Color!

They started painting yesterday and they are flying. I am really excited about the colors we picked and they are doing an outstanding job. They finished the tile in our master bathroom so most of the tile is complete and we are ready to roll. They stained the beams yesterday and they look amazing, it is really getting exciting.

We are still working on the financing. I spoke to my business banker and he is working with us, time to get creative! We need to shave off all the interest we can.


Girls Room


Boys room


Living and back wall


Stained beams


Master tub

More Tile, Colors and Stains

There has been a lot going on down at the house this week. They have made amazing progress.

• They started to stain all of the natural wood and it looks amazing
• They will be staining the beams this weekend
• They have primed and begun painting the non-stain trim
• The doors are in and the garage door looks great
• Painting will begin next week
• The master bath tile will be completed this weekend
• We have the majority of the faucets in

Coming up will be the following items.

• Select the light fixtures
• Determine the extent to which we want to complete the home A/V distribution

Here are some most recent pictures. With the financing challenges in the market the decision to lock in a loan gets more and more difficult.


The color in kid bedroom 1


Color in kid bedroom 2


Color in kid bedroom 3


Downstairs colors


Exterior view


Back wal imagery


A vew of the kitchen

Kids office areas are here.

The front door stained


Detail in one boy's bathoom


Mud and utility room


The floor in our bathroom


Details in our shower area

Tile

Tiling was an interesting process to watch. There is definitely an art to tiling. We think it turned out really cool!

The picture at the top is the tub in the girl's bathroom. The picture at the bottom is the shower stall in the guest bathroom.

God is watching out for us!

Whew! This is one of those - "Thank the Lord" situations. The kids and I had gone to the carpet place and spent about 2 hours there. With 3 kids it was a little insane, to say the least, but I was so impressed with the sales lady. She was so patient and never once got upset when they were playing hide and seek amongst the racks. :-) I left there with 3 sample boards (ready to ring necks and pull my hair out!). But very pleased with our choices.

We mulled over the decision for a day or so. I never knew that there were that many shades of brown to contemplate. Anyway, we finally settled on a frize style carpet in "Dry Tortuga." Sounds gross but it really is a nice shade of brown. Our builder called and called and called the carpet salesperson wanting to order the carpet. He finally went over to their location after he never got a return phone call and discovered that they went out of business - ugh!!

Thank goodness we did not pay for our carpet, only to have them run out on us. We consider this a huge saving grace!!!

Front door and garage door

We have a front door and a garage door. They are both amazing. They are both very much in line with the "craftsman" style. I'll post pics later. It's kind of weird to finally see it with a front door and a garage door (when they are closed). I guess that means that this is really going to happen. We have a lot to coordinate in the next few weeks...the transfer of utilities, lining up movers, closing on the final loan, the actual moving, etc., etc., etc. I hate the actual moving part so I have to say I really hope that this will be the last time we move - EVER!!! It had been 10 years since we moved and then to do it twice in the past 7 months-ugh! I feel really bad for all those people that have to do it ALL the time. They must be gluttons for punishment.

How ironic is this? The day after our cool, new garage door was installed at the new house our garage door broke at the rental house. GRRRRRRR! The cable just snapped. I'm sure that's probably because that cable is as old as the house, say, oh, maybe 55+ years old. So I guess when you look at it that way-wow-it lasted a really long time. I'm just glad none of us were home when it snapped. I've heard horror stories about people getting hit by the spring and sustaining major bodily damage.

More later on the tile and cabinets...

Interest rate woes

Quite frankly the interest on our construction loan has been phenomenal. That rate is whatever the prime rate happens to be, which thanks to Mr. Fed Chairman, Ben Bernake, right now is 5% - wahoo! When we first took out the loan it was 6.00% and over the course of the first few weeks of the construction period it dropped 1% which really helped us out. Initially, when we first started talking about doing this the prime rate was 8.25%. So we were pumped when the Fed started cutting rates.

But, now for the bad news, the 30-year mortgage rates have only gone up and up over the past few months because of all the fall-out from the subprime mortgage scandal and today the 30 year was 6.43% which isn't too bad. Unfortunately for us, because our loan will be over the $417,000 cap to be insured by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. What that means is, we have to get a "jumbo" loan for any amount over the $417,000. The jumbo interest rate is what is going to kill us. Today the jumbo rate was 7.61% - yikes!

We have some other options like 5/1 ARM or a 3/1 ARM both of which kind of scare me, but if oil prices keeping leveling out and the dollar keeps going up that may be the way to go and then when the interest rates fall to a more palatable point we can refi and lock in a better rate in the long run. But I did find out from the lender that if you do an ARM you better not do a Home Equity loan because you could find yourself in a big bind when you do go to refinance. We found out the hard way that once a "home equity loan" always a "home equity loan."

I guess like the stock market, everything is a gamble. I just hope we don't crap out. (That's a pun for those of you that visit Vegas...) 7 - get it, 7 is a bad number here! :-)

Keep your fingers crossed!

Mimosa Tree

Bo's favorite tree has fallen in the backyard but it hasn't quite hit the ground yet. It's not a very big tree but it's perched on another tree at the moment. It's like a buddy trying to hold up a friend (boohoo)! It seemed really healthy so I'm not sure what happened - dry weather and then some rain due to Tropical Storm "Edouard"? Anyway, I just hope that's the only tree we lose. I love all of our trees! Just one of the many reasons to stay in our fabulous neighborhood - all the big beautiful trees. Hang in there, TREES - only 7 to 8 weeks left and then I'll be HOME!!!