Sunday, September 15, 2024
GOOD FOOD AND HOBART SUNDAY
Saturday, September 14, 2024
BACK TO HOT DAYS WEEKEND
Today I'm off to the farm. 2nd Man has to work so I'm solo. On the way out, stopping at a storage unit place to lease a storage unit for the stuff we are keeping from the old house and using in the new house.
Then, I'll head to the farm and hoping I won't have to mow. It's hot again. If I don't, it'll be some packing and maybe even enlisting Bill the Truck for some light duty moving to the storage unit (climate controlled by the way). 2nd Man is going to make us a large roast chicken and vegetables for our weekend enjoyment.
Hope your weekend is off to a good start!
Thursday, September 12, 2024
LONE STAR UMBRELLAS FOR THE NEW HOUSE
Tuesday, September 10, 2024
NEW HOUSE TEASER SCREENED IN PORCH
Guess What?
We're going to have a screened in porch!
So, let's back up a bit. The floor plan we started working off of had a rear porch. We thought, oh, that's cool. Then there was an option to make it bigger and covered. OK, a covered porch will be nice.
Then we went to one of their homes under construction just to see how they build and the covered back porch on that one (not our floor plan) was in the process of being screened in. We walked out to it and even without the screens or door put in...
...this is what we saw. And we LOVED it. In fact, one of the owners of the company was there and 2nd Man told him, you should put this in EVERY model because everyone will want it, ha.
Here is ours (bigger than the one above):
We went back and forth on one thing though. Did we want the walls inside here to be the house color? Normally it would just be the house color since it is the back of the house. But since it's enclosed and "separate" in a way, we can paint it a different color. We were a bit worried that as a screened in area with a ceiling and walls, the barn red might be "too much" in a shady space. We did some research and found that yes, there are concerns on porches with dark paint color houses. One factor we didn't even think about is that you can see the color from inside your house and if your rooms are decorated differently, the red (in our case) can look out of place through the windows. Plus, there were the valid concerns about darkness. In the end, we decided to just do this inset part of the house plan in the white trim color...
We just think it will give us clean lines and leave a sort of blank slate for decorating. We will also keep the haint blue ceiling (same as the front porch) out here as well so that will be fun (blue sky!).
Speaking of decorating, we already have ideas...
We will still have room for some chairs or outdoor couch of some sort but that can come later once we move in. For now, we have to rethink what furniture we have that we can keep and repurpose, and these two pieces will be great on our new porch. And remember, I've scored some fun stuff from downstairs to repurpose and I'm already thinking about those pieces too!
Monday, September 9, 2024
CALM BEFORE THE STORM
Literally.
The weekend was absolutely gorgeous. Saturday, it was upper 70's, a cool breeze, low humidity, just perfect. But all that's about to change. More in a moment.
Saturday we had to meet someone at the house to see about demolition and clearing some spots. We're getting estimates. Have another coming (possibly) this coming weekend and even have someone who might be interested in moving it...but we're not sure it can easily get down the driveway.
We did that and then I mowed.
It looks good, finally, ha. Not too many clippings strewn about. This is the front yard, you can see on the far right edge, the flags for the front of the new house. I'll have less to mow by about ten feet, ha!
Then I tackled the driveway, got it looking good too. We're going to have some trimming done, the bushes on the right side are our "Texas Lilac", they aren't going anywhere, we just need them trimmed. The brush on the left will be removed and just evened out.
There will be constructions vehicles coming and going.
I skipped the trails, it was still a bit wet in some areas and I was not about to get the Zen Machine 2 stuck like its predecessor has.
But it was THE best mowing day since early Spring. I was in my element for sure. We came home, changed clothes and went to our delayed anniversary dinner.
Now for the other part of our weather:
Saturday, September 7, 2024
OFF TO THE FARM
Today, we are meeting a contractor out there to give us an estimate for removing the house. And some other work (one tree down and some trimmed).
I hope to mow (didn't last weekend because of rain). No rain today BUT it did rain yesterday. Not a lot but we'll see if it's dry enough. Rapidly coming to a point where I will only have to mow the driveway and around the barn and shed. The builders said they would keep it down around the house property but of course, the yard will have trucks and stuff in it so who knows what we'll end up with but we shall see!
