House Update - End of December

Here's some updated photos of the house.  It's all closed in for the winter with plywood and roofing, but it's harder to tell what is changing from day to day.  The most exciting thing was being able to enter the front door and walk through the entire house.  Up until recently you could go in the front door and see the existing house and then go in the garage to see the new part.  Now they are one cohesive unit.  This week the plumbers, electricians, and the HVAC people have been wrapping up their work.  Next up is insulation and sheet rock...then we will really see the progress.  Unfortunately progress equals $$$.  boo.

We are also trying to take a different design direction with this house than what we did the last time we built.  Our house in Multnomah village was a Craftsman design.  We tried to keep everything consistent with what you would find in a craftsman style home.  This house is a ranch style home that up until we got our hands on it, it was more country than anything.  I don't want to add a bunch of craftsman style things or things that would look out of place so we've been looking around for inspiration.  While driving around Portland we started to see some updated ranch homes that were a little more modern.  Then someone asked us what we were doing for garage doors since they are the first thing you'll see as you drive in.  We realized we needed to do something unique.  All the doors out there seem to be carriage type which we love but it felt a little odd with our design.  Then Andy and I both came to the realization that the aluminium and glass modern doors would be so cool.  They are 2x time garage door budget but after a lot of thinking we realized that it's what we need to do.  It will set the house apart from others from a resale perspective (not moving...but always have to be conscious of that!!), we love the look of the door, and this will let me have my "MODERN RUSTIC" style home.  I've been saying all along I want modern rustic which means wood and metal.  Whoo hoo!  So now that those babies are ordered we've been trying to figure out what we should do for siding of the home.  We have all that wood that was milled on site and just today found out we could also mill some boards to be used horizontally.  So I think we'll have a combo of raw wood and painted batten board.  We still have some time to decide, but that is where our heads are at....for now.

View from the living room

Future home of my new garage doors

Guest bath

coming down the driveway

We took out a long bank of windows and added a double slider to the deck

Master bathtub

Hanukkah...Christmas.....and...Football Oh My!!

We just wrapped up a super crazy multi-holiday week. We had Hanukkah in Portland and then went down to Eugene for Christmas. The girls still don't totally understand the message of the holidays and instead just look for the next present, and the next, and the next.  I think they care more about unwrapping something.  I guess the good news is that I can just wrap up things they need and pass them off as gifts and the girls will be totally content. For example, this year I wrapped a ton of underpants, tights, and pjs.

These two weeks have been so much fun.  We spent good quality family time with the four of us but we also got to spend time with Grammy Bobbi, Grandpa Bill, Grammy Linda, and Papa Gary.  We had a great time with everyone and can't believe what an amazing family we have.  Our girls are lucky to have such wonderful and loving grandparents.   Emily and Ellery have such amazing relationships with each one, I couldn't imagine life any other way.

Giving Chloe baby some love before the family Hanukkah party

Emily in Pink....Ellery in Silver. 

Ellery is no longer our pink only girl.  She now loves all colors and Emily only wants pink.

Emily being a ham for the camera

Emily showing us her jewelry

Watch out world, Emily and Ellery are born to perform!

Making Gingerbread houses in Eugene

Emily showing us her finished product

Ellery is more excited about the candy!

Emily borrowed Uncle Cody's baseball cap.

Elfa the Elf on the Shelf making a much needed appearance.

Ready to open presents!

 Over the holiday break we also got to watch the Oregon ducks play (AND WIN) the Rose bowl! 

The girls not only were excited to root for their favorite team they were exited to hold their first........

 

Baby!!!  Meet Baby Lyla.  Ellery loved holding her!

Emily was a little more nervous but they both were so excited to have a special moment with her.  Thanks Fischer Family for bringing the newest Oregon fan over to watch the game!

Happy Holiday!!!

December Fun

The girls are back in gymnastics and loving it.  They have such a good time but the only downside is since we take lessons on the weekend we tend to miss 1-2 a month.  Expensive habit but it's worth it when we are in town.  

Doing some ab work (or something)

Ellery jumping off the high balance beam.  I missed her action shot and just caught her as she was "sticking it"

Emily's action shot

Silly Ellery wore a clown nose as we drove through the lights at PIR. 

Emily wanted in on that action too

Future Olympians....maybe?

House Progress

The house remodel is really moving fast!  Looks like we are going to be able to get a roof on the new portion of the house before it starts raining.  I can't believe how nice the weather has been the last few weeks.  We thought we'd run into trouble by building in the winter but so far we've been lucky.   Here's some pictures of the activities going on these last few weeks.

Framing out the floor

Building the walls

Walls going up

Prepping the garage for concrete

Looking at the garage from the driveway

Back of the house

View of the house from the backyard 

Trusses going on

View from our neighbors house.  (ahem...also known as G&L)

Looking from the house into the backyard

The house as of 12/13/11

The concrete slab as been poured in the garage, the walls have been sheeted, the roof has been sheeted and is ready for roofing materials on Thursday.  The plumbers and electricians have been here working away.  Seems like things are going fast but there is still a ton of work to do that will probably take a few months.