JD....did ya put any traps in the attic? They like to make nests in the insulation.

Robin - Yes! I have real traps in the attic. Glue traps in the house around the kid and dog but real ones in the attic and shop. Have seen none today. Maybe DH was right and there was only one. I'm hoping.

JDez - Mice set up residence during our build. We had to redo some drywall and the crew found tunnels in the spray foam. We now have poison outside in pet proof containers. We caught 5-6 throughout the house. Also check all plumbing where it comes into the cabinets. We closed our holes with steel wool.

Speaking of cats and mice. Last house after we just moved in had some mice issues. It had also sat empty and a few mice and all their relatives had moved in before we did! We had traps set up in the rafters of the basement. I heard a jingle jingle jingle early one morning as in still in bed early and couldn't figure out what toy that could be. I couldn't quite recognize the sound. It was the cat dragging that trap with dead mouse in it up the stairs and down the hall and almost jumped up on my bed with it to show me! Talk about a rude awakening and of course DH was out of town. Fun times hunting critters, NOT.

jdez-sounds promising!

motherof3sons-tunnels in the spray foam? Ugh! Those little buggers are tough!

mfatt-I have to say that would drive the control part of me crazy. That is one thing I liked (even though it was paper work and tracking) was being the payer of the bills so I knew for a fact they were paid and when all the bills came in and were due. I hope that all worked out fine.

Winter wonderland over here. They are already talking school closings for Tuesday due to blowing and drifting. I am oh so thankful that this year we are sitting inside our new home looking out instead of trying to build it in this stuff. Brings back some crazy memories. It needs to stop/melt for at least a week so dh can finish the front of the barn and we can get the doors in!

I am getting freaked out hearing the mice stories. I saw one dead mouse in the house before it was knocked down for our" renovation". Definitely not looking forward to the cold and the snow. things were slow before with this weather everything will come to a stop. Feels like it will be ages before we finish. It's been a year since we gave an offer on this house. It took over half a year for the architect to give us plans. Every change took weeks... anyway, feels like it's been dragging forevrr.

I'm freaking out because since the foundation has been poured and framing has gone up, we have had several rains and right now are dealing with snow. They put the underlayment on the roof Friday and yesterday and the snow hit today. What work can even be done in such weather when the house isn't weather proofed yet?

Builder said they will start to brick the exterior while we are out of town for the next week and a half which is also making me nervous because I won't be able to go by everyday and check things out.

Ugh, I need to stop being on edge all the time. It's not like it will help get stuff done or make the weather behave itself.

More than slightly concerned about all the mice problems some of you are talking about here. Our house is just about dried in, hopefully by the end of the week. We talked to one of the guys last week who told us they disturbed a family of field mice when they moved a pile of leftover siding. What should we be doing at this point to discourage them from moving in as the winter weather moves in?

I am worried about all this mice talk too. We are surrounded by woods but are in the city so I hope its not an issue. We are almost done but mice get in at any stage I would imagine, like JDez, almost done and they infiltrated. I find good old PB on a snap trap to be good. As soon as we listed our old house we all of a sudden had mice in the kitchen. I caught one every night for 5 days and then nada after that. It was so gross.

Autumn- I am sort of burnt out on the control 2 years in to this project. We have only been under construction for about a year but I have gotten lazy and its biting me in the rear. The painters added on $1 worth of fees that were not in the bid, apparently my GC paid them in full for the bid/contract amount and is arguing with them over this. We will set up a meeting and get it taken care of but its disconcerting to say the least. The paint sub is a long time family business so I am sure we will have some middle ground to discuss. They had to maneuver around drainage trenches, our fault, but they tacked on more for the height of the house and that was there for the bid so I ain't budging there.

I'm a new member, but I've been reading discussions in the building section of this forum for quite a while. ;)
We are building a 4 bedroom, 2 story farmhouse with attached garage in east Texas. Should be 3600 heated square feet plus a frog that we will finish when we can afford to. Haha. The foundation is poured and they are supposed to start framing this week. So exciting! Here's a picture of my husband and kids (we have 4) playing whiffle ball on the foundation.

I can relate to so much of what others have said- it all feels like a dream, how did our house end up so huge, etc. Glad I'm not alone!!!

mfatt-I can understand your 'so over it' frame of mind too. The poor bank lady was the recipient of my short fuse more than once I'm afraid to say. Nothing can be simple or straight forward I swear.

crafty-I'm not sure what you can do. I have heard they don't like dryer sheets. Weird. But I'm not sure how that could help you while mid build. We've seen some of the subs leaving doors or windows wide open in the cold - so that doesn't help keep anything out or the heat in. Grrr!

