Building a house is stressful. Duh, right? Well, since I’m already stating the obvious, I will continue! Building inspections are also stressful. So, having an inspection for 3 different things at one time is really STRESSFUL!! But that’s the way the inspectors want to do their job. And I’m sure they would not appreciate me telling them or even asking them to do it differently just to accommodate a nut case like me! Believe me, I have thought about asking them, but I’m afraid to get on their bad side. Can they fail us just because they don’t like us? Or maybe they can just make everything 10 times harder? No, thank you! I’ll just keep my silly ideas to myself, thank you very much.
A friend of mine told me recently that if someone thinks your crazy or stupid, that’s fine. You don’t have to open your mouth and prove it to them! Well, I took that advice and kept my mouth shut with the inspectors. They will not hear any crazy complaining from me! I pray that I will not ask any stupid questions either while they are around. Oh, dear Lord, that might take a miracle!
Anyway, so the way it works goes something like this. Once the framing is up and all dried in, the inspectors wait until you have the initial plumbing, electrical and HVAC done before they come inspect anything. That’s 3 HUGE things! 3 huge things done by 3 different people usually. That is mind boggling to me. But, I guess if we can wrangle 3 kiddos every day, then hopefully we can wrangle and manage 3 different workers out at the house. Hopefully…Honestly, only time will tell.
After all the hurricanes and wet weather we thought we were doing great. Things were rocking and rolling…for a little while. Then the plumber kept getting called away and the HVAC company called to say they were a day or two behind schedule. A day or two in our language relates to a month or two-or so it seems lately. Oh well, that’s just the way our life works. We are learning to be patient whether we want to or not.
The heat and air company did actually show up on Wednesday and promised they would be ready for a Friday inspection. Great news! The plumber was nearly done and Joe was too. Triple great news!
We have the beginnings of heat and air.
Who knew air ducts could make me so happy???? It’s always the little things that make you smile.
All the inspections were scheduled for Friday afternoon. Afternoon. As in after lunch. Well, the inspector showed up at 9am. I do believe that man needs a new watch! But that might sound like a crazy complaint, so I said nothing.
Thankfully, the bulk of the HVAC was done and they were able to pass it. In the end, it all worked out great and we passed all the inspections. All 3 inspections passed! I was beyond excited.
During that whole time, Scott was a rockstar and started putting up the exterior! It was pretty slow going at first since he had to put up the soffits first. But once he got started, he was running with it! I couldn’t wait to go out there every day to see what all he had gotten done.
The board and battens had arrived!
The soffits and facial boards are up. I love this picture of Jim’s face! He always looks so handsome and self assured. I’m always the goofy looking one-especially in pictures! In pictures my eyes are almost always closed and I have a half sneeze, half question look on my face. Picture+ Me = Not a Good picture!
Hmmm, not very impressive looking yet…
At this point, I thought it was okay, but I was afraid we had made a huge mistake. I just didn’t like it so far….And Jim was ready to strangle me….so I kept my thoughts to myself…
Scott completed the porch ceiling first. I did like it so I decided to wait to see the rest of the house before I filed a formal complaint with Jim or Scott.
We had chosen to go with board and batten exterior and then stain it light gray so we could still see the beauty of the wood through the stain. We were really hoping to give our house a small county feel. Well, that plan changed a few times. And then changed a few more I think. But in the end, we decided to paint the house gray instead of using stain. We are so crazy! If we were just going to paint it instead of using a natural stain why didn’t we go with the hardi-plank board and batten. Yeah, I have no answer to that question. In fact, I do a lot of things that I don’t really have a reason or an answer for… I seem to be clueless a lot of the time lately…
The gray stain was on the far left and we all thought it looked horrible. So that was out. Back to the drawing board. I thought the light gray paint on the far right might be too light. But everyone else voted for that color so we went with it….eventually…
During that time Jim kept trying to clear a spot for Dear Desi and Minnie to have their run in shed. He ran into more bees. A lot more bees! I mean bees everywhere. Every time he tried to clear anything he found another nest. I think when we counted we had found over 20 nests in different places. I think fruit trees will do really well out there. We certainly have the pollinators on standby apparently!