I thought I would join the rest of the world and start a blog. I am honestly not a big writer so hopefully this wont flop. After reading a few friend's blogs I thought I might as well join. I really don't have anything exciting to talk about today, other than I have been incredibly lazy! Every other week I am consistently mandatoried from my job. Which just means that our census is low and since I am fairly new I am usually first to be put on call (mandatory call means I have no say, I just lose out on a day of work). So needless to say this has been hurting my paychecks. And of course, when you are on call from work you can be called back in at anytime so you really can't make plans or truly put the day to good use. So it's typically a lazy day. Well that was yesterday, and the lazy bug has wore on to today. It is almost 1pm and I am still in my pajamas, ::Sigh::: Well, I am starting to get the motivation to get some laundry done and then hopefully go for a walk since it is suppose to be almost 70 today. Oh and to top all of the laziness off, yesterday was potluck day and of course I made tons of good food, and then got mandatoried, so now I have tons of good food here at home just for me to eat! Not good for the diet at all!
Back to the rest of my life. Lance and I are currently living in the Clive Hotel and Suites. It's an old hotel that has been converted into corporate type housing. It's completely furnished and equipped with a full kitchen. It is okay, not as bad as I was anticipating. We are currently trying to finish up the plans for our house that is to take 3-4 months to build. We were hoping to have started it by the 1st of April, well tomorrow is the 1st of May and we still aren't done finalizing the plans. So it might not be until sometime in September that it is completed. I guess this isn't the worst thing, at least we'll have more time to save money. Maybe I can figure out how to add some photos for you all to check out.
Okay, here is our house!
This is the front of the house (not exact since we are building). It is kind of plain so we decided to add stone on the front of the garage. We will be using the same stone that is on the front of the fireplace (earth tones). And right now we are working with our builder on possibly having stone on the front of the house (the area of the house behind that tree) and then possibly half way up the front of the house underneath the other window. We will have a three car driveway (we were disappointed to learn that the walkout lot we picked out in Waukee wont fit the 3rd car garage we were hoping for. The garage will also be 2 feet wider and will be bumped forward two feet to allow for a mud room off the entrance of the garage.
This is the living room, what you see when you walk in the front door. There is a long entry way that has wood flooring and at the end of the entryway (immediately to your right) is the open stairway to the downstairs (which of course we are having finished). Immediately to your left is the door to the mud/laundry room and then to the right of that door is the door to the master bedroom. The bedrooms are split so the other two bedrooms upstairs are to the far right and front of the house. It's hard to see the stone on the fireplace, but that is the stone that will also be on the front of our house. The walls are a warm taupe/coffee color which stands out more in person with the white trim. The window in the living room looks onto the deck. And, to fit our 9 ft Christmas tree, the ceilings are of course vaulted.
This is the view of our living room from just outside of the master bedroom. We really liked the archway that overlooks the living room from the kitchen. To the right of the photo you can just barely see the ledge on top of the half wall that separates the living room from the stairs to the basement.
Okay, finally the kitchen! This is what sold me on the house (Lance was sold on the walkout basement). You can see the hallway that lead to the other two bedrooms, a pantry, linen closet and 2nd bath. The counter tops are a black/brown granite, the ledge of the archway (above the sink) is also to be granite. The cupboards are also a little different, they are maple but will have a cherry stain rubbed in, and will actually be a two toned antiqued style. They will also be staggered, meaning the ends and corner cabinets will be taller than the others. They will also have a crown molding trim and will really just look completely different, but you have an idea of the layout! The flooring is the same wood laminate that is in the entryway, however we may choose to pick out a different wood laminate (I would like a little darker wood) than is pictured here. We will also have stainless steel appliances.Okay, I found a picture of our cabinets, below is a picture of a different kitchen, but it shows our cabinets.
Okay, so I'm only going to include a couple more picture..the next is the master bedroom. It is also vaulted. You can just barely see into the master bath. We are actually making it two feet wider in order to include a linen closet. The lower left hand corner of the picture is about where the entry to the walk in closet is. We are also doing away with the naked light bulbs in the bathroom and putting in a more appealing light fixture.
Okay, finally is the picture of the deck, keep in mind our lot will be a walk out lot, so to the left of the deck(or in other words to the right of the picture and below the deck) there will be two windows, one will be egress for the 4th bedroom. Keep in mind that side of the house has been widened two feet. To the right of the deck (the left side of the picture) there will be a slider and a patio, so the stairs will be switched to end at the patio. We really liked this deck because it is partially covered by the house.
Unfortunately, there are no pictures of the finished basement, since it isn't finished yet! However, we will have a 4th bedroom, a 3rd bath and a dry bar. The plans for the utility room also include an egress window so that down the road we have the opportunity to create a 5th bedroom and increase the value of our home! So there should be about 1560 sq ft upstairs and we are finishing approximately 1000 of the 1560 sq ft down so we will have a total of roughly 2600 finished sq ft.
Hope you enjoy my first blog posting!!!!
