Quck peek!

Just a quick peek at the drywall.  They started on schedule (on the new schedule!) Monday of this week.  It looks like they should finish hanging it all today and begin mudding.  Which would be great because the weather is amazing right now!  If they can finish this week, it would be best.  The weather is expected to drop next week, and the mud must be applied at certain temperatures.

This is the view from the kitchen towards the living room.  The edge of the arch on the left is dining, right is the pool table room.

This is the dining room, you can see the sliding glass door that will lead to the deck. To the right is the pony wall where the island (my 11 foot long island!) will sit.

Brick! We have Brick

But we don't have stone.  And, that's OK.

Here is the front of the house.  Brad asks why I always take the photo from an angle.  I don't know.  I think it looks nicer.  It's a cooler angel.  Anyone can take a picture "straight on."  But, honestly, I think it's so you could tell that the front left is a garage and not more house.

Anyway.  Here is after a few days.  They started on the back (because the corner under the master is the deepest.)

And then here it is finished.  OK, not completely finished, they were still working on the inside of the doorway.  Everything [else] that is missing will be stacked stone. 
Here is the back of the house.  Closest to us us one of the guest bedrooms, a window for the dining room, the door that leads out from between the dining room and kitchen.  The other set of doors comes out of the master.  There will be a deck the width of the master and will come out just past the large window.
Here is the view of the master from the other side. (Can you tell I took these as completely different times of day?)

It was a lot of brick!  And after they were done, we spend the weekend picking up the pieces.  My uncle will do the final grade of the lot, and he recommended that we pile all the brick [away from the house] so that he can run the dozer over it a few times and then use the crushed brick as fill under the driveway.  Awesome!  So, we didn't have to pay to have it hauled away and we wont have to buy as much fill.  

We are planning on doing something a bit crazy.  We are going to paint the brick.  Which everyone has screamed, "WHY!?!"  Ultimately, we are taking something that needs no maintenance what-so-ever, and we're making a big fat mess of it.  Repainting.  Chipping paint.  Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance.  But, it will be beautiful maintenance.

We have narrowed it down to three colors:  

A name I forgot, Latte, and Hopsack.

The first has a greenish tint to it.  The second is a pretty basic taupe, and the third is a more golden, vibrant color that I LOVED on the sample card, but despise on my house.  I think that Latte is what we will be going with.  

The stacked stone we chose is called "Brown Cutface."  Brown is the color [obviously, but they do have some names like "Pennsylvania."] and Cutface is the style.  

It will be a dry stack,  (meaning there will be no mortar joints) this makes it about one dollar more per square foot.  We paid $6/sq ft for brick installed, and $11/sq ft for stone installed.  Our stone is being purchased from Stone Works in Maumelle.  They were really nice.  It seemed a bit overwhelming at first but you simply pick your style and your color separately to create the look you want.  This is a simulated rock that is made from casts of real chipped rock.  Actual stone would cost much, much more.

Budget

Brad and I have money saved as well as from the sale of our last house to use towards this house.  At first, we were saving it for the down payment, but then realized that building is different than buying.  There really isn't a need to spend the loan money, just to replay it with the saved "down payment," so that money is now going to fund the projects we are heading up.  Like the flooring, cabinets, paint and such.  

Tonight after work, we are meeting with the builder so have a status check on the budget.  WE have been pretty much in line.  We need to see if HE was too.  Via phone updates, he has claimed that we (he) have been under on pretty much everything.  But it has been minimal amounts.  Stone was $600 less than anticipated, which was great.  Foundation was less.  Still don't have a total on doors and windows.  Which is why we haven't ordered our front door yet. 

I know we had decided on a door a while back, pictured here, but, Brad thinks he would rather have a door called "Craftsman" that is a fiberglass door, finished to look like mahogany.  This would cut down on any maintenance, and would be cheaper.  I'm just not 100% on what it would look like in an eight-foot door. 

As much as we would love to come in under budget and save gobs of money, that's not going to happen.  We did what everyone always does, and we overspent.  But not terribly.  We changed from the stained concrete to a bamboo floor in the main room and tile in the bathrooms.  The tile is about $2 a square foot, and the bamboo is $2.50, which is relatively cheap, but still so much more than the pennies per square foot we were anticipating with the stain.  

SO, we need to have saved enough to be able to make up for this.