New House Update #4

After the recent hurricane Hermine (which had been downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it reached us) came through, my husband and I went to check out the house and see how it did. The day before the storm, the roofers added paper on the roof which goes under the shingles. I don't know why they did this, as they knew the storm was coming. As you can see, the wind tore part of the paper off but aside from that, everything else was fine.

You'll have to excuse all the water. Coming in the front door, it was very obvious that everything was wet. Water was still dripping through the house, even though the rain had stopped hours before our visit. I'll do my best to give a "tour", but to most people I am sure this looks only like a lot of lumber and may not make much sense.

This is the view from the front door. Straight ahead, you can see where the back door is located. It's actually off center by a foot and a half. This has since been fixed. The living room is to the left of the back door and the kitchen is to the right. I'll have more pictures of that later in the post. To the right just after entering the house is our dining room. This is the only dining area in the house, as I removed the breakfast nook in order to expand the kitchen. To the left of the front door is the stairs and a coat closet.

This is a view of the dining room once inside the house. 

Across the foyer from the dining room is the stairs. These stairs have been the biggest headache so far. These are the stairs as they were first built incorrectly. The first step is supposed to be flush with the walls on either side, rather than having to walk thru a 2' alley to get to the stairs. The reason why these stairs are so off is because they were not following the plan. We requested 12" treads, and they instead built their standard tread of 10". For record purposes, we'll call this big mistake #1.

Moving on now to the kitchen. Standing in the middle of the kitchen and facing the back of the house. There will be cabinets under that window in the kitchen, which will wrap around to the wall on the right. 

This brings us now to big mistake #2. A corner cabinet cannot fit in the small space to the right of the kitchen window and the wall. As it turns out, the kitchen window is off center by 18". This is also why the back door was off center. This mistake has been fixed now, but it was my husband and my dad who caught it; not the builder.

Let us leave the kitchen for a minute and head in the direction of one of my favorite rooms in the house. On the other side of the kitchen is a small hallway leading to our homeschool room. Also in this hallway is the door to the garage and a full bathroom. If in the future we end up taking in a parent or two, or a pair of young married college students (being one of our own children and their spouse, of course) the homeschool room would be converted to a bedroom with access to a full bathroom. 

The homeschool room is a spacious room with a small closet and a lot of wall space, perfect for a large history timeline, bookshelves, and workstations. I do not intend to do all of our homeschooling in this room, as the couch is much more comfy to read on, but it is great place to store all of our books and work and shut the door to forget about on the weekends. Here is the view from the far end of the homeschool room facing the small closet and door heading back out to the kitchen and living area.

Back in the kitchen, this half-wall will have cabinets and our kitchen sink with a small bar overlooking the living room. 

A view from the living room facing the back of the house.

Another view from the living room, now facing the direction of the kitchen.

Heading upstairs, this is now a view from the doorway of the boys' room looking out over what will soon be a railing and the foyer down below. The room off to the left is a spare bedroom, or if the boys are unable to get along in the same room, one of them will be moved into the spare room. 

 

I did not get many pictures of the upstairs on this day, but here is a picture from the end wall of the boys room looking through the rest of the upstairs. First there are the boys' closets (which have become another nightmare I will discuss in a later update), and Bridget's room, her walk-in closet and the laundry room, then the master bedroom waaaayyy in the back. 

There you have it! It's not much to look at yet, and there are things that need to be fixed, but hopefully one day this will be a completed home, filled with family and love.