Deuteronomy 6:4-9

^“4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”  Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Since before we had even decided to build a house I knew, if we ever had a chance, I wanted to write scripture verses on the door frames, walls, and foundation of our home.

With the drywall going up very shortly, we knew we had a narrow window to get in there and be able to write on the studs and door frames, so on May 6th, we did just that.

We picked out some of our favorite verses.  Ones that meant a lot to us or that we had been praying over our house.  Ones for those just stopping by, and ones for our future kiddos.  We ended up with a list of about 100 verses and/or passages of scripture.  They were all written within the walls of our home.  Although they will be hidden, and most people will never know they are there, we pray that they will bless anyone who enters our home and those who will live in it after us.

We tried to place each one is a specific spot that it was related to.  For instance the one we are writing in the picture below was in our closet.

“²² Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. ²³ For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.” Luke 12:22-23

And the one below was on the doorway to our master bedroom.

^“19 We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19

It took a long time to write each verse, but it was worth every second knowing that God’s word is at the very core of the house.

And that everywhere we go/sit/talk/entertain, God’s word will be there and His promises are all around us.

As exciting as it is to build a house and to see the progress each week, this was by far the most exciting part to me.  More than anything, we want our home to be a safe haven and a refuge to all who enter it.  We want it to feel warm and welcoming.  We want to have an open door policy at all times.  We want it to feel different to others.  But, most importantly, we want people to come to know the Lord there.

One of the cool things about having the scripture written is that the workers and anyone who walks through the house will see it and can read all of the passages that are everywhere.  Not long after this, we went to the house and on the fireplace someone (we are assuming a worker) wrote:

“Praise the Lord with all your heart!”

We were so excited that someone was affected by and wanted to add to the scriptures we had written.  It was such a sweet blessing to us.

In addition to this, we met with Brent and he told us that some of the workers were asking who wrote all of the scriptures and he told them that it was probably the homeowners.  He said, “usually the steal things from us, so it’s nice to have it the other way around this time!”  We were thrilled to hear that we were different and that they noticed that.

Even though we do not have kids, or plans to have them in the near future, we hope to live in this house for a long time and raise our children here.  With that said, we wanted to write verses specifically for them in the rooms that will be theirs.  We picked several out with them in mind and in the picture below, hubs is writing this one:

“¹³ For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”  Psalm 139:13

Family and friends who are reading:  we are NOT pregnant!!!

Now that that’s taken care of, we can move on…

I didn’t get a picture of it, but on the ceiling of the front porch we wrote the verse that we have been praying over our house from the beginning:

^“8 Lord, I love the house where you live,
    the place where your glory dwells.”  Psalm 26:18

That continues to be our prayer, and even though the Lord doesn’t need verses written in a home to ‘live’ there, I think it will be pretty hard for him not to dwell in our home with His promises all around…and that warms my soul.

Progress – Under Roof

We took our weekly trip to the house on Friday, April 27th and our house was standing and had a roof on it!

It also had a giant dumpster in the front yard. 😦  Puts a damper on the pictures.  Luckily, it’s only temporary.

Here’s a better angle without the dumpster.

You can really see the dining room window and front porch.  The window upstairs above the porch is one of the bedrooms.

Here is a picture of hubs standing in the dining room window.

This will be one of the focal points of our house since our door is nontraditionally placed on the side of our front porch.

Another angle of the dining room from the landing on the stairs.  Past it, you can see the living room and the banquette.

And here is the kitchen, taken through the living room.

The half wall in the center is for our island.  They have to lower it a bit because they made it bar height instead of counter height.

Here is the living room looking into the foyer and stairs.

You can see the fireplace and the small rectangle to the right towards the ceiling is a window that has not been cut out yet.  They are raising the mantle a little to match the picture below.

We can’t wait to see how it turns out!

Here is hubs checking out the tray ceiling in the master bedroom.

They finally cut out the back windows in the bedroom.  And, see the blue and red pipes on the floor…that is the start of our plumbing.

Here, in the master bath you can see more the the plumbing.

The left side of the window is hubs’ sink and the right side is mine.  There will be a tub in the middle that I will have many a bubble bath in!  I can’t wait!

Here is the back of the house with all the windows cut out.

In addition to the roof, the staircase was added, so we didn’t have to climb that ladder again.  (You can stop worrying pops!)

We love the landing and how the stairs become a focal point of the foyer without taking over the space.

And now…the upstairs without all of the crazy support beams!

Above is the bonus room, with the large opening on the left leading to the bedrooms and bathroom.

They fixed the ceilings in the 2nd and 3rd bedrooms.  We wanted them to be vaulted so they would feel bigger.  They are pretty tiny, but it already looks so much better.

Here is the future expansion area we gained by closing in the ceiling of what was supposed to be a two story living room.  You can read about that here.

Among all of the mistakes that need to be fixed, there was one pleasant surprise.

They ended up framing the storage area.  Brent described it as “The framer got a little excited”.  We got a lot excited because one day down the road we can easily turn it into a bonus room, theater room, or even a very large bedroom.

And finally, our main task this week was to choose exterior colors.  So we drove around looking at houses and realized that we liked a bunch of different color combos, but when we drove up to this house…we knew it was what we wanted.

Keep in mind that we do not like the stone at all.  We will choose a little darker/grey-er stone to go with the dark grey (with slight brown hint) siding. We will have vinyl shakes on the front and siding on the back.  The roof will be a similar color and we will have white trim and columns.

