The House That Built Me

We're getting pretty fancy here, with the video and all.  Hopefully it works, if it doesn't, PLEASE let me know!

I am typically not a big fan of country music, but occasionally I will listen to it.  The workers at the house generally have the country station on while they are working.  The other day when I was there, this song came on.  It's called "The House That Built Me" and it's by Miranda Lambert.  She's pretty awesome. 

Anyways, the song is about a woman wanting to go back to her childhood home and soak in the memories, because, whether we like it or not, so much of a person is tied up in their past.  I almost had to leave the room because I got pretty emotional listening to it.  And yes, if you know me, I have the tendency to get emotional pretty often, but this is different.  This woman wanted/needed so desperately to go back to her roots.  It hit me for two reasons:  

1. In a few short (and rapidly approaching months) I will be leaving my childhood home.  The house that literally has my blood, sweat, and tears in it.  The house that my parents have lived in for 23 years.  Where they brought two children home from the hospital.  There are so many precious memories here, that the thought of leaving kind of breaks my heart a little.  It won't me mine anymore.  This bedroom will belong to another kid, who will make the walk every morning up to Tillman.  Who will have their own playground in the backyard.  Another family will sit on our front porch, and pull into the driveway that has our handprints at the end.

2.  As weird as it will be to leave this home and street that in so many ways made me into the person that I am today, I get to go to another home that holds just as many memories for my family.  We lose a home with many fond memories, but we get to make a home that is so much a part of the history of our family all ours.  It will be our name on the door now.  Those stories we tell of Grandpa always being so sweet to cut the grass before we used the slip-n-slide in the backyard (resulting in so many grass cuts), and the beloved address I knew before I knew my own home address.  It's ours now.

Two houses helped built me, and my brother, and my sister, and my mom and dad.  And while I can't even begin to imagine how hard it will be to leave one, we get to continue the growth of our family in another one.  The idea that our kids will get to go visit "Grandma and Grandpa" in the house where I got to spend so many loving memories with my own Grandma and Grandpa is the neatest thought of all.

Here's the video, and if you're anything like me, have a few tissues (or a whole box) ready!

**UPDATE**  If you click on the video it will say that it cannot be played, but there is a link within the message that will lead you to YouTube so you can watch it.

New Closet

Inventive title, I know.  Well we only have a few pictures today.  They made the frame for the closet in the little hallway from the garage to the kitchen.  It's kind of hard to understand/see it from the pictures, but I'll at least post them.

Like I said, it's a little difficult to see.  The closet ends at the second black line on the wall.  It'll stay open like that so we can display stuff on top.

The view from the garage.

From the garage again.  You might be able to see it a little bit better from this angle.

There are two more pictures as well.  The first is of the new furnace and the second is of all the wiring in the basement.  The electrician is (I believe) coming next week.

The new furnace in the basement.  There's a second furnace for the second floor as well.

Kind of fun and crazy looking photo of all the electrical wires.  Soon we'll have real lighting in the house!

The Eye is the Window to the Home?

Ok, that title was really lame. I'll be the first to admit that.


You've probably been wondering, why haven't there been any posts lately? I haven't posted in a while, not because I'm too busy with school, but because there really hasn't been much to take pictures of and update.  A lot of what has been going on the past few weeks was putting in air ducts and starting to do the wiring.


That all changed this week.  We had windows delivered, meaning that you can actually SEE a change in the house.  The other thing I should have updated on but didn't have pictures for *cough cough, parents* was the new roof.  The new roof shingles are on the new construction.  You'll be able to see it in some of the pictures.  The old roofing has not been torn off yet, meaning the new roofing has not been extended to the whole house yet.  


Here are the new pics:

The framing for Brian's closet.

The new window in my room.  Brian has the same window in his room.

The landing at the top of the stairs.  To the right is the hallway to my room.  To the left is the alcove and doorway into Brian's room.

The two new windows in the hallway from the garage to the kitchen.  They have built in blinds. Pretty fancy!

Mom checking out the plan for the soon-to-be kitchen island.

Another new window in the back room.  The GIANT sliding doors aren't even in yet, and the room is already so much brighter.

Windows overlooking the backyard.  

The doors to the backyard.  I think they're something like 8 feet tall.  Really big.  We'll put it this way, you know it's a big, heavy door when it comes in a wood frame with handles on the sides to make it easier to carry.

