the water closet for a nightlight or a fancy toilet (still debating that)
Bedroom Outlets
behind nightstands for lights and chargers – with quad outlets
inside master bedroom closet for an iron
in office for computer, monitor, and printer
Anything else you think I should add to the outlet list? Any advice regarding switches? Let me know in the comments below! And thanks for stopping by!
Just a quick note to wish you all a very Merry Christmas this year. We have been celebrating this year in the Midwest with friends and family everyday. It is difficult to fit everyone in, so we wish you a very happy holiday if we cannot see you in person.
Christmas Eve on the lake (photo and special effects by Neil)
Our most exciting news is that our daughter Lauren is engaged to be married!!
Christmas Eve night at the lake
We had a wonderfully fun visit with Lauren and Julian on Christmas Eve, but most importantly, we didn’t blow the surprise that Julian was going to propose on Christmas morning. So congratulations to the happy couple!!
We hope you all enjoy a very Merry Christmas with you families!
John and I have traveled back to the Midwest to see family and friends. While we are really excited to see many of our loved ones, we are sorry to miss any of the building developments – especially as there are exciting updates everyday.
All the windows were installed this week, so the process of getting the house “dried in” has made great progress. “Dry-In” means that the building shell has been completed sufficiently to keep out wind, rain, or the weather in general, thus assuring that weather-sensitive materials or work can begin indoors without those materials suffering weather damage.
Primed Hardie Siding going up
The primed Hardie board and batten siding has also been going up. You’ve probably heard of Hardie Board if you ever watched the TV show Fixer Upper, as they frequently used it on their renovations. A big benefit of this siding is it’s durability.
Hardie board’s unique blend of concrete and other composite materials makes it impervious to elements like rain, high winds, and humidity. It also is highly resistant to hail and flying debris and is a very low maintenance siding.
One big key to the longevity is that cement does not retain moisture, so this siding never rots, swells or warps. It’s also fire resistant.
Unstained doors are being installed
Most of the exterior doors were also installed this week. All the exterior doors are fiberglass with a simulated fir wood exterior that can be stained. Like the Hardie siding, we opted for stained fiberglass doors for durability and minimal maintenance.
Finally, we did our exterior electrical walk through and the outdoor outlet boxes, light, flood light, and fan wiring was all run so they could begin adding the ceiling to the outdoor porches.
We are excited to see all the developments when we return, which will be significant! By the time we return the house will be fully “dried in” and ready to be painted. The red iron of the barn will be in place so we’ll get to see the bones of the barn. And immediately upon our return we will have to do our interior electrical walk through and cabinetry walk through, which our builder warned us will take hours if not entire days. Wow, right?
Be on the lookout for a post asking for ideas about outlet placements and cabinetry ideas. Until then, thanks for stopping by!
Our property has a wildlife management tax appraisal rate, which means that we needed to create a plan (which subsequently has been approved) and execute the activities/installations as detailed in the plan. Our plan was heavily influenced by suggestions provided by a wildlife biologist who visited the property last year. Based on her suggestions, we made a plan not just for our parcel, but also for the other 3 parcels that are owned by John’s siblings.
Here’s our plan for all 4 parcels. Ours is the top (North) parcel.
I’m definitely no expert, and John may correct me on some of this (which I will note if he does), but my understanding is that to qualify for a wildlife management tax appraisal rate, you first had to have an agricultural tax appraisal rate for 5 of the last 7 (?) years. Our property had that for years as our cousin Cliff coordinated with local ranchers to keep cattle on our land (thanks Cliff!). But our property isn’t really great for grazing cattle as it is mostly wooded and very hilly, unlike cousins nearby that have flat prairie-grass parcels. And since we are moving onto the land and don’t own cattle ourselves, switching to a wildlife management focus makes more sense.
Pine straw in the owl boxes
After John made all 16 of the owl boxes, we added pine straw to the nest boxes because screech owls do not build their own nests. They are opportunistic and only use nests that they find. Lazy little buggers.
It will take another weekend to get all 16 of the screech owl boxes up (so far 9 are up), but everytime we go out to the property, we take a couple more so we can install and document which owl boxes are up and where.
Some boxes went up quickly, and some took over an hour to find a proper tree where the box could be hung according to the map.
And there are definitely worse things than spending an afternoon hiking through the woods in Texas in early December. We lucked out with beautiful sunny skies last weekend and 70 degree weather. Now that the majority of the oaks have lost their leaves, you can easily find the live oak trees. This was a new one we found this weekend.
Thanks for stopping by and checking our progress! Hugs, Libby
In addition to building our home, we are building a detached 3 car garage/barn. As a Midwesterner, it took me a while to get used to not having an attached garage, but then I realized that almost everyone we know in Texas has a detached garage. Oh right, they don’t get snowed in down here…
Trenching for beams (footers) has begun for the barn.
Knowing that most often our cars will be parked outside (as they have been for the year we have lived here), we were able to make different decisions about the garage. The main choice was to make it a woodworking space for John, something he has never really had. Considering how many things he has built over the almost 24 years we’ve been together (decks, docks, shelving units, tables, benches, beds, and most recently owl nest boxes), it’s time. The barn will, of course, have electricity, but will also have running water for a utility sink and more.
The other feature of the barn is a small apartment for those guests who prefer more privacy or who want to stay for an extended period of time. We love having company, and we’ve already had guests stay for a week in our little rental house. That’s great, but I couldn’t take the week off because I had just used vacation days for our recent move, and we realized it would have been desirable to have a more separate space for those using our home as a home base while exploring central Texas.
The apartment will be very efficient- 2 bedrooms and a full bathroom (with a tub for families with little ones), a kitchenette, and living room – all in 600 square feet. From inside the garage, the apartment will also afford attic storage so we can put seasonal and other long term storage above the apartment.
