Our Concrete Home

This is where we hope to be living by next Halloween (honey bucket is out of the picture this year....) Happy Halloween 2012! Yep....DeJa Vu!!! http://ourconcretehome.blogspot.com/2011/11/happy-halloween.html Halloween is here!  This morning I get to go to a school parade and parties. Maya was up before six to make her preparations.  Here is a sneek preview:  Maya drew up her costume and mom made it happen.  She wanted to be a "Candy Corn Witch".  However, mom needs to learn the order of her candy corn colors....ugh...  So grateful this year for Estee!  She agreed to recyle Maya's "Cleopatra" costume.  We don't do a lot of recycling, each kidlette gets a new costume each year.  But we bought her a new (very itchy) wig (that won't last the first twenty minutes of school).  And the necklace is the real deal--a gift from my parents when they lived in Egypt.  She was tickled as she skipped out the doo...

We are having a restful Sunday afternoon (much needed!).  I was with two of the girlies in the living room and saw our pile of Christmas books.  The first year we were married I purchased an illustrated children's Christmas story with the intent that the tradition would continue year after year (it has, we're on book 21 this year).  Each year I have remembered to put in our Christmas card inside the front of the book.  We have had some pretty creative cards in the past but have fizzled a bit since trying to get the house done.  Anyway, this is the first Christmas in our first home.  Sans enfants.  Just Brent and Lisa.  We still own this little downtown Provo bungalow.  When I visit to help out tenants I love to see the things we repeated in our concrete home.  Specifically from this view:  an awesome porch (we will have a swing just like this house) and two large pictures windows in the front. Yesterday we went on a shopping spr...

Weather looks like this out my front door right now.  Our Utah snow is starting to kick in.  The siding crew is supposed to wrap the garage and wood parts of the house today.  Snow delay?  I hope for only a couple of hours...it's supposed to be inspected at noon today!

We have been waiting for our siding company to arrive.  Brent decided that the hardie board, shingle, lap siding, and stone were a little more than he was willing to take on right now.  We went on a careful search to find a company and finally decided.  We got bumped, then bumped again, and waited an additional week after the first month-and-a-half waiting period.  But the ladders and a few supplies arrived THIS AFTERNOON. Whoooppppiiiiieeee!  Brent and I felt relief immediately.   Brent installed our beautiful doorsets.  Love it! The neighbors a house away backfilled their foundation today.  Challenge accepted, the race is ON!!!  They don't even know that they are competing on the highly anticipated reality show "Be The First To Move In".  I hope we beat them since the producers gave us an eleven month headstart! The past couple of days Brent and I have been reaching out to other siding companies to check on their availa...

One of the projects we worked on today, Saturday, was to add the accent wall color to each of the kidlette's bedrooms.  Maya and Estee both had to compromise (they are sharing a room) and settled for "Pink Innocence".  Cole's wall is "Rockport Gray" and Sierra's wall is "Antiguin Sky".  They all chose awesome colors but the pink is a little too pink for me (the girlies are tickled though).   Our powder room bathroom is a delicious sounding color "Lemon Meringue".  It feels really yellow to me right now...I think I need to wait a while before I do anything drastic like soften the color.  This bathroom will have a white bead board wains coat with trim, a white pedestal sink and of course a white toilet.  The floor will have the charming white "subway" hexagon tiles.  I can't wait for this bathroom--it's going to be soooo cheerful!  Estee begged to paint so I let her try it out for a bit.... Everyone was tired ...

Well, hmmm, does this look right to you?  Me neither.  So as sub contractors are working I wonder if they think "Brent and Lisa will never notice this".  This is a water pipe in our ceiling going into a wall.  Yes, we should have caught it earlier, but here we are.  Another one from this week, does this look right to you?  (ah, take a gander at that beautiful front door that Brent and I fixed up!  Love it!)  The columns are supposed to match the two wooden points that come down.  One is snug to the stairs and matches, the other is about 10 inches away.  Double hmmmm.  The columns are now both filled with concrete as is the entire hole.  Wonder how we will fix it... Both subs have assured us that they will make the necessary repairs/fixes.  They have been good to work with us.   I fully admit,  I can be a perfectionist.  It makes me a little crazy that we spend so much of our money, that we have save...

We have almost conquered the retaining wall!  But alas, once again it took up our entire Saturday.  The blocks that stacked on top of our bases were easier to place (as we were told) but I still don't enjoy putting up retaining walls.  But I will for the rest of my life look at that wall and know that Brent, Cole and I did it all by ourselves. Brent always likes the days when he gets to rent a big toy.  He was getting really precise towards the end of the project and could manipulate the bucket really well.  It takes  touch and Brent did it!  Grandpa and Grandma picked up Estee for a special Birthday breakfast at IHOP.  Estee loved it and I was told that she shared all of our family secrets.  Ah, kids....  When I wasn't retaining walling I ran a few errands.  On one of the errands I filled my car with 35 gallons of primer, 15 gallons of ceiling paint and 20 gallons of Revere Pewter to get the walls started....

Brent took today and Monday off of work.  And LUCKY for the kids, they are on Fall Break so they get to help at the house too (can you hear them cheering? um, not really, they are normal kids.  They would rather be playing during Fall Break). We spent a chunk of time prepping for paint...  Prepping is one of my least favorite jobs. It's just tedious but it's SOOOOOO important (So, no pressure).  But, we're making it through.  We have some help with the painting which will be fabulous. I picked up a bunch of cute little paint sample cans.  When the girlies got to the house their job was to cover the white poster boards in the paint.  That way we have much bigger samples to look at on the walls.   These are exterior possibilities.  Once again I refer you to the homes I fell in love with in SLC: http://www.ourconcretehome.blogspot.com/2012/03/day-186-bungalows-of-sugarhouse-slc.html Brent and I are really excited about o...