Finally - - An Update on the construction - -

I know that most of you thought that I had forgotten about this blog - but I haven't.  I just haven't had much time to get to it these days.  Don't really have the time today, but thought I'd better get something posted for those of you who aren't close enough to drive by and see what have accomplished.  I will just post the pictures with the captions under them and let it go at that so that you can see our progress.  If you are close by, just come by and take a look...

Foundation ready to pour.....                           

                          

Foundation poured

 

1st wall going up with the help of Josh, James, Randy & Chuck

2nd wall going up

3rd wall going up

 

 Josh helping out with the washers & nuts

Abby getting her chance to help with the washers and nuts, too

July 5 - at the end of the day - all of the downstairs, outside wall are up - except the front of the garage. Another day...

Now, You are caught up! 

We have a contract on our house and they are coming to do an inspection on Wednesday.  Pray that they find very little that will need to be addressed.  We will only have until July 16 to "fix" anything that needs "fixin".  They want to close by August 6. We do have a place to rent that is close to work (for Sheree) and close to this new place we are building.  Please pray for us as we go through these next few weeks with all that will be going on for us.  All of this, plus our trip to Australia to visit Matt & Tiff and of course new little "Roo"!!!! Then our mission trip to Montana after we return from Australia.  Busy, Busy, Busy summer.  Keep watching for more updates - will try to do better! :) 

Beginning Work - Finally!

Well as you can tell by the title of this blog, we have finally begun to see some action on the beginnings of our Shop - Apartment. Woo Hoo!!!!!  We still have not sold the house, but we have had so many lookers and even some interest.  We just have not had a good offer, yet.  But, we are optimistic and the right buyer will come forward when God is ready for us to move on.  We just have to be patient.  Here are some pictures that I want to share with you so that you can see our progress so far.  Now, all of these pictures were taken on Thursday, April 22.  

Here we have begun to work a little bit on our "curb appeal".  There was an old shed right here on the property and some very overgrown cedar trees.  We had to remove one cedar tree to make way for the extension of the driveway.  John did an excellent job of trimming those exsisting trees back.

We actually have to share our driveway with the corner lot occupants. The driveway that was there was not wide enough, so we extended it by the length of 1 more culvert. This is what you see as you are entering the driveway from Wood Duck.

You can see where John's truck is parked.  The shop/apartment will be built directly beyond that. 

 Here are what the correct footings are supposed to look like.  They began this way and then turned into a "nightmare".   The backhoe operator quickly found an old trash/debris pit.  Not good news. 

The pit is about 6ft deep, and we don't think that they are finished digging yet.  Lots and lots of debris.  They even came across some old septic lines from who knows how long ago.

There is even a picture of John standing near the hole so you can actually tell how big it is.  They are going to have an engineer come out and tell us what we are going to have to do to remedy the situation.  John says, probably continue to dig out all of the debris and then fill it all with gravel.  $$$$$  We can just see it disappearing before ours eyes! 

More pictures of what type of "stuff" we found in the hole.  

Here is a picture of what you see when you stand at the front of the shop/apartment and look to your right towards Mitchell Mill Rd.  The right side of that picture will be where we will build the house later on.  Behind that tree that is closest to the dirt pile.  

Sorry that this is so jumbled up, but I still have not got the hang of posting to this thing! :)  If anyone has any words of help for me in this area - I'm all ears.  

Anyway, just an update of where we are and what we've been up to.  It looks as though we are about to be very, very busy. (who would have thought that we could get any busier!) 

If you want to lend a hand and help out in any way, just let us know.  We've got an extra room! :)

Well, I don't seem to be keeping this blog updated very much, do I?  I wish I had more going on in my life so that I would have more to write about.  Just the same ole - same ole. :) 

Remember I told you that our contract had run out with the real estate firm we had our house listed with?  Well, we decided to list with another realtor and we did that about 2 weeks ago.  Since then, we have had our house shown quite a few times.  Hopefully it will be sold soon, then we can get started on the shop/apartment.  Once we finish that we can move into the apartment and then start on that new house.  Can't wait.  They showed our house last week a couples of times and again this week.  They were supposed to show it twice today, but they called late in the day and cancelled the 2nd time.  Oh well...  Our realtor has told us that one of the "lookers" was interested and had asked a lot of questions and might be about ready to make us an offer.  We'll see.

Remember also about the snow we had a few weeks ago and the canopy on the back deck that bent under the weight of the heavy snow?  Well, looks like we won't be able to replace the top any time soon.  We called the company that sells the replacement parts and they are out of parts for these canopys because of the snow in the SE part of the country.  I guess a lot of people called in to order the replacement parts just like us.  We will just have to keep calling until they have the parts in.  Who knows how long that will take?