Front porch for the apartment with a freshly poured foundation
We also added a 10 foot deep porch off the apartment to extend the apartment and give folks a private space to hang out while outside (it faces away from the house).
View into the woods from the apartment
The foundation was poured on an unusually warm day, just ahead of a cold front. It was great having a sunny day to visit the foundation and see where the garage doors will be located. And yes, we are wearing shorts on December 9th…
3 Garage doors are carved out for John’s work space
One aspect that was challenging was where to place the barn in relation to the house. First, I wanted to pull up and see the house before seeing the barn. Second, I didn’t want it to dominate the view from the back, poolside porch. But I also wanted it close enough to the house so it wouldn’t be inconvenient to walk to it on a daily basis. We also didn’t want to wipe out any oak trees for the barn. Finally, the topography had to be considered – we are building our home on top of a dome or mound – meaning that the ground slopes down from the home site on almost every side. This meant that we couldn’t put the barn too far away from the house (unless we wanted a barn on stilts) and as it is the barn contractor had to bring in dirt to make the location we chose level for the barn foundation.
View of the barn from the great room
View of the house from the barn
The dirt they brought in has now been graded around the barn
As soon as the barn foundation has cured, the metal beams, called red iron steel, will be installed. The barn construction will be very different from the house as it is a metal building, and therefore will be completed much faster. I believe they pre-fabricate all the walls and basically wrap the beams like a present.
I like how the barn almost has an infinity look because of how the land slopes away from it.
What would be your “must haves” in a barn or garage? If you come visit, will you stay in the barn apartment or in one of the guest rooms in the house? Let me know in the comments below (if you don’t see the comments below, click on the post title to go to the full post). And don’t forget to subscribe if you’d like to see more of our progress – you will only receive notifications when we upload to the blog.
Since returning from our cruise, we’ve been going to the home site each day, if only for a short amount of time. There have, of course, been a few more bumps in the road, and I am trying to remind myself that everything is figure-out-able. And maybe some of these challenges are blessings in disguise, even if it doesn’t feel like that.
One major improvement is that the road dried out enough from rains a few weeks back so the gravel base could be poured. This is not the completed road and more construction trucks and cement trucks for the barn will beat it up, but it is a base that can be used to create the final road next spring when the construction wraps up.
Windows and some of the doors have been delivered!
Windows and doors have also been delivered to the home site and the house exterior walls have been wrapped with Tyvek. John commented that he could now get a sense of the rooms and the flow of the house as everything is getting closed in.
The challenges we came home to included an issue with the thickness of the stone we wanted on the exterior chimneys. The stone would require that the living room windows get reframed and moved. Which would in turn mean that pieces of furniture inside the living room could not be placed as designed. Sigh
Living room
Living room
Dining room
Library
Kitchen
Master bedroom
Great room
Laundry room
Finally, we were told the stone on the chimneys above the roofline tends to crack and cause leaks over time. Umm, could someone have told us that back in April when we were getting bids for our house? Seriously…
Soffits going in on the porch
Those challenges aside, the home building has made great progress this week with roofing underlayment installation starting on Friday.
We enjoyed a beautiful sunset from the home site Friday night as we walked around and enjoyed all the progress made.
December 6th, and I’m wearing short sleeves outside! Standing at what will be the kitchen window. Living room and dining room looking over the valley.
Thanks for stopping by! Next I’ll post about the barn progress, as the concrete gets poured at 5 am Monday morning for the barn foundation.
John and I recently reflected that we moved to Texas about a year ago to begin this home building process. In some respects it has gone much slower than we expected, but then again, we aren’t people who like to be rushed. And it took a while to decide exactly where we wanted to place the house and which home builder (we interviewed 5) we wanted to hire.
As we were getting closer to the Thanksgiving holiday, I realized that some folks might still send Christmas cards to our old address at the lodge and wanted to get our moving cards signed and sent. And we almost got them all out before Thanksgiving! ☺️
I made the cards using A2 fold over cards and envelopes from Paper Source. The map paper also came from Paper Source, which I used as a background for the card and also as an envelope liner. The die cut of the US was purchased off Etsy. Other than that, it was simply a matter of printing the card stock, cutting and gluing…. 75 cards.
On display in our breakfast nook before being signed and sealed.
Actually, making the cards was easy. Signing all 75 of them and prodding John to sign them as well was more challenging. About 25 of the cards even went cruising with us to the Caribbean!
And they are off!
I know I’m old fashioned (in lots of ways), but I still like receiving and sending cards that are actually signed. And hopefully the hand made nature of the cards will be a little more special to people as well.
What do you think? Is this too old fashioned in today’s digital age? Let me know below! And thanks for stopping by! Hugs, Libby
Last December our friends Julia and Bob returned from a Thanksgiving week cruise and urged us to join them the following year. We had not started construction on our home, and since our own Thanksgiving traditions have been in transition since John’s mom passed and Lauren began hosting Thanksgiving at her home in New Jersey, we thought why not?
Pulling into San Juan, Puerto Rico
This was our first cruise and we relied heavily on our friends’ previous experiences and also selected our stateroom so we were just down the hall and had similar amenities.
Our cruise was an “Eastern Caribbean” cruise and ports of call included San Juan, Puerto Rico, Charlotte, St. Thomas (US Virgin Islands), Samaná, Dominican Republic, and Nassau, Bahamas along with two days at sea. I won’t review the itinerary as that is what we selected based on what our friends had already booked and there are many, many varieties of itineraries with Celebrity and all of the cruise lines.
Instead, this is a review of the Celebrity Cruise Line and the Equinox Ship.
I think John was saying, “I hate this,” while this photo was taken
Photos from the first “evening chic” night (aka, formal night)
The Bad
The positive aspects far outweigh the negative, so let’s get my criticisms over with. They mostly have to do with technology based issues.
