Furniture has been ordered!

A handful of stores and catalogs later ... and after several weeks of comparing items ... we finally made all final decisions on the furniture that we need to order for the house and ordered it yesterday! We were able to order it and have them hold it for delivery until we're in the house - perfecto!

The couch set pictured above is the exact set we already have that we'll be putting in our basement.  After looking at every couch under the sun, we realized that we love this set SO much, that we should just buy it again for the living room, just in a different color.  The color swatch above is what we've special ordered.

This will be our dining room table and hutch.  The table has a 18" leaf as well.  We knew we wanted something with a backless bench and I think this piece is timeless!

We ordered two of these chairs.  The master bedroom has a sitting area and we will be putting these two chairs there with a small reading table in between.  They rock and recline ... ahhhhh.

This is the dinette set for the morning room.  We wanted something that looked 'fresh' in there.  It has a built-in 12" leaf.

I don't have pictures of the coffee table or end tables, but those were ordered yesterday as well!

We've Broke Ground!

We received a phonecall on Friday morning that our basement was going to be dug that day.  As you can imagine, Kevin and I had to restrain ourselves from jumping in the car immediately to watch all the excitement.  We kept ourselves from driving out there until about 2:30pm.  When we got to our lot, the it became very real that we are now proud owners of a huge hole and several piles of dirt!

I assume that no work was done over the holiday weekend, so I am excited to see what happens over the course of this next week!

Pre-Construction Meeting

My lack of posts is a huge indicator of how extremely exhausted I've been. We officially moved out of our house on Sunday, May 9th, closed on the 10th, and handed over keys on the 15th. It was a very bittersweet day. Kevin and I walked through each room, recalling memories from each, and had a good, hard cry in our backyard. We were both thinking back to Oliver - our first 'baby' who we lost just three days after he turned four years old. We had to put him to sleep this past November after he suddenly became sick. It was all too unexpected. We have so many memories with Oliver at the house, and especially of him running like a free soul in the backyard. That was very hard to step away from. But like Kevin said - "It's just a house. We will forever have our memories". He is so right.


I called the realtor's office on the 15th around 11am to tell them we were just walking out and everything was ready for the buyer. I then realized I'd left the garage door opener in our other car back at my in-law's. I drove back there to get it and back over to our house - it took 15 minutes total. When I pulled in, the buyer was already there. Talk about eager! Hey, I'd be that way, too. But that was truly my final goodbye to 7436 Jeremy Avenue.


We're now living in a pretty unorganized fashion at my in-law's. We are so blessed to have a place to stay, rent-free. The transition didn't even affect Riley at all. We took her actual crib to their house, although they already had one that she was used to napping in during the week. We thought this would make her feel like absolutely nothing had changed, and I think that was a good move. Kevin and I have stacks of boxes in our room and are living off of a very trimmed down wardrobe right now. I keep telling myself that time is going to fly by.

Last Thursday we had our "Pre-Construction / Roadmap Meeting" with our Project Manager. During this meeting we re-reviewed all of our selections from the house, from the style of home, to colors, to flooring.  It was really comforting to go through everything one more time, with someone new, just to make sure we were all on the same page.  We were excited to hear that we could request that our walk-in closet shelving be hung a foot higher than what is standard.  We want to add a second row of shelving below it (to double closet space in a simple way), and it needs to be hung at 7' rather than 6' for this to work.  The project manager said this won't be an issue. 
 
He also added a closet under the stairs in the basement!  This isn't an option we had selected originally just because I didn't want to spend several hundred dollars for a smaller storage closet.  However, he needs a place for a small water meter and said since we're finishing almost every other part of the basement, that would be the best spot.  I won't pass up extra storage for zero additional cost!
 
We also hadn't realized until just before that meeting that the garage has only one outlet in it (realized it thanks to this super helpful Blog written by another person building with Ryan Homes for the first time!).  This just won't do.  Now we will have have four outlets in the garage.  Woohoo!! 
 
We also handed over the biggest check I've ever written in my entire life, as we passed over our downpayment. Exciting stuff! We are scheduled to break ground this week and are just awaiting the phone call to confirm that we officially own a huge hole in the ground any day now!  Ha! 

Sell ... Check. Move ... Check.

I just realized that two of the three main points of the title of this entire blog can be checked off of my list.  Sell ... check!  Move ... check!

Three days of pure exhaustion later, we are (almost) moved out of our house at 7436 Jeremy Avenue and settling in at my in-law's home. AND, yesterday we received the phone call that the title has fully transferred to the buyer and everything is officially complete in regards to the sale of our house. Ahhhhh - a breath of relief.

