Starting again

The house is built, everything is in it's place, and Jason and I believe it's time to jump back on the infertility treatment wagon. We have been back and forth with "should we adopt?" or "should we continue seeking fertility help?" and we have both settled on the decision to exhaust all of our options to get pregnant before we look into adoption. I think this year of not having treatments and not focusing so heavily on my infertility has been good and now we feel refreshed and ready to start again.

Having said that, I have a friend who reached out to me less than a year ago to tell me she just started working at PREG (Piedmont Reproductive Endocrinology Group), saw my blog and wanted to share the fact she works for a great group of doctors and nurses who are the best of the best in what they do. Because we were building at the time she messaged me, we decided to put it off until the stress of building a house was over. Well, it's over and we can't wait to make an appointment and see what PREG has to offer.

They have offices in Greenville AND Spartanburg, which is great because that makes the travel time shorter for most appointments. I would still have some diagnostic tests done in Greenville and if we do IVF, that will be done in Greenville also, but many appointments can be done in Spartanburg. We were happy to see this option.

I have prayed for a long time that the Lord would guide us to the perfect place/time/people to help us decide on adoption or fertility treatments and we feel like we need to give this a shot. I recently got a fortune cookie from Uncle Poons that read ":) Success is on its way to you." I immediate thought maybe the Lord could be speaking to me through a fortune cookie. He has spoken to me in so many different ways, so why not a fortune cookie? I believe the Lord can work miracles in the lives of anyone, and I certainly pray He will work a miracle for us to have a baby. Will you be in prayer for us as we start this process again?

We are in and still alive...I promise:)

It's probably been a month or so since I last blogged! I think I've been so busy with getting in the house and getting everything situated that I just haven't had the time to sit down and blog. Let alone, I've been wanting to show all of you some pics of the furnished house and not just a new house with nothing in it. Therefore another reason I have "waited" to blog. We are still getting some rooms in place and I haven't gotten a chance to take pics, but here are a few I have taken since we moved in:

 Kitchen with all the appliances:)

 Dining room with gorgeous curtains made by mom and me

 My side of the master bathroom

 My office with cool monogrammed vinyl decal on my refurbished desk!

 Guest bathroom with custom shower curtain I got on Etsy!

My handmade art finally up in the hallway!

 Gorgeous wallpaper I had put up in another guest bathroom

 Sweet Bentley loving mommy's new bed!

 Our gorgeous master bedroom--we have blinds now by the way!

 Screened porch--I got into sewing recently and made all these pillows/cushions!

 Here's another piece on the screened porch--made these pillows/cushions too!

Cute little table/chairs! I found the table at Pier 1 but hated the chairs that came with it. So, I found these chairs at an antique store (made in the 30's) and spray painted them and made cushions to match. How cute is this??

Those are all the pics I have right now, but I'll get more taken as other rooms continue to be organized and decorated! Sorry for the MIA business! 

The house is OURS...tomorrow!

I am beyond excited to tell you guys that we are closing on our construction loan tomorrow and the house is officially ours! I cannot believe this day is here. I feel like we have been waiting so long and now we can finally make this house our home! It hasn't come without complications, frustrations, and situations, but it's here. Period.

We had a little bit of a bump this week though. Let me explain. To move in, you have to have a final inspection and the inspector has to give you a CO, or for those of you (like me) who didn't know what that stood for, it's a Certificate of Occupancy. Basically, they tell you that it's ok to move in. Well, we had that lovely inspection and the inspector found several things that were not up to code and did not pass us. We were a little worried but the problems were remedied and the guy came back today to check out the fixes. Well, we didn't pass AGAIN. Here's the deal...

If you ever build a house, make sure this doesn't happen to you. When our cabinet guy (who is amazing by the way) was putting the lower cabinets in near the stove, the floor was somewhat uneven; therefore, he had some major adjusting to do to make sure the cabinets were level etc. Well, in doing so, code was broken. The distance from the granite to the bottom of the upper cabinets MUST be 18". Ours is 17.5". SERIOUSLY...we can't pass because of 0.5"??? Well, the inspector DID give us the CO, BUT our builder has to write a letter to the county saying he will fix the problem(s) and they will come back out 3 weeks later to make sure it's fixed.

Here's the kicker...someone please tell me how this is going to be a quick fix?? We have a backsplash up, granite in ONE piece, etc. I just can't imagine how it's going to be remedied, but I have faith it will. I just hope it's not going to be a huge inconvenience to us once we're actually living there.

Anyway, off that topic. The last coat of poly was put on the floors tonight, cleaning ladies come back tomorrow to finish cleaning, and we'll be in there tomorrow night to get a few pieces of furniture in before Directv and ADT come to set up our TV and security system Saturday. I can't wait to start posting pics of the furniture and all the decor. That's what's really going to MAKE the house!! Stay tuned!

Closing date...moving date...for REAL this time!

It seems like we have had a tentative date for a while now for moving in. First it was mid June. This was at the very beginning of the process which is always bound to change slightly. Then, once we were in the dry and getting interior stuff going, we were told it would be July when we could get in. As we got closer and were pushing to get in, my husband and I put a July 1st ultimatum on our builder, and that didn't hold either. We started to get a little worried because we have vacation planned in July and it's getting closer and closer to school starting back for me. Well, finally, my dad (also the banker) gave us great news....we got our final inspection done to say we were 100% done AND....the rates dropped to an all time low of 3.50% and WE GOT LOCKED IN AT THAT RATE!