As concierge class, the lowest of the upgraded levels, we were able to have lunch in the main dining room on embarkation day, which was lovely. But when we went to order drinks, the waiter told us that we had purchased the Classic Non-alcohol Package. Huh? No, darling, I most certainly did not pay for a Non-alcohol Package. I was even told by no less than 4 employees that I probably thought I had bought the Premium Alcohol Package, but obviously I had not.
I get it – the staff believes in their own systems and I must be a confused passenger. After digging through hundreds (literally) of emails from Celebrity, I finally found my receipt for the Premium Alcohol Package for both John and myself. After a long wait for our turn at the service desk, they reprinted our Seapass cards that you use as a room key and anytime you order anything. The whole process was stressful and freaked me out because I had purchased (and paid for) these packages MONTHS ago so I spent most of lunch searching my phone for a receipt instead of enjoying our special perk.
John and I on a catamaran to St. John’s Beautiful beach and part of the nature preserve on St. John.
Similarly, I had pre-paid for internet for 2 devices for the trip, but that did not register on the Celebrity App either. You can use the Celebrity App for free to see your schedule, message other guests, see the ship time, and check out all the activities occurring that day. It’s very similar to using an airline’s app while flying – you can check things associated with your flight and luggage, but you cannot access email or the general internet.
WiFi is not cheap – we paid $358 for 2 devices in the weeks before the trip. By Monday, I really needed internet and had to purchase internet for 2 devices again – this time for $208! Of course, another trip to the service desk had them refunding that, but still – I should not have had to do that and it is annoying that the price dropped by $150 two days into the trip.
My final criticism about the expensive WiFi is that it was incredibly slow in the staterooms. So not only is it expensive, but it sucks too – for example I couldn’t load a single photo up to this blog while on the ship.
On the helipad deck cocktail reception with Julia as we left St. Thomas, another perk from our Concierge Class. upgrade.
My final criticism has to do with the messaging aspect of the Celebrity app. Again, the app is free to use by anyone and includes the option to message other passengers, which would be great – If it worked. But unfortunately it was completely unreliable as sometimes messages went through and other times your friends received nothing, so Julia and I used What’s App to communicate. It did help that we were literally down the hall from each other, but the app really should work properly.
Check out the acrobat in mid-spin!
The Good
There were many more positive aspects of the cruise than negative aspects. First and foremost, the entertainment was surprisingly, incredibly good. Every night there is a show at 7 or 9 pm, so you can choose either time, depending upon when you are having dinner. There were 3 theater productions throughout the week with loosely organized plots highlighting singers, dancers, acrobats, and aerialists. Seriously amazing and I could put many, many more videos up.
Topper show
There were also 2 comedians and 2 musical acts that gave some nice variety throughout the week.
During the show by the musical group “Uptown”, they pulled a passenger into the stage to sing to and she introduced herself as Squirrel from Arkansas. 🐿 Not joking. Squirrel was a bit hands on during her time in the spotlight with the 3 male singers and I literally laughed until I cried watching her. I later met Squirrel, who is originally from North Carolina, and she would stop and chat with us throughout the cruise. I loved it when she was schooling John on how to play video poker (yet another Concierge Class perk was that we each got $50 in credit for the casino – combined we made $150 in cash from our time in the casino). 🤓
Posing with Squirrel at the Silent Disco (hence the blue headphones).
Another positive was the staff and the ship itself – everyone was very nice and helpful and the ship was beautiful and did not feel crowded. There are numerous comfortable places to sit and gather with friends. The bar staff at our favorite bar, the Ensemble Lounge, knew our first names and our drink preferences pretty early on. I think the cleaning staff must have cleaned 24/7 because everything was always clean, dirty plates were picked up immediately, and our room was refreshed 2-3 times a day. It was a beautiful environment for the week and our friend, Bob, even opted to stay on the ship when we arrived in the Dominican Republic because he likes being on the ship that much!
John in the Dominican Republic My favorite beach in Samaná.
Another positive aspect was the high quality and wide variety of food options. We had Select Dining in the main dining room as part of our Concierge Level perks, meaning that we could show up at anytime for dinner or lunch (on non-port days). Other guests were assigned an early or late dining appointment. The portion sizes were thankfully small, but there is still a lot of food so I usually skipped the desserts offered. I was only disappointed a few times, which is pretty impressive. The broiled lobster was great, but as someone who has made beef Wellington, theirs was NOT beef Wellington, but a sad, thin steak with some puff pastry placed around, after it had been cooked. But overall, the food was great.
Our Concierge Class also includes a tray of canapés in our stateroom every evening at 4 PM. Again, the portions sizes were small (2 deviled egg halves or 2 slices of cucumber with smoked salmon with a small sweet treat), but it was good to have something to tide us over until dinner.
Steak Frites at Qsine
They also had several specialty restaurants such as the French restaurant Murano, the Italian steakhouse called Tuscan Grille, Blu (the Aqua class only restaurant), and finally Qsine, which had a 3-D video show where 4 animated little chefs had a cooking competition.
The food at the specialty restaurants was much better, but you must pay extra to dine at them. We ate at Murano on the first night because they offered steep discounts for that night. Sorry, no pics from that night.
Arriving in Nassau, Bahamas.
Another positive aspect was finding a fun community of folks on the ship, like Squirrel referenced above. One guy on our catamaran trip to St. John’s lost his wedding ring as soon as he got into the water to snorkel. Chris, one of the 3 guys working the catamaran dove into 20+ feet deep water almost 30 times and actually found his ring. We later sat next to him and his wife at the 2nd formal night and they said they would be snorkeling again in the Bahamas – and he would be more careful on this excursion.
Chris found his wedding ring!
Finally, I would say that the enormous number of activities each day was also very impressive. There was a program placed into our room each evening that highlighted the next day’s events, which ranged from 75 to 115 separate events. It was very easy to overbook yourself between dance lessons, meditation classes, spa treatments, Bocce ball games, wine tastings, etc. Not all the activities were free, but the majority were.
