The Ups & Downs of Home Building

Well, this is not the best picture since I took it in the dark, the only light is the flash. But here is a picture of our beautiful mantle which will eventually be painted white with black slate tile on the hearth and around the insert.

They have sanded the floors and put down the first layer of stain... I love the variation, I hope it stays after it is finished. The siding guys will be out there today to finish the siding and put the shutters up and the water and sewer lines are going into today as well (wohoo... we will have indoor plumbing!) And the landscaping should start early next week.

The house is moving along, but we ran into a big snag yesterday. It was the first time I have cried during this whole process. I was so angry and tired and frustrated and I just wanted to scream. We have run into relatively few problems along the way... little things here and there (and the foundation problems which we hoped would be the biggest issue). Well, we were supposed to have our cabinets and countertops installed on July 24th... well here we are almost 10 days later and the cabinets are not even delivered, let alone installed... And THEN yesterday the guy called me to tell me that the laminate countertop edge and color I wanted was going to be TWO WEEKS before it was in (he didn't bother to call 2 months ago when I had told him what I wanted, he had waited until 2 days before installation!). So, to make a long long long story short... My amazing husband called him and he is paying to extend our loan rate past the Aug 14th deadline and he is giving us granite countertops at his cost which is barely more than the laminate was going to cost. It still makes me mad that our house is delayed 5 weeks because of one man but I suppose I will live and it won't matter in 10 years so I probably shouldn't care. L