Since the kitchen is against the wall that used to be the outer wall of the house, they had to add framing in order to attach the cabinets.  Just a little important. 

The happy home-owners enjoying the new basement. 

The second floor.  The big box thing over the stairs the furnace.  It's nice because it didn't have to take up space in anybody's room, and surprisingly it isn't noticeable when you're walking up the stairs.

From the front room, through the dining room, into the back room with the new windows!

The hallway from the garage to the kitchen as seen from the outside.  Hopefully for those of you who have been to the house before, you can get a better understanding of it from the angle.  The black part of the wall and the white wall on the far right are the ends of the garage.

The windows in the back room.  The big wood square on the side is where the sliding doors will be.  

I think that's all the excitement for now.  It rained a lot this weekend so I know the workers finally got a day off Saturday, and I'm not positive if they were working today.


At this point it is going to keep going at this pace of really fast then really slow.  I love the really fast parts because then I get to show all of you the updated pictures.

Closing In...

Well school is off and running, I'm not sure if I'm excited about it yet, but it's crazy  that I'll be a college graduate a year from now.


Anyways, here are the latest pictures.  Putting the shingles on the roof had to be postponed because it was a little rainy earlier this week, and now it's too cold.  It's going to be warmer this weekend, so they're aiming to get the roof on then.  In the mean time, they have been working on the ceiling upstairs.


Here are a few of the pictures now that back room is completely on and covered by the roof.  It's seriously amazing how big the rooms seem now.  Plus, the archway between the dining room and back room is open now, making the house seem even larger.

As I said, the room looks HUGE!!  This will be the family room.

The room from the other side.  This will eventually be the kitchen.

This is the view from the living room (front room) through the dining room and into the family room.  The archways are both giant.  The house is looks like it is going to flow really well.

The archway again.  You can see the whole archway from this angle.  Now you know what I mean about the house being very open.

The view from the back room to the front room.  Once the back windows are put in, you'll be able to see from backyard to front.

Not a whole lot of pictures this time.  I guess as the roof goes on this weekend, there will be more pictures.  If possible, I want to keep most of the posts in the future this length, just so they're more manageable for myself and for you the reader.

Wide Angle Photos Round #2

Today is my last day of winter break, so I figured I had better get the rest of the photos up.


With the snow last week, there were a few days the workers couldn't work.  Meaning that we haven't gotten a whole lot further since the last time I updated you.  Today they are supposed to put the roof on, but rain is in the forecast.  I'll keep you posted, as always, on that.


I think this set of pictures may have actually been taken before the first set.  That's completely my fault (and by that I mean it's the computer's fault for uploading them in a backwards order).  Here are the second set of photos from Brian though:

The front of the house

I love this picture.  It lets you see a really great overview of the whole first floor.

The master bedroom looking out towards the street.  It's kind of the storage room for anything that isn't being used right at that moment.  I guess because it is out of the way.  Last time I was over there, there were two skylights in there, ready to be placed in the bathroom and alcove upstairs.

You may or may not have noticed in a lot of these pictures that there are piles of old wood flooring.  Since there wasn't enough of the original hardwood White Oak upstairs, we decided to pull all the original Red Oak flooring from the first floor and put it upstairs.  The master will still have the original Red Oak floors, but everything else on the first floor will have new distressed Hickory (I think) floors.

The new basement before the floor was poured.

Getting ready to pour the new basement floor.

The happy home owners!

The stairway and some of the second floor.

The view of my room, the hallway, the bathroom, and what will be the alcove as seen from the top of the staircase.

The view from above

Well I believe that is all for now, hopefully there will be more photos to come soon!

Wide Angle Photos Round #1

As I mentioned in my last post, Brian went to the house a few days (weeks?) ago and took some wide angle shots.  Not only are they awesome and art-sy but they also lend a better perspective often times.  I may or may not have mentioned this is the last post, but I have two separate groups of photos from him so here goes round #1.


Since these pictures are a little older, I figured I should update you on the house as well.  For those of you not in St. Louis, I'll just let you know that it is now officially winter here.  Meaning that you need more than a light jacket and we have had snow now.  And by snow I mean about two inches...but that might be overly generous.  Since there was snow and some other precipitation earlier in the week, things slowed down a little bit, but are still moving along.  To my knowledge, the major things that happened this week were the roof being put on and the basement being poured.  Both major steps to continuing the project.