Well I don't want to jinx myself but so far in this house no traces of mice INSIDE. However - we have seen evidence outside for sure. We had some shingles on a skid covered by a tarp and they chewed that up. They also built a nest in DH's truck (under the hood) that had been parked outside and he hadn't driven it for several days - maybe a week. Don't want them any closer than that!

This house is insulated so much better. We can already tell a huge difference in warmth - and being surrounded by trees surely helps also since we don't get that harsh wind blowing directly on it. That is a nice feeling.

I can hardly believe it's time to post on an actual "building" thread... but things are starting to change quite a bit around here and we have all the permits in hand. I think this might actually be happening! Hopefully I won't clog up these posts with too many pictures of cows and wildlife... that seems to be the bulk of the photos I take these days. :) And of course the trucks. This is just one of many. But the people are the most exciting part.

This won't be new to many of you, but for my husband and I, this is our first "hometown" after 15 years of marriage together, and the first time our home wasn't just an investment to be flipped at some point. For our "date night" last week we had apple pie up on the hill and watched the cows and calves that border our property for an hour. I highly recommend it for marital happiness - watching cows. ;)

We have neighbors I hope to know for decades and most of them have roots in this town that go back more than 4 or 5 generations. We are very much the "new" people in town even though we aren't unfamiliar with country living. So here's hoping I don't make a complete fool of myself trying to make friends here... I'm so enthusiastic I want to knock on every door and chat for hours. Like anyone has time for that. ;) But around here, people do have time for things. And I think that's pretty great. Loving our new town!!

We are also providing all our own bathroom vanities (saved big on cabinets) and here is the first one we refurbished from craigslist - fun projects for my hubby and I. And it is more of a gray color - not the purply color it looks like here. And I'm not convinced about the green bath hardware yet. I found it at rejuvenation on sale for an amazing price (along with soap dishes, etc.) and I'm trying to fit them into our scheme. Has anyone done anything silly like that? Anyway... off to paint another cabinet. There is no more room in our current garage! ;)

And I couldn't help myself... here are the cows.

Hi everyone-
I have not been around for awhile, but HELLO MFatt, JDez, Autumn, Carson, Ontario Mom and all newbies.

We are still at work making this house a home. We are in the decorating stage and our GC has pretty much forgotten some basic things we still need done... ah, breathe deeply.

The guy doing our hardwood is here everyday and I think he's sweet on me. Not joking- wish I was. He calls every few minutes to have conversations that have nothing to do with the floors upstairs. Aargh. How do I not have a second story floor the week before Thanksgiving???

Good news- The pavers went down on the lower terrace. We have the feature wall done in our Master and will have a headboard on Thursday, yay. We are being fast tracked into social life here... I am surprised at that but gratified nonetheless. But, as many of you can relate to I'm sure... I have to focus on finishing the house. My heart is not in it yet to flit about in social butterfly mode.

I DID buy a fishing rod and sit out on the bulkhead with a glass of wine trying to catch our crazy Nessie catfish who doesn't know she is supposed to feed on the bottom:-) She must not be too crazy- she hasn't been caught yet.

Grandkids are already coming to Nana's house and tapping their toes against the wide windows facing the lake. It is not perfect... maybe my energy will be spent before it can be made perfect... but nobody seems to mind.

In the meantime-

We will keep on eating that elephant, one bite at a time.

RHD- Glad to see you are getting started. I was going to ask where the cows were! Looking forward to seeing your progress.

musicgal- Good to hear from you! Keep pluggin' away- you'll get there. We're essentially camping while I build our house, but it's getting better and better. Last year, we hosted Thanksgiving with no heat, insulation, or kitchen!

We have a lot of wildlife here due to being in the woods. I constantly battle the mice in the barn, and they did set up camp for a while in the attached garage. The house is very tight, so they can't get in, but we do get little scorpions. It's driving me crazy trying to figure out how they get in- I assume they squeeze through the weatherstripping around the doors or something.

Siding is supposed to go up any day and of course we just realized an 11th hour error in the siding details. I'm about to combust. Will any part of this go smoothly? First world problems....Happy problems....Lucky these are my problems....

