Hilton's Home: January 2010

Hello to all. I hate that life is so busy that I can't keep our blog updated! A few weeks back I had all intentions of catching up and it never really happened. So much is going on around here! Where do I begin... campmeeting in October, Thanksgiving in November, Russ' grandma spending a month in the hospital, Christmas, New Years. Oh, and don't forget about work and house building! We also had a wonderful break from our "not so normal life" by going to Ireland for 8 days after Thanksgiving. What a wonderful trip! Luckily we made it through a very busy time of year and are excited about the things to come in 2010.

First let me start by saying thank you to SuSu and Mr. David for letting us crash at their house for more than half of 2009! We are so lucky to have this opportunity. Another thank you goes to Mr. David for all his help with building our house. What a blessing! Also, thanks to my parents - Bimmie, Daddy Do, and Mama D. They have fed us, stored our belongings, helped with decorating decisions, and listened to us gripe about the craziness of this project! An extra thanks goes to my dad for his never ending willingness to come down to our house in the middle of the night to answer code questions! We have such wonderful family!!

The house is coming along nicely. We've been working on the inside for quite some time. The weather outside is frightful so we are happy to have a roof over our heads! The siding is going up too, just not quite as fast as we would like! We work on it on Saturdays if the weather is decent. We are working on plumbing, electricity, and the HVAC installation right now too. They all kinda mingle together so each night we work on all of them.

In the beginning of this project we were hoping to be finished in 1 year. Our 1 year anniversary of the project is coming up on March 25th. That was the day we made the decision to actually build. We've worked nonstop ever since! May, June and half of July were consumed with building the shed and garage. Our first day on the house was July 18th. With that said, I guess our 1 year anniversary of the house will be July 18, 2010! I sure hope we finish before then! If not, I might go crazy!

We are really working to get all the code required items finished first. We can't move in until they give us a "Certificate of Occupancy." The "CO" is our main goal right now. We need to have all the plumbing, electrical, sheet rock, HVAC, siding, porches, and the rest of the stuff that makes a house safe finished before we are handed a CO. The things that can wait are paint, cabinet doors, staining the floors, molding, etc. (All the pretty stuff). So, we will probably get our CO before we are completely finished but at least we won't have to worry about building codes by then! Hopefully our CO will come early spring, maybe by March 25th, so we can start staying the night in the house. We aren't looking to completely finish until late spring.

Here are some pictures I took in mid December. I have some others but they are still on my camera. At this point, we've installed all the windows, started on the siding, finished the trim on eaves and fascia. I will hopefully post more up to date pictures soon.

House wrap up and ready for windows and siding.