Our friends, Julia and Bob opted to pay extra for the weekly pass to the Persian Garden which is a private part of the spa/workout facility that includes hydrotherapy, steam rooms, and aromatherapy rooms. They used it enough that I think they would opt for the Aqua Class upgrade in the future. We had an agreement with Julia and Bob that we would do dinner together each night, but could do our own things during the days (although we took several excursions together as well), and it seemed like a reasonable balance of together and separate time for all.
Final Analysis
Overall, the Celebrity Equinox Cruise was a great experience and one we would try again, especially with friends. We probably would have made more “cruise friends” had we been on our own. I would suggest that you take printed copies of receipts for the various perks you paid for (such as the drink package and the WiFi) as it was unfortunate and annoying that they did not have those properly recorded in our account.
Let let me know your thoughts on cruising and if you have your own review of Celebrity or other lines. (If you do not see a space below for comments, click on the title of this post to get to the original post so you may add those comments).
On Saturday John and I caught up via phone with our friends Bob and Julia, and Julia ended the conversation saying, “And put something new on that finery blog!” Yes, ma’am…
Front entryway
This week we had a lot of rain so we think the framing crew got rained out a bit, but I must admit, it rained enough that, with work commitments, John and I didn’t go up to the home site much. Saturday it was beautiful and sunny again, so up the hill we went to find that the crew had begun adding ceiling rafters above the porches and even above the guest rooms, bathrooms, and hallway.
The long porchThe pool porch
While adding this post to WordPress, none of the photos I took on my phone would upload to this post via my iPhone or MacBook Air. What gives? Sigh… Fine, I found a workaround that made the pics much smaller WordPress…
From the master bedroom, looking at the great roomMud room entrance
Our friend Gary came to the homesite with us on Sunday and, as a commercial builder for 20 years, provided some helpful insights into this part of the process. Gary commented that this part of the build is the best and the worst. Why? Well it’s the best because you can really see the house in 3D and can literally walk through the rooms. But it’s the worst because John and I are second guessing everything. Do we want to extend this wall another foot? What would that do to the flow? Is the hallway (shown below) too narrow?
The hallway really feels like a hallway now
Ugh – the reality is that the house is being built based on plans we designed, tweaked, approved, and have lived with for the last 18 months. So we need to quit doing this crazy double guessing of our choices. Having said that, we are meeting with our site supervisor on Tuesday afternoon to discuss a few minor changes.
Looking at the entryway porch
Thanks for stopping by and looking at our progress. I’ll try to get a few more posts up this week including progress on our barn and our new compost pile near the future garden location.
This weekend my friend from middle school and high school, Matthew, came for a short weekend visit. Although I had just visited with Matthew a few weeks ago at a mutual friend’s wedding, it was great to have more time to catch up. And to show him our home site!
master bedroom far wall with French Doors
master bedroom wall with two windows
master bedroom fireplace with two windows
master bathroom shower stall
master bathroom water closet
master bathroom – where the tub will go
small library where John will have an office space
Some things we noticed right away is that the master bedroom and bathroom was fully framed out (above). Yay!
We also had our first cocktail with company on the porch too! Picture by Matthew.
After walking around the property a bit, we took Matthew on a tour of the house. And the windows are all framed out now (except the kitchen windows for some reason).
Great roomliving and dining room Looking into the kitchen – the only room that doesn’t have the windows fully framed out
While visiting the house, Matthew took pictures to send to his mom so she could know what her guest room looks like. 😂
The bracing is up so they can begin to frame out the roof next.
One comment Matthew made (other than, “this does not suck” – praise indeed Matthew), was that he thought house guests would feel like they are at a resort. I think that would be great! That has been part of our goal – we want the house to be very comfortable both for us and for friends and family when they visit.
Enjoying the view with our friend At Monument Hill on Sunday – another great view!
We love having friends visit – our home is designed for entertaining – and we look forward to other friends and family coming to see our progress as the home builder continues.
On Tuesday we went up to the home site after work and found some of the exterior walls have been put up!!
Holy cow! Walls are going up!
What a difference a day makes! We can finally get a sense of the size of the rooms and how tall 10’ ceilings really are…
Door to nowhere? Actually, it’s from the smallest bathroom out to the pool porch.Here’s the wall just off our entryway going up!
They really made great progress this week and it was fun to visit the site every day after work or on a lunch break to see the walls going up! As a thank you, I made some lemon poppy seed muffins for the crew.
Lemon poppyseed muffins to say thank you to the framing crewWhen I asked Russel if I could take his photo he responded, “it’s up in every post office around here, but sure!”
Now John and I can walk around and really get a sense of the home we have designed! A few notes for those who are curious about our forever home – it is a single story so we don’t have to worry about cooling an upstairs (which can be very expensive in the Texas heat), and it has 10 foot ceilings to make the home more energy efficient during the summer months. Add in the planned ceiling fans in almost every room and the deep covered porches, and you can see how we have thought about the 40+ days of 💯 degree heat we will experience each summer.
Here I am in my future office on November 6th. Yes, I am wearing shorts in November because it was 84 Fahrenheit that day!Guest bedroom and pantry wall going up.
Great room fireplace and built ins
Looking into the great room
South wall of the great room – opposite the fireplace
Small bathroom off the great room
Storage behind the great room
John in the storage room
More walls ready to go upDining room looking into the living room
I finally asked one of the framers why they don’t have the bottoms of the windows framed out. He said they will get all the walls up, make sure they are perfectly square, and then add the lower threshold for the windows. Who knew?
The exterior walls and walls around bathrooms are 2X6 construction while the other interior walls are 2X4.
