UPSTAIRS MYSTERY SOLVED

Yes, I am crazy. But in one of my posts I mentioned that the neighbor above us occasionally drops something very loud that rolls. For the past few weeks I've started yelling up at the ceiling about it. Tonight - Mystery Solved. Ian and I were sitting in the office.. and we heard the same kind of crack but no real roll... And Ian turned to me and said "I wonder if they have a pool table..." GENIUS. We listened a little closer and sure enough, we could hear them make a shot at the pool table. Mystery Solved - Case Closed - Brittany can go back to not being crazy now. /sighofrelief

The Good Stuff: Our New House

Enough with the con talk. Let's talk about the good stuff! There are the obvious ones... a bigger space than our apartment, a personal garage space for my car, less beige walls, more counter space in the bathrooms, and more storage in general. There are things though... that Ian and I discuss at least weekly.

I am really looking forward to living in a neighborhood. The area we currently live in is... okay? Behind our apartment building is a mix of houses and townhouses. In front of our building is a grocery store and then a small indoor mall. We live close to Hesperler Road which is a row of retail and fast food. I really don't consider this a neighborhood. I really just want to go for a walk in my neighborhood without much fear!

Every Sunday we go grocery shopping. And every Sunday since we signed our house contract (Ian would probably say before then...) we have grumbled about carrying the groceries up to the apartment. We have to pack our cart and try to make it all in one trip. It's especially fun during any kind of weather and during the winter when we are trying to sprint upstairs and out of the cold. With our house... park in the garage, pop the trunk, carry the bags straight to the kitchen. No muss, no fuss. Ian won't have to repack the bags when the baggers do a crappy job either.

Oh the elevator rides... /sigh... The uncomfortable elevator rides. We live on the 5th floor. That's 4 floors too many to stand awkwardly with a bunch of strangers, wondering if you should make small talk... or hoping the elevator would just go faster. I can't count the number of times Ian and I have SPRINTED down the hallway... just to get on the elevator quicker to avoid riding with someone else. Yes, we are socially awkward and we like it that way.

Garbage Day. In a house, you have one. In an apartment, every day is garbage day. Actually, ANY day can be garbage day. In OUR apartment, it seems to never be garbage day. Our building has issues. People were throwing their trash away too late down the chute so they put locks on the doors. Do the locks always open on time? Of course not! Does a regular bag of garbage fit through the chute? Of course not! I am weird and I am looking forward to having a garbage day.

One of my favorite pros... is that we will be out of this concrete block. We have big windows at the apartment that I can watch storms roll in... but I barely notice the rain because I can't hear it. I am really looking forward to having an actual roof over our heads. Right now we have an upstairs neighbor that drops something on regular basis that rolls away. Lately, I've taken to shouting up at the ceiling "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?". Fortunately or unfortunately, they can't hear me. The mystery may never be solved. Anyway, my last pro is that I will get to see the storms come through AND hear them. If you know me, you know I love any kind of weather. It will be so wonderful to fully enjoy the climate I live in. (Minus the shoveling of a million mile sidewalk in the winter!).

There are a lot more pros... but too many to list all in one post!

The Bad Stuff: Our New House

At least once a day, Ian and I discuss the pros and cons of owning a house. We go back and forth... Ian usually gets upset that it is so far away... I usually have a panic attack that it is so close. It's exciting and scary... and it's going to happen one way or the other. [Contracts are legally binding. =P] I am going to list out the cons first. We considered most of them... I think.

I knew that buying a house we would have to start to deal with more outdoor-related chores. I knew... as unfortunate as it is... that at one point in my life I would need to shovel snow. But the one thing that Ian and I did not think about, we picked a corner lot. Meaning twice as much sidewalk to shovel/snowblow. Yay... corner lot. /eyeroll.

Speaking of outdoor-related chores, I haven't mowed a lawn in... 15 years? Ian... yeah, he's never mowed a lawn before. He's "looking forward" to getting his hands dirty.

A minor fear of mine is dealing with bad neighbors. The term bad could mean many different things. They could be loud... or say we are loud. In our apartment, we're basically in a concrete box. The worst we have had to deal with is an occasional dropped ball above us (next post will explain this) or a washing machine on at 4am. Another level of bad is the neighbors who won't mow their lawn or paints their garage pink. At least we know that our neighbors 4 doors down are somewhat normal. =]

My last concern is the day we mar the surface of our newly minted house. The day we dent a wall... or scratch the granite... or chip the paint. It's going to happen of course. Ian's only human and I'm a complete klutz. But the day that it is happens, probably on moving day, Ian is going to go seriously lose it. It will most likely be me who does it and this will be Ian:

Overall, this list isn't that bad. There are way more pros to moving out of this apartment into our new house.

Second Guessing: Hardwood Colors

This is what we picked - Ash Chelsea (dark brown with a slight tinge of red in it).

And this is what we saw today that made us second guess - Ash Forest Moss (a straight dark brown color - the picture makes it look very light... bad picture ftl). The reason is that we have black furniture going on it... and maybe it won't work with the tinge of red? I don't know!!

