It’s hard to capture the essence of the closet since there are no working lights in there yet, but these images should give you an idea!

There were supposed to be drawers in the original concept but we nixed that idea.

We are “visual” people; if we can’t see it, we’ll forget it!  I’m putting in baskets instead!

This is a wall for shoes!  Now, before everyone starts thinking that the shelves are for MY shoes, I will set you straight.  My husband, currently, has waaaay more shoes than I do. BUT, I guess that I am a late bloomer and am starting to catch up to him.  I am now in the process of upgrading my shoe wardrobe, mostly thanks to Christina, my brother’s gal who happens to work at Town Shoes.

Perhaps next you can all see the doors and listen to the story from hell!!!!!

IT          IS               A

DYSON BALL VACUUM!!!!!!!

Oh yes, I have succumbed to the pressures of a housewife and bought our very first vacuum.  Sure, we had a vacuum before, but it was a hand me down from a hand me down!  After watching my mom go through 3 vacuums in little over a year (one actually caught on fire!), I decided to splurge.  If this vacuum is as good as it says it is, then I figure it is money well spent.

I got it home and had to fight with an almost 4 year old to use it.  I lost, he won.  I had to wait.

But the wait was worth it!

That vacuum sucks like mad and is super awesome to wheel around.  I can’t wait until we actually have furniture to glide around…

all with the flick of a wrist

After looking and pricing out handles, I found a source to provide them at a fraction of the cost anywhere else.  Long live IKEA!  Found our handles in Phoenix while I was down there.  Let’s just say that the savings were worth the aggravation of dragging the handles along on flights the hopscotched back to Manitoba while toting 2 toddlers and a pregnant belly.

I am not posting any snaps until all the appliances and the counters are installed.  That will be the time for the cabinets to shine!  Instead I will treat you all to a few pics of the boy stuck while driving the gator in the yard.  He found a large hole and his partner, well, she jumped ship at the first sign of trouble!

Just getting stuck!  Warned him about random holes around the yard.

Attempts to drive the vehicle out of the hole were futile!

Mom had to come to the rescue (after the photos) and push while

he drove it out.  That poor vehicle has had the crap driven out of it.

This boy LOVES his gator, drove it until there was snow and again as

soon as the snow was more or less gone!

Thank Goodness we have 5 acres for him to cover!

Just an update, we are not in the house… I repeat NOT in the HOUSE!

Stuff has happened since the last posting… most important news, we are adding a new member to the family, due in June.  We only put 3 bedrooms on the main floor, so someone has to share. I figure that this is JUST fine, as the hubby and I both grew up sharing bedrooms and we don’t seem to be scarred for life.

What have we got left to do??

When you are building yourself, and don’t want to move in until EVERYTHING is finished, a lot has to be done.  We have friends who have been living in their new homes for several years and are still finishing off tasks.  Hubby wants to relax and enjoy the family (and boat) for the summer.  After all the rain that we just received, it looks like he MAY have one project left, screen in the back room.

Since we have some time that has passed, let’s do a little catch up!

This is the master bathroom.  Tile is the overly large 12 X24″ tiles,with in floor heat! Must say that my handy husband is now a tile work genius after all the hours he has put in with this house.

The shower that he MADE with his BARE hands!  He actually made the pan from scratch too!  I’ll put in closer photos of the tile so that we can all get an idea of what it actually looks like.  I totally love it!

These are the tiles that we chose for accent.  I think that they are called bamboo tiles and we have them in a pewter grey and ecru colour.  The subways are a smaller style that is in a grey tone.  Everything is grey in the master bath… it’s the new neutral, don’t you know!

Here we have a quick pic of the flooring detail in the shower.

Used individual stones that were grouted into paced after they were                                                               cut in half.  Yeah right!  They came in circular sheet from my Mom’s                                                                     shop.  Some piece were individually placed, but not the whole thing.                                                                     The final look (and feel) is similar to a lake side retreat.  After building                                                               this house, we won’t be able to afford a cabin!

This is my new pride and joy!

My bathtub.  Horrible photo!  It is a very simple vessel style tub that is nice and deep!  That was important to me.  Our old house had a drain that was less than half way up the tub, so you were never fully covered!  This sucker is deep and can also fit a pregnant mother with a 3.5 yr old and a 2 yr old in it!  I look forward to looooong soaks with a good book and glass (bottle, who am I kidding) of wine!

This is the update for now!  But I am back into posting land.  Gotta finish the house and some posts before the new baby arrives.  Due on the 23rd, hope we are in by then!   Oh, next post, I’ll show off the master closet.  All you clothes hogs will be super envious!!!

   It requires lots of washed 2 ” limestone; fine, fine sand and a whack load (or 4 loads) of a special loam soil mix.

A base is made of the limestone over top scarred earth and then the pre-assembled peat containers are laid over top

There are three containers for our house and estimated usage.

 There were quite a few supervisors checking out  the progress.  The two little one’s were impressed with the machinery and Daddy driving the bobcat!