JDEZ- the house is just beautiful! ! I love your brick and you've probably said before but what is it ?

Crazy to post on here that we are finally starting our build! I love reading about all these builds! We broke ground this week and the basement is already dug. Hoping to pour footers and foundation here quickly before the cold snap hits again. We are building a modified Abberley Lane (posted a layout of 1st floor in another photo) on 5 1/2 acres.

Thanks mrsfireman, the brick is Columbus Annandale queen with white mortar.

We broke ground too yesterday! We had thought we would start back in September and be under roof before the cold weather, but several unexpected setbacks and now we are looking to pour footings next week in the upper 30s / high 40s. :-( I'm nervous about the weather. Glad to see some others just getting started this time of year.

I'm such a fair weather friend of this thread, LOL. Life's been so very busy and it's hard to keep up!

We had our drywall textured yesterday. All looks good for the most part, except they accidentally did two rooms that will have wallpaper in them. I contacted the drywall boss today, and he will need to send someone out to float and smooth out those walls.

Our trim carpenter begins Monday --yay! crown molding, cabinets, arches, oh my!

In other news, I found these beautiful chairs on craigslist for only $80 (!!!!) and bought them for my kitchen. They are a bit beat up, and I plan on painting them with Annie Sloan.

here is the kitchen inspiration board. I'll probably put the tulip toile pattern on the seats. What color would you paint the chairs?

Carson-I would paint them a cream color. See if you can match one from the fabric.

I love your inspiration board.

Well our exterior is almost complete. They finished all the shutters and are staining the front door tomorrow. We move in 2 weeks from today, so much to do still.

Carson- the chairs are great. Hi- know y'all are catching the same storms we are catching right now. Presently siphoning the pool :-) I used Annie Sloan Pure White for my vanity stool and a mirror. That stuff is fun... you really need to decide after you get in so you can see if you want to pull warm or cool tones. I made a couple of expensive mistakes in those regards.

I spent the evening putting up crystal on the dining room chandy. Our upstairs floor is finally in after us being in the house for nearly 3 months. All
the guitars went to the music closet up there- hoorah! Stopped at this point tonight. The chandelier is old. It was the first "nice" thing we ever bought as a couple, and it has been moved several times.

Where's Amberm, Calgary girl- what happens in this kind of weather?!!!!!

Hi Mush- We will keep plugging along. It never is done until you decide it is done, right:)

Carso - love your inspiration board and those chairs are awesome! Would fit great in our updated Victorian home we're building.

Everyone's homes are beautiful!!

Faulstr & SeriouslyMel - we broke ground on 10/30, we're building in the country outside of Kansas City, Missouri and just after they broke ground we got our cold snap, they had our footings poured the Friday before it hit. But had to do foundation walls on the one day we hit 32. We were nervous but concrete guys said they pour in colder weather not to worry. They're pouring our slab Tuesday, it's supposed to be 40. Good luck on your builds!

Went by the building site to check rough in plumbing. All looked pretty good. We've had rainy weather this weekend so we laughed at how much mud was on our shoes. I could barely life my feet. My DH said to get used to the country life :-)

Here are a few pics. We'll have to do them 1 at a time darn it. This is our master bath.

Here's one showing our safe room/pantry, to left is the kitchen sowing sink plumbing and to right powder room and farthest away on right is master bath.

They're poring slab Tuesday, they have to finish plumbing tomorrow.

We did notice they forgot to run the drain pluming in the garage, so now they are going to drill holes throughout the concrete footing. It would cost too much to dig under everything. Crazy!

Hi everyone.
Love your homes and reading your comments.
We are in the St Louis area also. The temp have been in the teens making it hard to pour concrete here also. Friday it warmed up to 40 and they poured the footings. We have a walk out basement and will have poured foundation walls. So hoping for temp to stay above 30 for a while.
As you can see from our picture we took today a lot of rock was brought in because of the lot's slope. I do not understand the process of pouring the concrete floor over that much rock. Do you?
Windows are on my list to get ordered next. After reading here and knowing our budget, we are going with Marvin Casement wood-ultrex, Color: Ebony.
Have a wonderful and peaceful week everyone!
kzim

{{!gwi}}

Renee......if you can....make sure the pipes coming up are in the right location.

