Fortunately, they just used chalk. It is a nice neighborhood, so this was disheartening. They drew satanic things over each wall of the basement. We are Christians, so this was not something we wanted to experience while building of first home. Jenny was quite bothered by it and we are thinking about having a "house blessing" by her hometown preacher that she knows right before we move in. We had entertained doing this before any of this happened as some of her friends (or my co-workers...can't remember) have had that done and said it added a nice feel and made their new homes feel safe, but now I'd say there is a pretty good chance we will go through with that.
Onto more fun things! Late last week they got the floor joists in. That was fun to see and gave me an idea of how high the basement ceiling is going to be. We had them put higher ceilings in the basement to make it more open. I have to say, it has exceeded our expecations in terms of how high the ceilings are and how much bigger it makes it feel down there!
Last week we got to start meeting with the kitchen designers. One of them has come in right on budget and given us everything we had asked for. The other person was much more enjoyable to work with, but I have a feeling she won't be able to meet our budget. We are still waiting to hear back from her. With the first guy, we even got some extras that I hadn't planned on such as soft close drawers. We are having a hard time selecting granite. We really like very dark cabinets. We have picked a shade of espresso. We know we want a lighter colored granite to accent these and not make the kitchen too dark. Jenny seams to like granite with as close to a white base as possible. We also tend to like granite with "flecks" of shiny silver in it. We are trying to stick to a grade A or B granite for budget reasons. We will have to go to more places soon and see what else is out there. We have considered Kashmir White, but aren't completely sold on it. She really liked one called Tuscany, but we have had a hard time finding it elsewhere and we imagine it is likely more pricey.
Saturday we went and talked with the appliance guy. I was extremely frustrated when we left! He knew our budget, but kept showing me things outside of my budget like it was acceptable. I finally got aggitated and told him to stop and to show us things inside our budget. He finally got the hint and dulled it down a little! However, we kept coming in over budget and discovered it was mostly because of the refrigerator. We really want a french door refrigerator with the pull out freezer on the bottom. Having an ice/water dispenser is non-negotiable with me. Unfortunately, it kept running us well over budget compared to doing a refrigerator without the ice/water dispenser. After we left, we went and looked at some local retail stores and discovered a refrigerator we had seen months ago was coming down in price. We then went to Sears and found it to be on clearance for even less! Then the sales guy tells us he will hold it for us and we could come back the next night and buy it during the "Friends and Family" sale going on...saved an additional 15%. Overall, we got the refrigerator for half of the original price we had seen it months ago! This also put us right back on budget. Since then he has sent me different options for the other kitchen appliances and we are right on track! He has definitely redeemed himself. I compared his prices to other stores and he is routinely coming in $200-600 cheaper per appliance for the same model! We have decided on a slide-in style range, middle of the line dishwasher, and an over-the-range microwave that has a convection baking setting to basically serve as another oven for smaller items! Next best thing to having a double oven I suppose! We are close to making our final selection and at least getting that done.
Back to the building process...
Yesterday they made some of the walls and today they put some up. So far just the first floor external walls so I am excited to see what they do tomorrow. I hope they don't let a couple of pop-up storms stop them from working at all tomorrow. But ultimately, whatever is best for the house is fine by me.
To wrap things up, here are the latest pictures from tonight's visit!
Wet basement thanks to the rain...