Max Quacks - Help!

"Hey Mom... can you put down the camera and pull me out of here?" Apparently, Max gets stuck in reverse when crawling and ended up being eaten by the couch.

These Kids Are Awesome

It's so great to see kids being engaged and encouraged to be creative. Even the shy ones look like they are having fun. And the song is cool. =P

Coop Scoop - The Next Jackson Pollack

Dirt Update

This weekend was the "Dry Run Thanksgiving" or the "Fake Thanksgiving". I was unfortunately sick and couldn't taste the stuffing... but it was enjoyable nonetheless. The most exciting thing we did was swing by the dirt. Here is an updated shot:

A picture of the corner... complete with stop sign!!

Across the street is the house that faces the side of our house. It had people starting to work on the framing for the second story.

This is looking down our street. One house has framing up and two others just have their foundation in... including Alicia's!

Ian in front of our dirt.

Me in front of our dirt.

The farm field just north? of our house.

Geese in the pond!!!

That's it for now... I have to go back to getting over my cold. Blegh.

Max Quacks - I'm A Big Boy Now!

Taken 35 days ago...

And the most recent picture... Big Boy!

Time To Second Guess!

We had our final design appointment on Monday. It went a lot better than we expected because we came in under budget. We decided to "shop" a little and got some different touches that we probably wouldn't have gone for if the cash wasn't free. Let's get down to it!

I'll start with the exterior. I liked the other elevation our model offered... but Ian won out. At the very last minute, Ian offered up a solution that made me love the elevation we picked. He had an idea to switch out the brick on the second story for siding and make the siding in the triangle "cedar-like" shakes. It's a perfect solution to make me happy. We changed the 2 aluminum posts on the porch to be 1 half round resin/half stone column. It should look really nice. With our extra dollars, we switched out the garage for a craftsmen garage. Think barn-ish type.

This is our exterior package... except different brick and stone. The roof will be the dark gray shingles and the doors are brown (we will probably paint them at some point).

This is the brick... the picture makes it look more beige-y yellow but it's really just gray tones.

The stone "skirt" for below the brick and around the bottom of the column.

The most dollars were spent in the kitchen. We upgraded to a wall oven/cooktop. Added granite... white shaker cabinets... and a pantry. We lost a window in the process but we have a huge slider right there. Plus the cabinets are white and should add to the lightness of the room. I was going for a clean simple look. I think we have achieved that but we'll see when it's built - 1 year. =P This is the designer's notes for all of our kitchen changes.

This picture was from our last design center visit. The granite on the left will be much darker. But the tile and the cabinet style are still the same.

The main bath. I think I took a bit of a gamble with it... mainly because of the brown tile. It's such a "bold" color to go with. It's not entirely visible in this picture... but it went nicely with the brown cabinets and bluey/beigey/browny countertop. Yes, those are words.

With the help of our designer, we came to an agreement to do a Caesarstone countertop in the Master Bathroom (NOT ENSUITE). So, light gray with flecks of dark gray tile, white shaker style cabinets, dark gray countertop. The color to tie it to the master bedroom will be blue. Yay.

Here is part of my second guessing. We have 3 different types of faucets going into the master bathroom. While they all have the same finish and roughly the same style... I'm worried they won't really go together.

Bathtub faucet with handheld diverter (I fell in love with this one because it has old fashion H and C on the taps).

Sink faucet - this will be in every bathroom in the house.

Shower fixture - taking a minor gamble with a giant showerhead.

The last big change (this post represents about 1/4 of all of our big changes...) is the built in entertainment center. Our designer totally got our vision for it. Something simple to cover the wall around the fireplace... The drawing is exactly what I wanted. A couple shelves and low-ish cabinets to hide electronics and for storage.

For those that don't know what beadboard is... it looks like this. I love it! I would have used this all over the house but our doors are going to be Cheyenne style (see below).

All in all, this is going to be a very nice house. Thank you to everyone who submitted an opinion on anything! (We ended up with an ogee edge for the granite... it came down to price and ogee was free!) Ian is a little sad that this process is over. I am Switzerland on it... completely neutral... We had many, many, many discussions because you can make this house as custom as you want. The amount of options combined with the cost is so overwhelming. Our appointments were a ton of fun though... I never thought that we would be going through something like this... or that we would be doing this the same year we got married. But it's kind of a payoff for all of the things we have had to go through to get to this point. Ian's long hours... my crazy ex-boss... all of the issues with transferring countries... It all works out in the end. For me, I still feel 15 years old inside. I feel like we are too young for this... or that it's too big of a deal to do this. In reality though, the timing is perfect.

As much as I want the house to be delayed to give more time for my permanent residency to come through... I am still excited and a bit emotional to hear that the digging has begun on our block. In 11 hours, we will be under the 300 mark for days until closing. Crazy! Last picture... latest shot of the dirt. (There is a change!!! That hydro pole at the back of the lot is new - temporary but still new!)