There is a tropical system in the Gulf of Mexico, it will develop into something and impact Mexico or the lower Texas coast BUT it will curve up and back this direction. So, we are expecting heavy rains next week. Which means next week definitely no mowing.
We'll also work on packing up some more stuff.
And then we'll come back into town, clean up, change clothes and head to our 'anniversary' place for our annual chicken dinner, ha.
Hope you are having a great weekend!
Thursday, September 5, 2024
HEALTHIER VERSION OF PICADILLO
Tuesday, September 3, 2024
NEW HOUSE TEASER GARAGE
While 2nd Man had most (but not all, ha) of the choices in the kitchen, I wanted to do a few extra things in the garage part of the house.
It will be a "front load" as they call it. The way our property is shaped, we'd have to reposition the house to make it work and we rather like the idea of the driveway going right toward the garage. Also, one large garage door instead of two (painted in the white trim color). That's better, especially being in the country, to have the ability to open one big door and have all that space. I can back a car out and use it for working on the mower, etc. This drawing doesn't show lighting (that's on the electrical plan) but of course there are exterior lights on both sides of the garage door. We'll save that for a posting on the light fixtures we chose.
While the house itself will have a regular attic space with decking and attic access in the hallway inside, with me being the king of holiday decorating (and finding all those bargains after the holidays, ha), I wanted there to be attic access above the garage as well, so I can have more storage space. Since it was a big empty spot in the attic, we added a second 'attic package' for the garage. It will be completely decked. There will be pull-down stairs and lighting. While this isn't exactly how it will look, we're going for something similar. Just empty space for storage bins. I will have almost 500 square feet of storage space!
Let the holiday decorating begin!
I also felt like there should be some natural light in the garage but we've never been a big fan of just having large regular windows in the garage. A) no one wants to see your garage stuff from outside B) than can be easy to knock over a ladder and break one out and C) it's a security issue (someone can see if you are gone, see what kind of cars you have, tools, machines, etc).
SO...we are doing this, an upper transom window. Actually, two of them:
A couple of 2x4 transom windows to let in some light but still be secure. We are also having them higher up (7 1/2 feet), thinking of the future in case we wanted to put shelves or something along that wall, they can go below the transom windows. Oh, and they do not open.
We added extra electrical outlets around (two on each wall) you can never have too many places to plug in something. Vacuum, tools, etc. We are also future proofing things by having a spot for future electric car charging (it requires special outlets for that).
And this is the plan for the back wall:
You can see on the plan, there is a back door going outside and I really want a Dutch door there. I have visions of the future when we might have animals that we are trying to keep inside or out and a door like that would be nice to have. Really, just to be able to open it for a bit of a breeze without having the door all the way open. But alas, the builder didn't have that optoin and to change it out during the build (even though it's just a door) is much more expensive. It's something we can just replace later on.
We also opted for a side-mount (or jackscrew/jackshaft) door opener. We know some of you may be going "a what?" It looks like this:
It eliminates the need for an overhead mechanism, it's vastly more secure and has some cool features such as battery backup (so it still functions in a power outage) and features a smart phone app connection.
The best part is that it frees up that space overhead and just makes for a clean, unobstructed look.
Our garage will be fully drywalled and painted. We'll also do something special with the flooring, but that will be saved for a future post as it will be in several areas.
OH, and one last thing...
Next time, the back porch!
Monday, September 2, 2024
GOOD FOOD AND HOBART LABOR DAY MONDAY
It's been a busy weekend but feels like nothing major got done, ha. The farm was a rain out, couldn't mow but I did get some of the kitchen stuff packed up. I guess that's progress. Sunday was our home builder appointment and while it was fun and we did what we needed to do, it took up our entire Sunday, getting home at 7:30pm so Sunday was a wash out. Today is the first day of just relaxing and it's kind of "meh", ha.
We ate some good food. Here are some skinless oven roasted chicken legs, lemon pepper broccolini and homemade corn tortillas. Today we are having pozole rojo, it's on the stove cooking now and smells so good (with some more homemade corn tortillas!).
Hobart is taking the weekend to rest, as usual. You can see in the background here, we have a cardboard box that he like to sleep on so we leave it there but there was a ray of sunshine and he needs to recharge. Of course, he's our ray of sunshine so there's that. Because...
#notspoiled
Hope you all have had a great weekend! Tomorrow, more new house teaser!