So close to done...

Here are some pics from the weekend. They have the walls painted and all the flooring down. We have a lawn now too! They are to the point where they are putting the finishing touches on things (interior paint, finishing the exterior paint) and then bringing in the appliances.

(I promise the flooring is there... it's just covered up while they are still working)

Right now our dates are as follows: pre-walkthrough on October 29th, final sign-off on November 5th, and closing on November 13th!

Exterior Paint!

I know I just posted more photos yesterday, but my mom took some photos yesterday of the house painted! The main color is on, but they haven't finished the trim (missing on the columns) and the shutters aren't on yet.

It looks like a real house!

Last weekend Randy and I got to finally set foot into our new home. Up to this point, my mom and dad have been going by to check everything out and assure us that good progress is being made. Here are some pics from our visit on 09.26.09:

While we were there, the workers were sanding the dry wall and getting it ready for painting soon! Below are a couple shots of the neighborhood (or at least the parts we will see most often)!

(The house is to the right in this picture.

Imagine that big muddy mess between the black fence as our driveway.)

(This is the shot of what's on the other side of the driveway. It's a cute mini cul-de-sac.)

All the interior shots look the same so I will keep them to a minimum:

(Family room, stairs, kitchen bar area)

(Breakfast area)

(Family room)

(Master bedroom)

(Master bathroom)

So that's the latest update we have on the house. We know that our granite template for the kitchen was cut yesterday. Next up on the list is the interior trim followed by paint! According to their original timetable, they are a couple weeks ahead of schedule and should have this house done by the end of October/beginning of November!

And up go the walls...

After a few weeks of waiting, piles of paperwork, and a ridiculous number of faxes, the builders are working away on our home!

It started with the foundation being poured last Friday, September 4th.

And this past week they worked on the framing...

Here are some shots of the inside (not that you would know what they were or care what the studs look like...)

Our downstairs, viewed from the breakfast area and looking into the family room. If you compare it to the floor plan, it makes sense (just remember that ours is the mirror opposite of the floorplan).

The picture above is of the guest room on the main floor and the bathroom adjacent to it.

Above is the master bedroom with the sitting room/pop-out to the right. Below is the master bathroom.

We're super excited about actually seeing our house instead of it all just being in our heads and in blueprints!

My mom was kind enough to go to the model home and take some photos. If you have trouble imagining what this house is going to look like based on the floorplan and miscellaneous photos, then click on the photo below! It contains several photos from the model home so that you can see what everything will eventually look like. Our home is going to be the reverse of this and a few small changes here and there as well as the design selections we chose, but generally gives a good idea of the home.

Glenkirk Model

We will continue to post progress photos as we can!

Design Details

To follow the previous post with even greater detail about the house, this post is packed with pics! After a long weekend in Hilton Head, SC, we drove across the state to Marietta. We met with one of the designers at the Traton Design Center allllll day on Tuesday (all day means 9am to 4 pm)! It was a very productive day, though. We had the help of my (Amanda) parents who have had a lot of personal and professional experience with this sort of thing. My dad is a realtor who has dealt exclusively with new construction and my mom is an interior designer (who used to work at a design center like the one we visited). Needless to say, we came with a lot of opinions!

Here's what we picked:

The exterior of our home will be done in Shellman's Bluff brick, the first color on the left is Roycroft Suede and will be our main home color (the shake and hardiplank), with Rice Grain (the middle color) as the trim and Van Dyke Brown (on the right) to be the color of the shutters.

Here you can see the three different flooring selections we made: wood floors for the main living areas downstairs; carpet for the bedrooms, living room and dining room; and vinyl in the laundry room.

3" Wood floor in the Old Furnace stain will be found in the foyer, hallways, family room, kitchen and breakfast area.

The Mohawk Carolina Moon Rocky Road Carpet will be found downstairs in the living room, dining room, and bedroom as well as upstairs in all the bedrooms.

The Aurora Canyon Ridge vinyl will be in the laundry room upstairs.

For the master bathroom, we have selected the Tahoe Maple Cognac cabinets, the Romanza Noce 18" tile for the floor, tub deck and shower walls, the Plateau Universal Mosaic (not pictured, sorry), Mocha Signature Cultured Granite for the countertops and the Brantford Oil-Rubbed Bronze plumbing fixtures.