We’ve had a couple days of rainy, cold weather (well, cold for here), so I’m excited to get back to the site and see what progress has been made. Next comes the roof framing!
Previously I wrote about finding an error of omission while visiting the home site. After arriving home from my latest work trip, John and I went out to the home site to see the progress that had been made and I immediately found another error.
That’s a lot of lumber ya’ll!
John has now nicknamed me “eagle eye”.
In our architect’s drawings, we had a mechanical closet planned near the front door. Originally, it was supposed to be a second, matching coat closet, but when our Illinois-based architect (with whom we had worked during our multiple home remodeling projects) realized that we don’t have basements in Texas, he suggested we turn part of the library (shown above as a sitting area) into into a mechanical closet.
Edited plan with our home builder and site supervisor
Our home builder, however, suggested that we put those mechanical elements up in the attic. Duh – when we remodeled the lake cottage in 2010, we put the new furnace up in the attic. Why didn’t I think of that? Maybe because the architect suggested putting the mechanical closet in there? Hmm. Isn’t it funny how quickly we give our power away because of someone’s title or expertise….
Re-designing your house on the fly is not recommended… We also changed the entrance into the laundry room.
Same thing happened near our laundry room – the architect added a mechanical closet off the mud room and laundry room for cold air return, water heater, etc. Again – all of this can be put up in the attic.
The obviously incorrect closet on the right.
So although our home builder and site supervisor had these small changes on their plans, somehow this did not get translated to Cody’s framing crew.
Where is my red pencil?
When we arrived Monday morning to talk about the issue, the framing crew was great and we made all the corrections on their copy of the house plans.
What mistake?Already fixed!
It also gave us an opportunity to rearrange a slight awkwardness with the laundry room and mud room. Now John will be able to come in from the barn and go straight to the laundry room to drop off dirty work clothing.
Improved laundry room layout
Some aspects of the house are easier to envision once you begin seeing the green-treated lumber laid out on the slab. And that’s when you notice the issues – like how a door is going to open the wrong way.
Thank you to Victor and the other members of the framing crew for fixing these issues so quickly!
Later, we came back after the work day was over and saw that they were beginning to frame up the exterior walls. Wow!
This is the picture window in the living room with the two small windows on either side. Not sure why there is no lower limit for the windows yet. Future doorway into the dining roomButlers pantry and guest room to the left
The crew has been great to work with, but we are again reinforced in our belief that it is important to be onsite and to check on the construction every day. Like the previous error, this was an easy and quick fix because we caught it early. It would have been a bigger pain once the wall studs start going up.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the process in the comment section below. Thanks for stopping by and see you soon!
This week, my work brought me to Ottawa, Canada for a few days of training. The training was organized very last minute (for which they apologized multiple times) and could *only* be done on October 31-November 1. Meanwhile back in Texas, John went to a Halloween party at our landlord’s house, which I had to miss. Shoot!
My colleague, Oliver, helped organize most of the event, so I was surprised when I arrived and everyone spoke French! Je parle un peu le francais, but certainly not enough to do two days of training on business topics. Comment dites-vous revenue model en francais?
It’s almost not cloudy!
My colleagues at work say that I have a “Canada curse” because almost every time I fly to Canada, I get delayed, rerouted, or even get snowed in overnight and this trip was no different. Thanks to strong storms across the US, my morning flight out of Austin to Chicago was delayed by more than 3 hours, which required me to rebook my connections. Long story shortened, I finally arrived in Ottawa at 1 AM, crashed in my hotel room and then had to be up and training by 9 AM. Ouch.
A sunny pic in the hotel elevator.
Ottawa, Canada’s national capital, seems to be a lovely city (of about 1.5 million people), but unfortunately it was rainy for the first 36 hours and very cold the entire time I visited. So the picture above (of a picture from my hotel’s elevator) is the prettiest shot I have of the Parliament building. The other interesting note is how difficult it is to get here. The airport is tiny with limited flights. My training participants told me they either took 8 hours bus rides to get here or had to pay $1200 for a domestic flight here. Ouch again.
On Friday night it finally stopped raining and I had awoken that morning with a sore throat. Since I could not leave Ottawa until Saturday (again very few flights into Canada’s Capitol city), I searched for a place for dinner “pour un”. Trip Advisor helpfully let me know that just a 10 minute walk from my hotel in downtown is Sansotei Ramen. In fact, it is rated #4 of 2,218 restaurants in Ottawa.
The reviews were indeed superlative! What I wasn’t quite prepared for was the line outside the building.
The line in front of meThe line behind me
Yep, I waited outside in 34 degree Fahrenheit weather for more than 40 minutes. I thought about bailing, but being alone in a foreign city – what else did I have to do? Plus this place is legit – the website is in Japanese first and English second. But no French? How very un-Canadian!
Sansotei Ramen’s menu in English Hot tea, to warm my cold hands and ease my sore throat
I’m not sure if it was worth the 40 minute wait out in the cold, but it WAS the best ramen I have ever had. The last ramen I had was in Curitiba, Brazil with John when he had the sniffles. There is just something about a good Japanese ramen soup when the weather gets cold!
Miso Black Ramen with the best gyoza I have ever had. I could not eat all the noodles but really enjoyed the broth!My dish had spicy Kakuni – a simmered pork belly.
The guys in line next to me were friendly, although they mostly spoke French. They asked me to take their photo and in return I snapped a photo of one of their ramen bowls. This was the tonkotsu.
Tonkotsu – a basic ramen dish with pork belly
My dinner, with 18% tip, was $22 USD – very reasonable. Especially at the 4th most popular restaurant in Ottawa…
It’s a little sad that my highlight of this trip is ramen, but sometimes that’s just how it goes – the weather didn’t cooperate. Thankfully I’m flying home today to Texas, just before the snow hits Ottawa. Brrr! 🥶
View from my seat on the flight back to the states.
