Thanksgiving and Black Friday

I need to start by saying I am so grateful for my blessings. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with all of our friends and family. I was hoping to have it in the new house, but it was still a wonderful day spend with everyone.

Even the animals got treats today.

We got some new chickens this past week and Thursday morning was the first day we got eggs from them. So we had a really nice breakfast with farm fresh eggs...from our front yard.

Now on to Black Friday. I forgot it was Black Friday, to me it was just another day to work on the house. I was instructed to go buy the countertops at Lowes. Brian went to Lowes earlier that morning and had an employee pull all the things we would need and put it aside. All I had to do was pay for it and take it back to the house.


Easier said than done. Lowes was a madhouse. They had extra stuff in the middle of the aisles and there were people everywhere. I had to get from the back corner in the kitchen area all the way to the opposite corner where the contruction counter is. All that way I had to manuver a large flatbed cart with the huge prefab countertop, plywood, formica (fragile) and a bunch of odds and ends, around all the extra stuff and people. Not something I ever need to do again.

But doesnt it look great!

The rest of yesterday and today we were painting.

This was the first coat on the hall. It was supposed to be burgundy, but we got bordeux by accident. It ended up a tinge to much on the purple side. I wanted something more deep, like a brick red. After putting on the first coat we realized it would need a second anyway, so we bought the right color the next time. Burgundy was much better.

Morgan's room is two tone. The wall where the bed will be is the darker and the two side walls are a lighter grey/blue. It looks really nice, she did a great job picking her colors.

I don't seem to have a picture of Madison's room, but her color is a shade of lavender. You can see the color where the room splits between the doors.

So close to being finished with the painting, one day closer to move in day!

The "septic" drama

Incase you missed the little tidbits of "septic" information in the past 9 months I am going to give you a recap:

• February 2009-finally decided to buy an Envirolet composting toilet instead of building a dry toilet.
• March-went to courthouse to make sure toilet is "legal" and found out they don't care, but we can't use a greywater system, still need to put in a spetic system.
• March-inspector came out to lay out and design septic system and decided she needed the soil scientist from Knoxville to help her.
• April-Still waiting for the soil Scientist to schedule his visit.
• May-Soil scientist said we need an interceptor drain-big deep trench filled with gravel all the way around the septic field. The excavator comes and decides he needs to talk with the inspector because the way the land lays it is impossible to do what they want him to do.
• June-waiting again for an appointment that will bring together 3 very busy people. The county inspector only works in this county on Tuesday and Thursday. The soil scientists from Knoxville only comes south one week a month. It makes it really hard to get them together. I am glad I am not in charge of that.
• July-finally they have a plan. I mowed the whole clearing and tried to keep it as short as possible so they could see how the land actually lays when they come. **remember I am mowing with a push mower**. Now it needs to stop raining so they can dig it up.
• August-waiting for our turn on the long list of clients the excavator has.
• September-too much rain to dig, but we are next when it stops.
• October-too much rain to dig, but we are still next.

Now it is November. It has been 9 months since I first went to the courthouse. We were going to just use the septic as a water cistern, but have decided since we had to go to such a large expense and we don't have a really good place for a greywater system, we would just hook all the drains up to it. The house is close to finished, we had a goal to move in the house in the beginning of December (pushed back due to....rain getting in the way of work....again). Now it is the end of November and we still haven't started the septic.

They started the interceptor drain on the 20th, it was finished on the 21st and today it was inspected and passed...finally! Now they can dig the field lines and place the tank. Out of all the work we did and schedules we had to align, this was the only thing that caused me near panic.

Day off!

Today we are taking a day off. Eric's Mother is flying in and the kids and I are going to pick her up at the airport. We are so excited to have her visit, we haven't seen her for so long. We plan on spending the day doing a bit of shopping and then visiting with everyone at the park this afternoon.

Painting color...

Every time I came to paint the house the past week Tanner would get upset with me. Each time he would tell me...rather loudly..."don't paint MY room, I am going to paint my room."

He was so thrilled when I told him it was finally time for him to paint his room.

He worked SOOOO hard. The muck boots still carry the stains.

Morgan's two tone colonial blue.

Tanner's room after some touch ups.

Don't the cabinets look amazing!

I just had to get the outdoors in here. If you are wondering what Eric has been up to since he seems mysteriously absent, I will tell you. He has been doing all the "farm" work on the weekends. He spends all of Saturday doing all of the farm chores that I cannot get done while I am finishing the house. By the end of the day on Saturday we are both so tired we fall asleep watching a movie.

It is even better than I had imagined. Thanks Brian and Mila!!!

Just wait until the counters are on.

More painting...and septic?

We have the kitchen walls done so the cabinets can be installed. It is such a beautiful green color.

We finished priming all of the walls today.

While mom and I were painting, dad was installing ceiling fans...

...and the dining room light

Madison's bedroom and ceiling fan.

It is starting to look like a house, rather than just a construction zone.

The septic was finally started today. It is the end of November, we started this whole project with the septic...back in FEBRUARY!

This is an interceptor drain. They say we need this because of the wettness in the woods. It is 4' deep and it runs completely around the septic field. This is what held up getting the septic started.

Painting...finally!

Yesterday we started priming the ceiling. 1200 square feet of ceiling to be exact.

We got the whole ceiling primed yesterday, today we painted the whole ceiling and started painting the kitchen and storage room walls.

This in the floor before and after the wet/dry vac.

We also have an outside floodlight.

That is one huge bucket of paint. We used it all and had to buy more small ones. We had to use gray primer because the hall is getting a burgundy paint.

Another floodlight

Spackle and tape...

The spackling is all finished. It went well except that it should have been warmer. We ran that heater so we could keep the temperature up. The job took a few days longer than expected because of that, but ...it is DONE!!!...now on to painting.

We have been continuously working on the plumbing under the house. I haven't taken pictures till now because it didn't look like much. We are mostly done at this point, so here is the plumbing.

The well pump and tank were installed yesterday.

The purple stuff smells like nail polish remover. It is really aweful when you spill it (which was done a number of times).

Water filter

Dad did all the planning for this. I was just the labor. Although I did learn alot and I could fix this stuff if I needed to...I would rather it never needs it.

Spackle...or mud?

The hay ring works to stop them from wasting so much hay, but not when they are climbing in!

There is a salt block in there somewhere.

Today we started spackling the walls. People around here call it mudding.

View from the girls rooms into the living room.

Foyer

Kitchen and pantry into storage room

We were also working on the plumbing under the house. Morgan would just LOVE it down there, spiders everywhere!