Progress – Upstairs

My morning on April 20th started with a phone call from hubs telling me that our car was broken into…AGAIN.  The second time in less than 9 months.  The craziest part is that there was nothing of value in there at all.  Seriously, some empty CD cases, a few CD’s, a pair of broken glasses, a 5 dollar pair of sunglasses, some body splash, an old brush, and who knows what else.  Were they that hard up for cash?  It made me so ready to move into our house…not just because I’m so excited to live there, but because we will have a garage!  Therefore, breaking into the car would involve breaking into the house first.  Probably not going to happen.

On a lighter note…we braved an impending storm to see the progress.

Looks ominous doesn’t it!  It really wasn’t that bad.  As far as the house was concerned, they almost finished the downstairs and were working on the upstairs and roof.  See the ladder on the left side of the house?  That is how we got up to the second floor to check things out because the stairs had not been finished yet.  The roof is much taller than I thought it would be, but you can really start to see what the elevation will look like.

Here is an update of the kitchen/living room/eat in area now that some of the support beams are gone and there is a ceiling:

And here is the back of the house:

We didn’t know that they would be adding the pitch on the right side because we never saw a picture of the rear elevation, but we are so glad they did because we think it adds so much character!  There will also be three more windows in the back that have not been cut out yet.

And here is our beloved garage that we are looking so forward to parking in!

This is a picture from the upstairs looking down through the tray ceiling into the master bedroom:

This is our unfinished bonus room/additional storage:

Because we didn’t want a two story living room, we ended up with extra space upstairs.  We knew we wanted a bonus room right at the top of the stairs so the original bonus room became an optional bonus room that we can finish later if we want and just use for storage for now.  It’s nice to know we have so much storage space that could potentially become another bonus room or a guest room down the road.  We are hoping to be here for a LONG time, so that could come in handy!

This is kinda hard to see with all of the support beams, but here is the bonus room:

Hopefully you can make out the header above the doorway which opens to a hallway that leads to the two bedrooms, a bathroom, and the future bonus room.

This is looking down the hallway to the left from the bonus room:

You might be able to make out the door to the right, which is the bathroom door, and the door at the end of the hall which leads to a bedroom.

That’s all for now…the next post contains a lot less support beams so it should be a little easier to figure out what everything is.

We went back the next day to drool over it some more and got to meet one of our neighbors on the other side and her sweet baby boy, as well as the neighbors two doors down.  They just moved into one of Brent’s houses and we enjoyed walking through it multiple times as it was being built.  (If you can’t tell, that is one of our favorite hobbies!)  We talked to them for a while and are excited to get to know them better.  It’s nice getting to know people before we even move in.

Our next step is to choose exterior colors so they can get started on that…let the fun/stressful decisions begin!

Progress – Framing

Every time Hubs and I pull up to the house we are like little kids seeing Disney World for the first time. Our faces light up with sheer and utter excitement. This was, by far the happiest day of the process so far…

On April 14th, almost the whole first floor was framed.

It’s actually starting to look like a house!  The 2D plans that we have stared at for  what seems like forever are finally 3D!  We were overcome with excitement as we walked through each room of the house.

The picture below is taken from the mudroom looking through the kitchen and into the living room.

The pipe in the middle of the floor will be where our island is and on the back wall you can see where the fireplace and windows will be.

This picture is taken from the opposite corner of the living room, looking back towards the kitchen.

Of course all you can probably see are boards going everywhere!  Most are studs for the walls, but the rest are to hold the walls up.  They will come down as the rest of the house is complete and it will be much easier to visualize.

And what’s a post without a picture of hubs and his handy dandy tape measure!

We leave one in the car, along with a copy of our plans, ever since the foundation scare.

Here is the back of the house.

The left side is our covered patio which will extend to an uncovered patio.  That will be poured when they do the driveway and front porch.

So…I have a confession to make.  Hubs and I agreed early on that we would go to the house together once a week so that we could really see the progress that was made (usually Friday with an occasional trip back on Saturday just for fun).  However, this felt like the longest week ever waiting to see what would be next since the foundation was set, especially since I work so close to the neighborhood…so I cheated.  I happened to have a doctor appointment close by so I just HAD to stop and sneak a peek at the progress (even though hubs was not with me, so sorry hubs!).

The picture below was taken on Wednesday April 11th.  Sorry for the poor phone camera quality.

The first thing I saw was that we had a special delivery of wood in our front yard…then I noticed that there were two men working on the first wall of our house.  I was beaming with joy over the thought of the walls going up.  Needless to say, 2 1/2 days later the first floor was completely framed out as you saw in the pictures above.  I’m telling you…these guys move quick!!

We met with Brent to see what we needed to be working on and discuss a few things.  He told us that as long as it didn’t rain our house would be under roof in a week…what did I tell ya??  QUICK!  He also told us to be picking out exterior colors and the next step after that would be tile and then cabinets.

We had to send him a picture of windows we liked so he could order them.  This is what we sent him.

We loved the craftsman look of this window, but picture it in white.  They will be going in soon and we can’t wait to see how they look in real life on our house.  It’s getting to the point where we have to make some major decisions regarding the house and it is getting kind of nerve-wracking trying to be 100% sure.

Anyways, while we were at the house, we met our new neighbor, Ron.  We were so excited to officially meet someone in the neighborhood.  That is one thing we are really hoping for here…community.  It felt good to meet someone before our house is even done.  Hopefully next time we will meet his girlfriend and son.

Has anyone ever built a house?  Is there any advice you can give us on what to do or what not to do?  We need all the help that we can get!