Have you had good luck traveling to Canada? 🇨🇦 What is the best ramen you have ever had? Let me know in the comments below and thanks for stopping by!
John and I have really been enjoying visiting our home site since the foundation was poured. It’s been much easier to envision the floor plan of the house with plumbing and electrical stubbing in place.
Entryway
Entryway porch – you can see the outline for the fireplace
Living room – the yellow circle is for a floor outlet
Guest bathrooms – you can see the shower has rain water in the base
Master bathroom – also has rain water in the shower base
Great room – you can see two yellow circles for the floor outlets
Pool porch – the barn will be in the distance from this view
And John has not slowed in his enthusiasm for finding native american artifacts. The car is typically laden with new tooled pieces of every shape and size. But more on that later…
John at dusk
Today prep work began on the barn site. Our ranch home does not have an attached garage – not unusual in the country. In fact, of our family and friends in the country, I cannot think of one that has a garage they can walk into from the interior of the house.
Rolling out the barn location
The garage will be on the southwest side of the house, behind the great room. To access it, we’ll likely leave the house from the mud room, adjacent to the laundry room. This way all that “work in the yard” stuff can stay in one location.
Drive up to the barn site
We debated holding off on the barn/garage, but realized quickly it will be a good location for holding building supplies as well as our our furniture and belongings as soon as we can get another moving truck down from the Midwest.
The barn will also eventually hold a small, 2 bedroom, 1 bath, 600 square foot apartment with a kitchenette (no oven or dishwasher). This will be perfect for those friends and family who want to visit for a week or more, for Spring Break, for example. I won’t be able to take time off from work every time we have weekday visitors, so they can stay in the apartment so we don’t have to feel that we have to entertain constantly.
Framing lumber is delivered – note the water still in our master bath shower base!
The other progress made was two huge truck loads full of lumber for framing. This way everything will be ready for the framers in another week after the foundation is fully cured.
With this delivery, we will also be adding a lock on the gate. This lumber wasn’t free and unfortunately we have heard from our site supervisor of other home building sites being robbed when left open and not attended. What an awful drag that would be!
Sunset on the slab
Actually, I’m considering adding a game camera that could capture the build as it goes as well as provide security for any who might be inclined to trespass or even steal. What do you think? Let me know in the comment below.
First, did you know there is a whole world of concrete memes? I did not and am resisting all of my instincts to post some of the funnier ones here now. Instead, let’s focus on the fact that the most concrete thing we could do was lay a foundation that will cement our steps before we hit the asphalt.
Sorry, I had to…
Walking up the hill before dawn.
John and I were really impressed with the foundation crew – they had lighted barrels to mark the drive entrance for the concrete trucks, huge lights for the workers, and put up red tape across our neighbors driveway to be sure that no construction vehicles used their road.
It was a beautiful October morning in Texas – 65º F pre-dawn with a high around 78º F by noon.
By the time we arrived at 6:30 AM they were on Cement Truck number 22 and pouring for our great room. The local company used is called Lauren concrete – which we thought was fun since that is our daughter’s name!
It’s as though the universe wanted Lauren to be a part of our day!
I tried to stay out of everyone’s way as they poured and leveled the concrete. While we watched and chatted, the sun rose and they were able to turn off the big spotlights.
Selfie pre-dawn at the foundation pour!
Here comes truck #24!
These guys jobs get harder and harder
Incredible attention to detail as they smooth!
We were so grateful that we could be there that morning to see our home’s foundation being poured and to say thank you to everyone! I set out a tray with the cinnamon strudel muffins and whole carton of orange juice when the crew had a chance to take a break.
Breakfast break is ready!
Unfortunately, I had to head back for an 8 AM staff meeting, but John was able to stay and capture a few more shots. The crew was also really nice to him and shared their breakfast tacos wrapped in foil with him.
The sun coming up as we walked back down the hill so I could get to work.
While I worked, John captured the porches being poured. It was really fun to see a particular area “take shape”. Also, they did all of the house interior before doing the exterior porches. Below is a 10 foot deep porch off our master bedroom being poured.
This is the small covered patio off our master bedroom
Here comes the pour!
Getting everything smooth
Done and ready for my lounger for morning coffee!
At lunch I was able to come back and see everyone smoothing out the cement with concrete polishing machines. In all, it took 27 trucks full of concrete to complete our foundation slab. It is supposed to rain tonight, which everyone says is perfect timing. Apparently, the concrete is quite hot as it is poured, so the rain will help to cool and cure the foundation faster.
Pins on along the exterior walls
Winding up…
And the pitch!
Muffins and orange juice were all gone!
Polishing the concrete
Finally, before leaving, John and I inserted a 2019 penny into the foundation on the front porch near the front entry door. We’ve heard lots of stories of people marking their foundations – adding animal prints (one gentleman told us he had shot a deer and used the hooves to make a track across his front porch), adding hand prints or initials, throwing coins across the foundation, etc. We opted for a penny to represent the year when the foundation was poured, to provide good luck (it is heads up) and to represent our years in Illinois, since honest Abe is the face on pennies and Illinois is the Land of Lincoln…
Placing the penny on the entryway porch
Our lucky penny on the front porch!
Close up of our lucky penny
The foundation will now cure for a week or so before the framing begins and the framing lumber is being delivered on Monday, so the plot (and foundation) thickens!
This gentleman was removing the uprights between the porch and the great room. You can see the shape of the great room fireplace!
Had you ever heard of any of these foundation marking rituals? Which would you or have you done? As always, thanks for stopping by!
Thanks so much to Wesley for being there all morning to make sure everything went great!!
John and I returned from a lovely weekend reconnecting with friends in the Midwest and…. wow… things kept moving and grooving while we were gone!
Vapor barrier is in place and will keep the floors from sweating on humid Texas days.