The holding tank is a 2 compartment tank and the pump in the tank is actually on a timer inside the house to pump out to the field consistently instead of flushing out vast volumes and flooding the field.

 Nothing too cool about the tank… it’s big … it’s green … it holds poop and pee.

It’s basically a big green monster that munches on human waste;

our little sludge friend!

          Here is the first container being walked over by Big D and Shane.

They put in the first and third containers, then easily placed the second in between.

It took a little “wiggling” with the excavator to get the first container to line up with the inlet pipe.  That small hole had to line up with a white pipe in the limestone, guess it’s a bit hard to do with a giant machine.

The pipes were all epoxied together, bit of a sticky situation.  It seemed to go together effortlessly, or at least from my view!

All three containers, just waiting for inspection.  The peat is compacted inside with a series of inlet pipes with perforations for percolations (say that 5 times fast!). The liquid enters through the bottom and the pressure causes it to rise through the chambers to the top and then filter down through the peat.  There are several outlets at the bottom of the containers for the liquid to come out.

It’s not finished yet.  I’ll have to post the final pictures once completed.  The tops of the containers are visible when done.  That’s good because after 15 years once the peat has compacted too much to filter properly, all you do is open the tops and then replace the peat.  It doesn’t require complete system replacement and the soil should never become contaminated.

Well, here’s to a new system that is supposed to work wonderfully and leave us with nice clean, unpolluted soil for our trees to grow and our kids to play on!

; AND our septic field is almost done!!    

We’ve got our stucco guys mixing away ………                   AND there is an interested party watching the fascinating show!

I have never actually seen scratch coast being put on, these guys had to do it old school, schlepping the pails of mixture from the front of the garage to where ever they were working (We had no water for them except a large container that had to come out manually).

Didn’t seem to matter because they slopped that stuff on and smeared it around like nobody’s business (except theirs, I guess)!!  Here is a tid bit you may not know; it is better for the temperatures to be low when applying stucco because it will take longer to dry resulting in a harder end product.  I know this because it was about 3 degrees C. when they were working!   Pretty Friggin’ COLD!!

Now I have to choose the stucco colour.  Front siding is going to be Iron Grey, should I choose a colour to match?  Almost match but a few shades lighter?  Should it match with the trim instead?  Hmmmmm!   Need Answers!

Here is one of the dudes working on it. He’s doing a mighty fine job!

And here are the other 3 gents.  Look how nice our living room looks! Note our ceiling! And the amount of potlights … there will not be a shortage of lights in this house!  It’s looking like a home! Sniff, sniff!

Mudding starts when we get some heat in there.  Oh, yeah, it was SNOWING yesterday!!

Shane is starting the septic field today… thank goodness!

As one can plainly see, we chose to go with the ‘wrap ‘ look for the fall season.  Everyone’s doin’ it!  Note the greyish roof and soffits and fascia.  Missing are the troughs and downspouts, I am assuming that they ARE coming!

And here is a closer look at my front door.  Not everyone’s style, but it suited our needs.  AND, YES, we WILL be painting it.  Just what colour is the question?!

These are the colour choices from the James Hardie cement fiberboard that we are using to cover the front.  Now, you would think with only 21 colours, a decision could be made rapidly, right?  Uhhhhh, no!  First I wanted RED, then hubby wanted BROWN, then I said a light GREEN. The ‘banter’ shall I politely call it, went on for days … which dragged into weeks!  FINALLY, a DECISION was made, at least on the main colour!

Our  main colour will be IRON GREY.  Sounds imposing, doesn’t it!  It is the little tiny colour piece that is, well, grey!  Now what about the trim colour??  This colour will go around the windows and doors and also be on our pillars.  The pillars are getting boxed out, Craftsman Style, and will be finished with some of that stinkin’ stone that is everywhere (hubby LOVES it, I tolerate it).

So, the trim colour I chose (NOTE the word I, because there was not any help from hubby. He wanted it done and over with!) is called Monerey Taupe, it’s the giant vertical piece on the right side.  Reason being, all whites are too “white” then they go straight into yellow tones.  Browns were too “dark”, so it basically left us with this one.  ALTHOUGH, I still kinda like the colour that is beside the grey, “Woodstock Brown”.  All comments on the colour choices are welcomed!!  Opinions??

NO PICTURES BECAUSE…….. my camera isn’t working.  I thought that it was a malfunction on the part of Canon, not due to dropping it.  THEN I was informed by a stoolie that the camera was found one morning in a puddle of coffee.  SINCE the informant was old enough to drink coffee and build a house with me, I have eliminated him from my list of suspects.  My list is actually very short, it contains two people who names begin with the letter J.

NEEDLESS to SAY, I have since that day gone out and purchased a new, better, slimmer and more colourful camera!

BEHOLD….. the NEW CAMERA…. IT’s SO RRRRRED!  I won’t lose it now!

Better Pictures to follow!