Friday, June 13, 2008

Rain, rain, go away!

I can't believe how much rain we have gotten the past couple months!! We get about two days of dry weather and then it pours down rain. Our new house is patiently waiting for the septic system to be put in, but with all this rain it hasn't been dry long enough to get it installed. It took forever to get a permit to install the system and now we are just waiting for the weather to dry out for a few days!! The house, as of today, should be done in a couple weeks, but if we don't get enough dry weather we won't be moving any time soon!

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Bug update....

For those who read my post last week, I am happy to say the little black bugs are pretty much gone!! YIPPEE!!!! We took the advide of my father-in-law and bought Malathion concentrate for the outside and Ortho Home Defense for the inside. We (more like my husband) sprayed once on the outside and sprayed a few times on the inside. We were still getting a few bugs in the house, nothing compared to what we were getting before, but we would find a few each day. Last night my husband sprayed again on the outside and the inside and I only found ONE little black bug this morning by the front door. I didn't find any in the kitchen, family room or dining room. This is a HUGE breakthrough for us!! We've been fighting these bugs for at least FOUR years and Orkin didn't do much at all for them. We paid them $70 some dollars every two months for four plus years and they could not get rid of them. Nobody has figured out exactly what they are, but I'm SOOOOO happy they are just about gone. Hopefully tomorrow I won't find any!!

New Appliances...

Monday I decide to give our builder a call to find out where we are on the new house. It seemed like so much still had to get done for it still to be finished sometime next week, but he says we are still looking at sometime next week. I expect we will do our walk through the end of next week and there will be a few minor fixes before it is totally finished and handed over to us. While on the phone I ask him my long list of questions. At some point he comments that he better spill the news now..... the storage at his office was broken into and three of our appliances were STOLEN!!! Ugghhhh!!!!! Anything that could go wrong with the build of this house has gone wrong. He is paying for us to pick out new appliances, so at least we won't have to shell out even more money!!

Last night around 7:00, after hubby got off work, we went to Sears to see if the original appliances were still available. The refrigerator had a transition number, but is basically the same as what we had in storage. The washer was available, but the dryer was not available (at least not in the color we wanted, they ONLY had white), so picked out a new washer and dryer. The original washer and dryer we picked were a top of the line Kenmore Elite top load without the center agitator. We ended up with a front load, but it is still top of the line Kenmore Elite. The front load sits a lot lower to the floor and with my back problems I really need the stands so I don't have to bend over as much. We are hoping the builder will pick up the stands. We just sent him a list of what he needs to buy, so we will see!!

Hopefully this is the last of the problems we will run into with this build! I can't wait to be in our new house!!

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Tile...

I have spent so much time figuring out tile for the new house. We bought the tile for the floor about two years ago when we were going to auctions to get supplies for building our house. Then we decided to do a back splash in the kitchen and put tile around the whirlpool tub. Not a problem... or at least you would think!

So, I check out several places and get some samples. The last place I check is the Tile Shop, which was recommended by our builder. He get's a discount, so this all sounds great! Get a bunch of sample there too and then I have my husband look through the tiles from all the stores and tell me which ones he likes best. He picks out four and then I pick out the one I like best out of the four. All is good at this point!

We finally meet with our tile installer and tell him what we want. Our builder has to order it to get the discount, so he orders it and then the tile guy goes over last week to install and realizes, it's not the right tile. So, he talks to the builder and goes to the Tile Shop and has them order, what we all believe to be the correct tile, again. It arrives Tuesday and once again we get a call from the builder telling us the manufacturer has sent the wrong tile AGAIN!!!! I now need to go back to the Tile Shop and pick out more tile. Pick out one I like, but once I get it over to the new house and back home it just doesn't look right to me right next to the floor tile. It goes great with the countertops in the kitchen, so we are using it there, but still have to find one for the bathroom. I call the Tile Shop and talk to the guy I've been working with to find out if they have enough of the tile I really want back in their storage. They keep a little in stock for samples, so I had hope..... NO luck. They didn't have enough to do the bathroom. Back to square one.... Tuesday I got to go to the Tile Shop without the kids because my husband worked from home, but today I had two kids in hand. My littlest was great, but the older one had fun running up and down the isles. Guess he had some energy he needed to get out!! Ok, so I pick one out and leave with a sample to go onto my next stop and not five minutes after I left I receive a phone call from the Tile Shop. He informed me the one I liked best today was low on stock and who knows when they will have more in stock!! Just my luck! Back to the Tile Shop, but this time he picked out some samples for me to bring home and do some comparisons so I didn't have to get the kids out of the car. I've picked one out and pray this is the last I have to do with the tile!!

Bugs....

Every year around the start of spring and warmer weather we get these little tiny black bugs in our house. We find them only on the first floor, mainly in the kitchen. They like to hang out on our back screened in porch. When I spray bug killer or anything liquid on the porch they start jumping. They don't fly, at least not that I have seen, but they do jump. They started getting worse this week and by last night my husband decided it was time to try something new. He asked if we could leave the house for a few hours today so we can set off some bug bombs. So, my day of staying home and finishing up laundry turned into cleaning out all the dishes from the cupboards and packing them up and then leaving the house all afternoon. Such a fun afternoon with a wild three year old and a cranky one year old. They really needed there naps today, but not possible. They didn't even fall asleep in the car!!

I arrive home about 4 hours after the bombs were set off and open the windows for the 30 minutes we are suppose to air the place out before coming inside for good. We head over to the new house to see progress and check out my tile samples for around the whirlpool tub in the the master bath. I think I have picked one out and hope this one will arrive as it was ordered! More on this topic to come in a later post. Now, back to our bug issue... we are still killing bugs!! We bought some bug killer for inside and out today and have sprayed it everywhere we can think of inside the house and all around the back of the house in hopes that we will eventually win the battle!! Wish us luck!!