When visiting the home site on Wednesday, we saw that the rebar and vapor barrier were all in place and they were also adding framing to show the porches from the interior of the house. Plumbing was also stubbed out as well!
Laundry room in the foreground with 2 guest baths off to the left.
It was great to see the plumbing stubbed out, because that helped us (me) to see where the rooms are really located in the house.
Master bathroom showerLooking at what will be the front door.
And as I was reviewing all of the work done, I realized that something was MISSING! There was no plumbing stubbed out for the outdoor kitchen. Thankfully, I could get in touch with Wesley, our site supervisor.
As we reviewed the house plan, we realized that the architect’s drawing says, “Final Layout by Others” and doesn’t actually show a sink. Oops.
We caught this in plenty of time so the plumber came back and the electrician also was notified to run conduit to the outdoor island as well. Whew!
Adding the plumbing for the outdoor kitchen sink by the future swimming pool.
This definitely reinforced the importance of being on site as work is being done. If I had not caught that, we would have had to jackhammer the porch floor up to install the sink, which would have been a pain as well as difficult to hide in the newly poured porch floor.
View of Prairie Valley – it isn’t as good from the house site yet as we haven’t trimmed up any trees. But this is why we have a long porch along the living and dining room side of the house.
John and I spoke with Arturo, who has been in charge of the foundation crew, and Donovan, who will be in charge of the concrete pump. The concrete work begins at 3 AM and will be done pumping by 8 or 9 am. Then removing some of the interior framing and final smoothing will take until 12 noon or so.
Looking from the living room towards the dining room and butler’s pantry. Two guest rooms (one will be my office) are beyond the plumbing stub for the butler’s pantry.
At 5 pm, after the foundation crew had left, we met our barn builder on site to discuss that work, which will begin next week. He commented that whoever did our foundation “knew what they were doing”, which is reassuring since I’m not sure I could identify quality work from shoddy work.
I finally had to admit to John that, yes, the front porch is rather “roomy”. And long.
Knowing that everyone has an early morning tomorrow, I decided to make cinnamon muffins for the crew (that was Wesley’s request) the night before. We just want them to know how much we appreciate them working such long hours on our house!
Better Crocker mix for Cinnamon Strudel muffins
So that’s it until tomorrow and the cement trucks begin showing up! Anyone want to guess how many trucks they estimate it will take? 🙂
This past weekend found John and I back in the Midwest for a wedding and long weekend with friends. One of my oldest friends, Neil, and his honey, Brian tied the knot after 6 years of blending a family.
Me with the grooms.
Part of the fun was that multiple high school friends traveled back for the festivities and these days it’s unusual to say that you’ve been friends with someone since you were 12 or 14 years old. But that is just how long I’ve been friends with this crazy crew.
Middle school and high school friends back together. Who knew that spending our lunch hours in the student newspaper and year book room would keep us friends for more than 30 years??
So the weekend was a bit of a mini reunion as well as a chance to do some work on our lake cottage, which is on the market (I’ll tag a post about that later).
Guests were highly encouraged to wear tweed. Boat rides at the lake and other reunion fun not pictured.Sorry to brag, but John’s tweed coat cost $9 at a thrift store. I think he has a tweed coat somewhere in storage, but where???? It’s a mystery…
On our trips to and from, we stopped off at the Admiral’s Clubs in DFW (on the way North) and ORD (on the way South), and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the American Airlines Admiral’s Clubs have significantly upped their free food game. No more cubed cheese and weird salad made from couscous (or was that a pearled barley? Either way, it wasn’t good.). Instead they had a REAL salad bar!
Lettuce, tomatoes, grilled chicken (crumbled bacon was another option). This is with a vinaigrette but there was also a honey mustard dressing option.
OK, you may think this isn’t a big deal, but with a cup of soup (tomato basil soup in DFW not pictured), it makes a full meal in a way that cubes of cheese just can’t cut (boy-pun intended).
Make your own Mac and cheese in O’Hare!! With a cup of unsweetened iced tea.
The make your own Mac and cheese at the club in ORD was really good and thankfully they have these small cups so it’s easier to do portion control. Being gluten sensitive, John did not have this but he did enjoy the custom made guacamole and chips.
Happy hour guacamole and chips with corn, jalapeños, tomatoes, lime juice, and crumbled cheese.
By the way, the freshly made happy hour guacamole and chips (and in the morning it’s custom made avocado toast – with smoked salmon as an option!) are only available in larger Admiral’s Clubs. My “home” Admiral’s Club in Austin is much smaller and does not offer this perk (but it is still my favorite club).
Free house wine and Hendricks with lime, which is not free.
In case you are considering springing for a club membership or for a day pass, I should mention that there are also lots of free drink options including coffee, hot chocolates, lattes, hot & iced tea, sodas, flavored waters, and house wine, beer, and spirits. The premium drinks, like Hendricks gin, are an extra fee. In fact, 3 Hendricks on the rocks (one for me and two for John over the course of 3 hours) cost $40 before tip.
Anyway, it was a wonderful trip “home”, except it didn’t feel like home as much anymore, which was a bit odd. John and I discussed how much our heart is in our building project and that’s where “home” is – even if we are living temporarily in a rental house. We are both looking forward to getting back and seeing the progress made on the foundation and a better (less steep) driveway up to the house site.
Would love to hear your feedback – either about your experiences with airline clubs or even your own with mini reunions with friends!
This week we’ve been very excited to see the foundation framing go up. A crew of four measured and created the frames, then brought in 14 dump trucks of dirt to create part of the foundation.
Outside forms are up!
From there they began creating trenches for the concrete “beams” that will be poured next week, although I want to call them footers for obvious reasons. They seem to run along what will be walls some of the time.
Arturo is the man!The fireplace in our master bedroomLots of “beams” have now been dug!