Robin0919 - Thanks, my DH and I were tromping around in the mud yesterday to do measurements. They all looked correct and measured right. But as we all know some things happen even after we've checked and double checked. My DH is going to go by tonight since they are doing the final plumbing stuff today, and spreading the gravel.

kZim - Good luck on getting good days to pour, it's a nightmare in Missouri this time of year to get things done quickly on the nice days.

We are in the St Louis area too - in an IL suburb. We're on our way home from a weekend in Chicago right now and builder called us that they're doing the footings today. It's snowing in Chicago but I think dry in St Louis.

Wow lots of beautiful homes going up and getting finished. I do love those cow pictures, too. I am a frustrated farmer who would have loved living on a farm but am too old to do all that work now.

I was out of town all week at a conference so did not get over to our home at all and hope to be back there this week before the end of the week.

We have windows now and the plumbing has been installed. My builder wants our selections for the paint trim and a front door. He wants to finish up the exterior before the real cold moves in. After having some below freezing temps here in NC the area last week, he is moving forward on that. I have my husband running around town getting paint samples for us to mull over.

Carsonheim. I love your inspiration board. How did you put that all together? Wish I were more computer savvy to do that. FWIW I would go with a cream colored finish on those chairs, too. You could even make them a bit distressed if you want to move more into the shabby chic look.

Welcome to all the newbies!

As for mice discussion. My only advice to those with them is to get a cat. We have a cat who loves to kill them. She won't eat them but leaves them for us to find. Saves me from having to set traps for sure. When I had two cats they would have a field day hunting them in our much older home up north. No mouse EVER had a chance in our last home.

Musical: Gorgeous light. I love the bling!

I just had to post this picture of our Jason Microsilk tub in our unfinished bathroom. Made me laugh to see it all alone, but builder had to get it ahead of time to see how it was gonna fit and will be building the platform around it. I can't wait to get in it!

We are 10 weeks into our build in STL.

Exterior

Exterior 2

gscott991: Your home is lovely. The door and black windows work very well with the design. Would you mind telling me the brands you decided on? I need to get mine ordered this week and I am hoping for black windows.

faulst: We are originally from across the river in Illinois.

renee: I think we broke ground the same day but we are a little behind you.

The windows are Andersen 400 series in dark bronze. Andersen also makes a 100 series in dark bronze. The interior is painted white. Here is a link to the door we chose which is an 8 foot door. A Multipoint door lock will need to be installed since it is sold wood door.
http://www.mouldingassociates.com/collection/alpine/1/4/17

gscott991 I love your door.

It is fun to see so many people starting the process, when there are a few of us at the tail end of the process. We have a week and half before we move in. Our cabinets are putting us behind, as they were supposed to be in almost 2 months ago, and they are still being installed. Next week will be crazy with the finish plumbing, electrical, appliances, backsplashes, and hopefully everything else that still needs done.

Here is a picture of our master suite. I think I am in love with it.

jenniekehr Thanks! You might need to repost you photo it isn't showing up.

Here are a few more.

Photo 2

Photo 3

Photo4

Slight leak. We are out of the country, but our buddy who is keeping an eye out for us caught it and alerted our builder. Plumber was out there shortly, so major crisis avoided.

Fireplace is in!

Double post

This post was edited by aimless07 on Wed, Nov 26, 14 at 4:07

Aimless, yay!!!!! The fireplace install is one of the milestones I am really looking forward to.

gscott: Thanks for the door info. Now I have another thing to obsess about!

This post was edited by kZim on Wed, Nov 26, 14 at 15:35

Well they didn't get our slab poured on Monday, they had to put the gravel down and that didn't get done. They put some gravel down yesterday and are supposed to let us know how much more they need to finish it and pour slab next week. I sure was hoping to say on Dec. 1st we are framing but not that lucky.

Tomorrow will be busy cooking and celebrating Thanksgiving for the last time in my tiny Townhome kitchen with no counter space! Next year I'll have an Island and way more counter space and a double oven :-)

We've had to make some changes to our plans as the builder didn't catch that we had a pocket door on the main level that wouldn't make the upstairs room right, so we changed to a regular door and moved the pocket door to the laundry room (my DH made that call not me as I didn't want it there either).

gscott - we are getting Anderson 100 windows, so I'll have to let them know we want that color. Your is awesome.

Sorry it did not show up, here it is again.

Jennie, what are your paint colors from this pic you posted. They are lovely.

Jennie, what are your paint colors from this pic you posted. They are lovely.