This a picture of the cabinet hardware we selected for the master bathroom and the bathroom on the main level.

The bathroom on the main level will be done in the 16" Bruselas Noce tile on the floor, with the Tahoe Maple Cognac cabinets, the Cappucino Signature Cultured Granite for the countertops and the Brantford Oil-Rubbed Bronze plumbing fixtures.

The secondary bathroom upstairs will have the Tahoe Maple Cognac cabinets, 13" Plateau Yorkshire tile, and Biscuit with White Swirls Cultured Marble for the countertops.

This is the cabinet hardware we selected for the secondary bathroom.

Here is the Brantford Plumbing fixture in chrome that we selected for the secondary bathroom. This is the same fixture style for the other bathrooms, just in a different finish.

This is the Brantford Roman Tub/Shower Plumbing fixtures in chrome that we selected for the secondary bathroom. Again, the same in all the bathrooms, just in different finishes.

These are our selections for the kitchen: 42" Tahoe Maple Cognac Cabinets, Peacock granite countertops with a bullnose edge, and the oil-rubbed bronze hardware pictured.

A close-up shot of the Tahoe Maple Cognac cabinets for the kicthen and all the bathrooms.

A close-up shot of the Peacock granite countertops for the kitchen.

The kitchen cabinet hardware in oil-rubbed bronze. The larger handle will be used on the triple drawer stack pictured below.

We elected to have a triple drawer stack put in the kitchen nearest to the breakfast area.

A tilt-out tray will be in front of the kitchen sink for super-cool storage.

Kitchen sink is the Dayton Unequal Bowl with one bowl 10" deep and the other 8" deep.

Kitchen Sink Faucet is the Moen Stainless Integra pullout (picture shows the faucet in chrome, not stainless).

And probably the coolest thing we selected... the dishwasher! Yeah, the other appliances were nice, but I think we are most excited about this dishwasher. This is what we splurged on because neither of us has ever had a really nice and efficient dishwasher which is just really annoying.

There are several other things we picked (like wall color, door handles, doors, etc.) but forgot to take pictures. Those will just have to be surprises! ;) Sorry this was an incredibly long (and for some of you, boring) post, but we thought it would be cool to preview our selections. Once our house is done (!), we can post the final photos and you can see how it all came together!

A little bit closer to being REAL adults...

So some of you may have heard already, but for those who want to know more or are completely in the dark, this post is for you! Our big news for 2009 is that we are moving! We debated early this year about staying in Augusta versus moving somewhere else. A lot of our decision was based on family location and work/rotation opportunities. When I got the list of possible rotations, we immediately threw out anything that wasn't either in Augusta, near Milledgeville or NW Atlanta suburbs. Not a whole lot was offered for Augusta, so we took that to mean we just weren't meant to be there, plus I think we were looking for a good excuse to move closer to our families. ;)

After a little debate, we decided that we would want to settle in the suburbs of Atlanta. Randy had a good opportunity to stay with his current company (Golden Living Center/Aegis Therapies) and transfer to the Marietta facility. My parents live in Acworth, so that's pretty much where we started and worked in an area around them. Two months into the house hunting process, we were getting worn out. We would find a house, but either something would be wrong with it (like toxic mold, eek) or someone would make an offer on it before we were ready to move on it. Needless to say, we were frustrated.

Nearing the end of one particular frustrating weekend, my dad recommended that we visit this one new neighborhood we liked initially, but they only had one home available at the time. We drove over there and sure enough, that one home was under contract. So we started thinking...and talking it over with my parents (our realtor and interior designer) and came to a decision: let's just build our own!

The scoop: We have signed the contract to build a house here:

Yes, that is OUR under contract sign on the lot sign! :) You can view the builder's website and neighborhood page here: http://tratonhomes.com/community.php?c=12 (Make sure you let us know if you want to build here too cause there's a referral bonus!)

And the floor plan we selected is called the Glenkirk, and here is the layout of the house:

And the sample picture of the front. Obviously ours will look a little different (first off, it will have a right-hand garage) and we will get to select the exterior colors and such...

So there's the update for us. We will continue to post home developments here and hopefully have pictures up as they build it as well as the finished product. Our closing date is set for November 30. All our Augusta friends, sorry we will be leaving you. All our Atlanta friends...here we come!