John, ever the treasure seeker, has loved searching through the dirt that they have trenched out to find arrowheads and other native american artifacts. He promises to add a blog post showcasing some of his finds.
The hunter at work
Maybe it is obvious to everyone else, but I had to ask why they brought the dirt in. By compacting the dirt, they will use less concrete on top. And dirt is, of course, much cheaper than concrete…
It’s challenging to get a sense of scale. Aspects of it seem huge and other areas don’t feel that large. The foundation is much larger than the house interior because we have lots of covered porches designed into our house. The idea is that you can (almost always) sit outside on one side of the house or the other, depending upon where the sun is and whether you want to be in the sun or shaded from it.
The view into the courtyard from the kitchen – I think…
Hopefully we earned some brownie points with our foundation guys. Arturo is supposed to be the best (as our road guy told us) and everyone wants his crew to do their house. I brought a bag of homemade Pumpkin Spice muffins to the site for the crew as a thank you for working on our house. It was a Trader Joe’s Gluten Free mix, but they don’t need to know all that… Next week when they begin pouring the concrete, I will have to come up with another treat to say thank you.
Trader Joe’s makes some good stuff.
While we were at the home site, taking pictures (me) and searching for treasures (John), our first big rig with materials arrived. Rebar! The rest of this week and early next week will be creating the rebar structure and plumbing in the “beams”. We also found a good site downhill and away from the beautiful oak trees for the septic system to run. Ahh, the joys of building in the country.
Alas, we must pull ourselves away from the home site for a few days as we travel back North for the weekend, so it will be exciting to see these materials in place in the foundation of the house.
So let me know if you’ve ever built a house (we certainly have not) – was this part of the process easy or not? And did you bring treats to your crews? I need ideas for treats and ways to say thank you to them. As John says, for them, it’s just another job, but for us – it’s our forever home! Thanks for stopping by and would love to see your ideas for treats!
Building on family land that hasn’t been “improved” has many challenges – including the basic and early step of actually getting to it!
What still needs to be cleared. The whole road bed looked like this.
It’s a complicated situation – how John’s grandfather’s land was divided in the 1990’s – but the portion that my late mother-in-law inherited has a 40 foot wide deeded strip of land that connects the rest of the 177 acres to the state highway. Without this 1.1 acres of land, this property would be landlocked. And it has never been cleared in the 24 years I’ve been with John. Until now.
As we prepare for backhoes, bulldozers, concrete trucks and trucks heavy with timber and other materials, we needed our own road to get the materials to our home site (we were previously using a neighbor’s road that is adjacent to our property, but they didn’t want those heavy trucks beating up their road).
Hence the clearing has begun so groundbreaking can begin soon.
I was really happy when I saw the work! First – I cannot believe how fast the crew is at clearing – all of this was done in just one day! And I love how many trees they left – I was really concerned it would look like “scorched earth” with everything decimated.
Our new “road” headed to the state highway. On the right is the neighbor’s road, which is OK for cars, but not for big cement trucks.
Now the final 1/3 needs to be cleared out to the road. I think there may be some heavy rock laid down so the trucks don’t get stuck in mud, but I’m not positive. Thankfully John has been in charge of this part of the process!
This has definitely been part of what is different building out in the country, versus building on a lot you purchased in a neighborhood. We have to do all of the infrastructure ourselves, but in the end we know it will be worth it!
Have you ever built a house or needed to bring in infrastructure? Would love to hear your thoughts and thanks for stopping by!
Today, on October 1, 2019, I’m reflecting on John and I purchasing our first home together. We purchased it 20 years ago today and we nicknamed it the lodge because it, well, felt like a lodge in the woods. Our daughter was 7 at the time and we were thrilled to close on this house. It had plenty of room for us, for entertaining, and – most of all – it had a fantastic, large 4 acres yard in the city limits of Bloomington, IL.
We put the lodge on the market in May 2019 as part of our transition to Texas. We just can’t take care of a home on 44 acres in Texas AND a home on 4 acres (that is 1,000 miles away in Illinois) too.
Entry Foyer
The lodge sold in just 5 days. It was exciting and stressful at the same time – this meant we had less than 1 month to move out of our home of 19 years and 9 months! Pictures of living room, dining room, and kitchen are below. These were the realtor photos when the house was staged. Many pieces and rugs were already removed and living in our rental home in Texas.
As I write this in a rental home in Smithville, Texas, it makes me nostalgic, of course, but also excited to begin our forever home here in Texas. I’m very grateful we found this rental home, but it isn’t our home and it definitely feels like we are in limbo as we wait to get started and to move.
Plus I also miss many of the pieces of furniture in these pictures that are now in storage. I can’t wait to get my hands on them again and place, stage, and decorate them in our ranch home!
Have you had to live in limbo for an extended period of time? We’ve been in rental homes in Texas since November 2018, getting everything ready to break ground. It feels like forever at this point! Let me know your experiences or reflections in the comments below and thanks for stopping by!
Hello and welcome to Farm and Finery. This website is all about our journey from life in a mid-sized college town to life on a 44 acre farm. Except it isn’t a farm – yet.
We are breaking ground (I hope) in October 2019. This was supposed to occur in July 2019, then August, then September… But I think we finally have all the many, many moving pieces in place. The land has been separated from the rest of my mother in law’s estate and deeded in our name. After meeting, interviewing, and vetting 5 home builders, we’ve selected the one for us and after shopping around for construction loans from 4 lending institutions, we’ve crunched the numbers and are ready to close on our construction loan.
This blog will document this journey, both for us and for family and friends who are interested in following along. I’ll also highlight some of my adventures as I travel for work – a lot.
Let me know in the comments below if there is anything in particular you would like covered as we get our blog up and running. I’m very open to suggestions as neither John nor I have ever done anything like this! To continue following the journey from the beginning, scroll down and click on the name of the next blog post under “next”. And thanks so much for stopping by!