We booked our tickets for our trip to Australia in the late summer. We are so excited about going to see Matt & Tiffany and the new baby!!!  They believe that it's going to be a girl.  :)  Now Laney will have a new little girl cousin to play with at family gatherings.  Matt says that Tiffany is doing great.  We did not get to talk with her that last time we talked on Skype.  Hopefully next time, we can. 

This was a sad week with our church family.  One of our dear sweet members passed away.  I feel sad for her family and pray that God will comfort them the way that only He can.  She has been sick for a little while, but this was not expected, so it was pretty traumatic for her family.  Pastor Randy preached at the funeral today and did  a wonderful job.  Her grand daughter spoke at the funeral and again at the burial.  She did a good job.  I don't think that I could have done that - NO - I know I couldn't have done that.  The funeral made me think a lot about my mom and her funeral a couple of years ago.  Pretty tough - it brought back a lot of memories.  I still miss her a lot. 

My neice, Stephanie, is getting married in May and had a bridal shower this weekend in Memphis.  I wish I could have been able to attend.  I probably won't be able to make the wedding either.  I wish I could go to that, too.  I know she understands, but still wish I could go.  Well, my brother finally found a job - but it's still not what he wants to do.  At least it is helping to pay bills and put food on their table, but he is still looking for something else.  I pray that he will find IT soon! 

This coming week, we are expecting company!!!  John's parents and his brother & sister in law and nieces will be arriving on Wednesday.  We can't wait to see them.  Looking forward to having a great time while they are here. 

More to come ....

Olympic Week

This week as been awesome watching the Olympics from Vancouver, BC.  I applaud all of those who have worked so hard to get there.  We have some amazing atheletes competing. Congratulations to all of those who have won medals.  Can't wait to see the closing ceremony next week!

This was also Bunco week!  We enjoyed a great night over at the Braswell's house.  And Amy had the theme of the Olympics, too.  Good job Amy!  We had so much fun and can't wait until next month.  It will be at my house.  Still trying to decide on what kind of theme to have - maybe St. Patrick's Day!  We'll see.

Well, John and I got outside today - it was beautiful!  We finally got around to taking down the top from the messed up gazebo.  We are still undecided whether to replace the bent pieces of frame and top or just to buy a large umbrella to go over the table.  Ikea has a nice 13 ft. umbrella at a very reasonable price, so we might go in that direction.  We also had to drain some water off of the pool cover today.  All that melted snow left quite a bit of water to deal with.  We didn't get it all off, but the majority of it is gone now.  Believe it or not, we still have a little bit of snow in the front yard right up next to the house. I guess that area does not see much sunshine, but I would have thought with the rising temps it would have melted by now.  Tomorrow is supposed to be a little warmer, so maybe it will disappear then.  I am so ready for spring! :)

We are stilll trying to sell the house and will probably list with another agent in the next few weeks.  We still have the old sign in the yard, but that contract has run out.  Hopefully we can get things moving here in the next little while.  We really would like to start on the new shop soon.  Starting on the shop means getting closer to being near our church and friends and eventually in the new house.  Can't wait!

New to Blogging

Well, I've finally given in and decided to post a blog!  I'm usually not very good with words, so who knows if I'm going to be any good with this.  We shall see.

John and I are going to start building a new home pretty soon and are trying to get our current house sold.  We have decided that we really like Raleigh and plan on staying around here as long as we can.  We do miss our friends and family back in Jackson, TN, but we have formed new friendships here and really love our church family.  Anyway, we hope to get started on our new home in the next few weeks.  I will try to keep our blog updated with our progress on the sale of our home and the beginnings of our new place. 

We also just recently had a nice little snow here in Raleigh, but we escaped the large accumilation that they received up in the D.C. area.  Thank goodness!  I'll try to post some pictures. We did loose our canopy that we had on the back deck, though.  The weight of the snow just caused it to collapse.  Oh well, I guess we'll just have to get another one.  We should have thought and took it down before the snow fell, but we didn' think. 

Here's those pictures I promised you...1st the house, the canopy on the deck, the view down the street and the view from our front porch.

Our contract with the Real Estate company just ran out this past week, so we have to decide what to do next.  Do we want to extend the listing with our current agent or do we want to take it off the market for a little while and then relist it with another agent?  Lot's of decisions to make about that.  We hope to know what we want to do by this weekend.

We hope to be able to update this blog at least once a week, but you know how good intentions always are.