So, long story short...we are heading to closing this coming Friday and moving in Saturday (for SURE)! We may be able to even get in Friday night to start putting some things together. Jason went ahead and scheduled Directv and ADT for Saturday morning so we kinda need to have all our TV stuff in place for Directv. All in all, we are just so pumped that this is finally happening! I can't WAIT to get in and decorate:)

PUNCH list!

On to another week, and I have high hopes of getting the little odds and ends out of the way. This week should be all the little things getting done around the house to get us READY to move in. Not that we haven't been ready. Trust me. We are more ready than you know. Friday, my mom, dad, and Jason (AND a shout out to Thomas Ryan who helped a ton!!) moved all our stuff from storage into the garage. There was no way we were paying another month's storage rent for only having it in there a few more days into July. It was, by the way, the hottest day of the summer thus far. However, we managed to get everything tucked away neatly in the garage and it felt like a small accomplishment--getting that much closer to REALLY moving in.

Also, Friday, my favorite crew came in to finish the deck railing and screened porch system and got a few door handles etc. on. Hopefully, they'll be back tomorrow to get the shoe mold on and the rest of the hardware mounted. The deck and screened porch exceeded my expectations, and I am thrilled at the outcome! What do you think?

 Ed and Randy putting the first set of railing up:) 

 The brave Chad, standing on a "support" about 7-8 feet off the ground getting the screen system in place!

And the finished look...open decking and the screened porch (try to look past the not painted door..it will get done, SOON)!

Jason and I went to the house today to move some stuff around so the guys could get in and around where they needed to be to put all the shoe mold on tomorrow. We also found so many places in the sheetrock that needed touching up, so hopefully that will be an easy fix this week. Note to anyone wanting to build a house in the future: Be at your house OFTEN. Check every last receptacle/light switch for holes that need puddying. Look at your sheetrock with x-ray vision for imperfections, etc. Make sure everything is exactly how you want it...otherwise, YOU'LL fix it later (on your own expense).

Coming soon...a guide for those who want to build a house in the future from someone who's been through it. You won't want to miss it:) Seriously, stay tuned!

Floored about my FLOORS!

FINALLY, after over a week of anticipating having our floors stained, I can officially say they have stain and one coat of polyurethane on them. Long story short, after the first rough sanding of the floors the machine kept cutting off and they had to find someone with an "up to par" sander to borrow one from. So finally that happened yesterday and the polishing, staining, and poly"ing" happened today. I was really happy with the color. I think it looks super! What do you think?

 view of the kitchen

 from hallway into great room

 walking in from garage (mud room)

 panoramic of the dining room! love how the columns really pop!

Master bedroom

Now, we also had our second load of sod come in today. The back yard got zoysia grass because it gets more sunlight and zoysia is much more sun loving than fescue! Here's a few pics of the grass in the back:

 one picture from the right side of house

 panoramic of the right back corner

 panoramic of the entire back:)

 side yard where the fescue meets the zoysia...

 right side finished near garage

 left side as it goes around back

 left side looking across the back

lots of water going on this sod...PLEASE stay alive!

Tomorrow we have my favorite crew coming back (Joey and the framing guys) to finish the deck--adding railings and screening in the porch! This is definitely one thing I've also been waiting on. I'm really pumped about my screened porch! They will also be putting in the shoe mold around the base boards and putting all the door handles/locks on. This coming week should be filled of little odds and ends that need tying up and we should be REALLY close to CLOSING! We can't wait to move in. 

Mean and GREEN! Well, just GREEN:)

Ladies and gentleman, we've come to another milestone in the house building process. WE HAVE GRASS, gorgeous fescue grass! There are certain things that just change the entire look of the house and this is one of them. All the dirt we have seen for so many months is now mostly covered with gorgeous, thick blades of deep, green grass. Now, granted this is the most green we'll probably see until Fall, it's still so pretty. With the crazy, hot weather moving our way, it will most likely get heat stressed, but we'll enjoy it while it's green. Someone once told my hubby, "There's 3 bad things about fescue." When he asked what he meant, the guy said "June, July, and August." So, all the other 9 months are gorgeous green. And because our new home is extremely shaded, we hope to see more green than just 9 months of it! Anyway, I'll stop describing it to you and let you take a peak:)

 Idea of where we started..trenching for the irrigation system

 Irrigation at the road front

 Trenches for the lighting AND irrigation near the columns at the road

 Irrigation valves

 Guys working hard to get the ground prepped

 And in comes the SOD this morning! Just gorgeous!

 Lovely at the road front!

 Panoramic view of the left side

 Rounding the corner of the driveway

 From the road...lots of pallets we had today!

 Another panoramic from the porch 

 Front porch looking forward!

 Left side curving around

Road front getting some much needed water!

These guys have been really great to work with. We have even considered letting them plant all the plants sometime next week. We (well, Jason really) just don't have much time to do all that with all the moving in and working (again, just Jason) going on. It's coming together for sure! Tomorrow's agenda includes getting sod in the backyard, so look for pics of that too!

On another little side note (but so fantastic too) is the grout work that went on today! My tile backspash is all grouted in (except for a little section under the window) and it looks fab! What do you think?

 Trusty tile guy, Mike, getting started!

 GORGEOUS if I do say so myself!

One more view!

Today was just one of those days that was fun to go to the house and watch things take shape. Tomorrow should be another one of those days since I get to pick my floor stain color! Totally transforming couple of days! We're getting closer folks:) Until next time....xoxo