It's a little dark, but that's the backyard and back of the house as seen from the dirt pile

Shadows from the dirt pile

The tresses from the roof.  I think there have been similar pictures posted already.

Lots of old siding and debris.

The new part of the roof is just barely peeking out from this view.

Like I said, cooler, art-sy shots.  The tresses are really big...obviously since the crane had to come move them!

Getting into the more noticeable wide angle shots.  This probably gives a better idea of how high the ceilings are going to be in that back room.

The entrance from the garage.

I promise the dirt pile really is huge!  On the far right side you can kind of see the walk out from the basement.

This used to be the doorway between the den and backroom.  Soon it won't exist at all.

Lots and lots of tresses.  And the square part in the back is where my room will be.

The stairs from the basement leading up.  They are SO wide now!

Having fun playing in all the dust.

Since the rooms upstairs will have full 8 foot ceilings, the peak of the roof will be taller now. That board all along the top is where the new roof will be.  And because the roof will be taller, the chimney has to be raised so it clears the height of the house more.

Okay, well that is round one of Brian's photos.  Hopefully the next round will be up soon.  I start school again on Tuesday which means the time I get to spend posting on here will probably be cut back.  Though truthfully, it will be hard to cut back on it too much when progress is being made at such a quick pace.

So Many Pictures, So Little Time

Tonight I thought to myself "gosh I haven't posted on the blog since New Years". I really thought this was going to be my first post of the year.  While it hasn't been quite that long, it has been almost a week since my last post.  Remember how crazy it was that they were able to tear the roof off so quickly?  Well it's only gone faster since then.  I have three sets of pictures that need to be posted.  The first set is similar to the pictures that are normally on here.  The second two were taken by Brian using his wide-angle lens.  I am going to post them all separately, as there are quite a few per set.  This post will contain the more typical pictures.

It didn't take long before there were walls upstairs

A little bit of old, a little bit of new

The back of the house one day after the roof was torn off

The view of the back room and the new upstairs wall as seen from the garage entrance hall

So the first few pictures were from Thursday (January 5) the following pictures are from Friday (January 6).

We knew that the tresses would be put into place on Friday, but kind of assumed it would be an all day event.  That was definitely not the case.  The crane had come, done its work, and left by about 9:30 that morning.

Well hello Brian! This gives a little perspective for the vaulted ceiling.  I think it's 9 foot something at the ends of the room and a little over 12' at the highest point

Quite a few tresses here, and they were all put into place in a little over an hour.  Now that's efficient work!

It's kind of hard to see because of the tree, but you can actually start to picture rooflines now

The next picture is my new favorite of the house.  I think I've mentioned before, and I know I'll mention again that we have the greatest workers ever.  They have only taken one day off since New Years Day.  Plus, last friday when the tresses were put into place, they were there at probably 8 am (if not earlier) and didn't leave until after 6pm.  And beyond the major hours they're putting in, they are super helpful with anything we need or want to know.

Since the workers were there so late, we got this awesome picture of the house at night.  Even now, work has progressed so fast that this picture wouldn't be as cool.

I believe this was at the beginning of this week, probably January 10.  This is the old part of the basement where they had to redo the pipes.  For those of you who have been to the house before, the pipes coming out of the wall are where the washer and dryer used to be and the wall in the background is the storage shelves.

And FINALLY the new basement concrete got poured!!!

This is the old part of the basement.  This wall used to be filled with old farm antiques that Grandpa used to love to ask us the uses for.  See the two brick sections? Originally those were windows and soon will be again.

It's funny, that pile of dirt doesn't seem so big when you're standing on the second floor of the house

Dad checking out the ROOF! All of the wood for the roof was put on this week, and thanks to the placement of my window, it's pretty easy to check out the roof.

I feel like having a roof of sorts makes the house look so much more complete already.  This picture is taken from the backside of the garage.

This is what the giant ladder leaning against the side of the house (that allowed the workers to get on the roof) looks like from the bottom.  Just a little steep.

These are all the "normal" pictures as of now.  I just realized that for the first time I think I'm not including any indoor pictures.  Hopefully I can get some of those in the next few days.  Now that there is a roof, you can start to picture room sizes a little bit better.  I have a day off work tomorrow, so hopefully I'll also be able to get Brian's pictures uploaded.  Let me just tell you now, they are really cool!