The Importance of Being There

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 shower
Looking 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? 🙂

Hugs, Libby

2 Replies to “The Importance of Being There”

  1. It is really happening. The footprint is ginormous! Looking forward to watching these updates. Super exciting.

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