Kitchen is Done and so is the rest of the inside!!!

Wiest Home Update

The house is looking like a home and we even have a vineyard... granite its only two vines..... but we had grapes this year!!! At least long enough to take pictures before the deer ate them!!!

We Have Front Landscaping!!!

Well we finally have a front lawn and landscaping. With Ray retired and Denise temporarily unemployed we took advantage of this time to put in a lawn and put the finishing touches of the rock veneer on the house. What a difference.

Finally got the gym over the garage done. No excuse now for not exercising!!!!

Spending time with the grandkids!!!!

Another animal living at the ranch that does not belong to us.... Erin's newest dog... Lillie!!

Meet the Newest Addition to the Wiest Family - Kaden Jamison Wiest - Born Dec 19-2008

Spoiled by the Aunties

Proud Grandma

We Passed the Final Inspection - YEAH!!!

It's hard to believe it's been a year since I updated this blog. Believe it or not - we finally passed our final inspection on the house. We are legal!!! It only took us 3 years to get to this point. It feels so good to finally have the final on the house. The house may be finalized - but we still have work to do. We are finishing the cultured stone on the front of the house and then on to the front landscaping. It's been a long time getting to this point. But we are here. YEAH!!!

We also finished the room over the garage and have converted it into a gym. Now we have NO excuse for not working out.

We hope all of you will come and visit - we now have plenty of room!!

Getting Ready for the Big Final

Well we are all moved in and working on completing the last items on the check list for the final inspection. We finally have our finish spiral stair case and drawers in all of the cabinets. The house was completed enough at Christmas to host our annual family Christmas party. It was great to have our family, extended family, those who want to be our family and friends over for dinner. We had a total of 45 people over for the family party - and it was great!!!

The inside is looking pretty good and now that we are starting to get better weather - we will begin working on finishing the outside. Ray will be retiring in March so he will have all kinds of time to finish the house. Unfortunately I still have to work so we can pay for the "Ranch". Don't be surprise if you see a horse or two on our property by this summer!!!

The guest rooms are done so we expect visits from our family and friends!!!!!

The House is Becoming a HOME

It was a busy month for us, but we finally completed all of our big hurdles. We were able to obtain our (Temp) Certificate of Occupancy just in time to close the construction loan. It was due to expire at the end of August and we barely got the last of the inspections and documentation to the bank with TWO days to spare. Not that we were stressing - but if we did not make the deadline the lock on our rate would expire - and in today's market - it would have jumped 2 points. That would have made for a big increase in our house payment.

Fortunatley at the time - we only had to have one working bathroom, a sink in the kitchen plus all the electrical and HVAC completed. That was over a month ago and since that time we have completed a lot on the house. We still have to pass the final inspection - but we have an additional 90 days for that. We can get more time if we need it. The important thing is that we closed our loan to permanent financing and moved out of our old house. We were also stressing about renting out our old house during this same time period - we did not find a renter we felt good about until the actual day we were loading up the truck to move to the new house. Finally after all this time - we are moved into the new house - renters in old house and yes - the house is looking like a home....... Life is good.

Still getting use to living in the country. One night we thought a bunch of kids were partying at the bottom of our property - come to find out it was a pack of coyotes. I am learning preying mantis are our friend and neighbors will shoot
your dog if they find him wondering in their pasture. Our dog has run away from home 3 times in just the past two weeks. I am about ready to shoot him my self if the neighbors don't get him first.

Ray is in his element living in the country - but this is my first experience. I don't know if I will ever get use to the taste of well water - and yes if you let the water run long enough - even with a 2500 gal storage tank - you can run out of water. We have deer running through our property along with a bob cat. We have 4 bats that live in our trees along with a couple of eagles and two owls that sing to us a night - and recently a wood pecker. Our neighbors have horses, goats, donkey, llamas, geese, cattle, etc.

Everyday - coming to and from home we are greeted by these country animals - and we love it. We have a local view from the back side of the house and on a clear day - a beautiful view of the snow cap Sierras. We absolutely love it. We will love it even more once the house completed. There is still a lot of work left to be done. We still have to put in a driveway and sidewalks, along with some rock veneer in the front - complete the decks and finish putting in the cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms. All of these drawers and the rest of the doors are sitting in the garage waiting to be put together. Once all of this is done - then we can start thinking about landscaping.

Yes - we still have allot left to do - but we are finally living here in the country and loving every minute of it. We want you to come and visit. We have the guest room completed along with a working bathroom (Very important). And lastly - we finally are "The Wiest Family from the Hills".

Getting Ready for the Final Inspection

We passed the next hurdled and that was the bank inspection. We had to be at 95% completion to close the loan and we are at 95.15% Yeah! Our next big hurdled is the county inspection for the "Certificate of Occupancy" which is basically the final on most of the work. We are working long hours to get this done before month end so the loan will close and we can move in. It's hard to believe we are this close. We are hoping to have our house in Roseville rented out before the end of the month and it would be nice to have a place to live once that happens!! We are working on the tile in the bathrooms and downstairs, finishing installing cabinets, appliances, finishing touches on painting, installing the permanent exterior doors, etc. The carpet and granite has been ordered and should be installed within the next couple of weeks.

Although we feel we have no life outside of this house at the moment - it will be well worth it in the end. We hope all of you will come and visit us! We finally see the light at the end of the tunnel and we appreciate all the love and support from our family and friends. Once we get our life back we hope to spend more time with everyone - especially our beautiful grandson!!!