 The weather couldn't have been much worse for a moving day. It was very cold (low 50s), rainy, and just miserable. We were blessed to have a lot of help and they were all troopers. Kevin picked up the uhaul truck around 1pm. We had considered making the move without one - and using my dad's pickup to move all the furniture. That would have been a nightmare. It took three full uhaul trips to storage to get the main things out of the house ... and then some follow-up trucks with my dad's truck. I am just so, so thankful for the help and willingness of everyone through it all - no one ever complained or stopped until the job was done.

My parents stayed the night and got right back up with us on Mother's Day to continue boxing things up. I absolutely hate getting to the point where you just start throwing stuff into boxes. I am an overly organized person, so the thought of something being in a box with something else completely unrelated or even (gasp!) belonging in two separate rooms makes me itch ... but it had to be done. My mom shampooed nearly every square inch of our basement carpet while my Dad and Kevin took trip after trip of things to my in-law's house. My parents didn't leave on Sunday until 7:30pm ... to make their 3.5 hour drive back home. I am so, so appreciative of them.


I am just as appreciative of Kevin's parents. His mom watched Riley all day Saturday while we moved things out, and of course - the biggie - they've opened their home to us for the next several months. I must say it again - we are overly blessed.

So now what? We went to the development yesterday and met with our sales rep. We had to sign another addendum due to adding another outlet to a closet (where our components like DVR, DVD, etc will be housed for the main level). During this meeting we were scheduled for our pre-construction meeting with our project manager. We will be meeting with him on Friday, May 21st. We were also told the awesome news that there is a chance we could move ground-breaking up another week, meaning we could break ground as early as next Wednesday, May 19th. This would be INCREDIBLE if true. Going with their 10-week build estimate, this would put us right around July 28th to get our keys. Our storage unit contract renews on the 2nd of each month, and the manager there told me she could give us until the 5th to get things out, so this could shave one month off of our storage, saving us just over $200 from that. Love, love, love it! This just makes everything seem like it is happening so fast now. I can't wait until we see that big, beautiful basement dug!



Lastly, they have our SOLD sign for our lot and it should be going up this week. Of course, I must get a picture of it. And our SOLD sign will be posted in our front yard this Wednesday. We hand keys over on Saturday and that will be the end of our first chapter.

Let the Moving Begin!

It's unofficially the start of moving weekend.  This morning at 10am, a representative from the title company came to our house and we signed everything necessary for closing.  Due to some weekend plans that would make her unavailable, our buyer has signed all of her papers, too.  We're all set for the closing to be official on Monday.  That's a great feeling.

Kevin and I got the storage unit last Sunday, and have been taking car loads of boxes over each night.  Our goal is to have almost all of the boxes there so that we can focus all of everyone's time and energy on furniture tomorrow.

My parents will arrive with their truck tomorrow afternoon.  We get the uhaul at 1pm.  Friends should start showing up around that time as well.  I just hope that all goes smoothly and no furniture gets damaged in the transition.  We hope to just have to pack up our bed, our guest bed, and Riley's bed Sunday morning on my dad's truck - then we'll be out.  We don't officially hand over keys until the 15th, but if we have the house cleaned and yard cut prior to then, we'll hand them over early.  I want to give the place a good scrub - especially since I haven't done much cleaning in the past two weeks - so that when the buyer comes she feels good the moment she steps in the door!

Here we go - really about to embark on the next chapter of our lives!

Ahhhh ... I Can Breathe.

I am breathing a sigh of relief. Can you hear it?


Kevin went to the city council meeting himself last night. He wanted to hear first hand what was being discussed in regards to Heisley Park. I am awfully glad he did this - hearing it first hand is the best thing right now. Anyhow, it was a unanimous vote FOR basements to be built, based on the studies conducted and the city engineer's final recommendation. This is great news, of course, because without the ability to have a basement built, we wouldn't be building. Kevin even met the district manager for Ryan Homes and got to chat it up with him for a bit.

All in all, Kevin left with a great feeling - which means that I now have a great feeling. So that whole thing is behind us. We had to sign a paper that basically said that if the city did NOT approve basements to be built, that we would proceed with the purchase of the house, but that is a null point since they did approve. It may not make sense to you why we had to sign that after the fact. Well, the truth is that it needed to have been signed by last Friday ... prior to knowing the outcome of the meeting. Our sales rep was just kind enough to recognize our concern over the matter that she allowed us to sign and date it ... but take the paperwork home with us. We had to drop it off this morning and gladly did, now knowing the outcome.


Oh - and she gave us the good news that it looks like our ground-breaking date may move up a week! It's possible we could be breaking ground May 24th ... so THIS month!!