We have cabinets!

Here's the view from the front door. The opening on the far right will be for the double oven and the hole to the left of the window is for the dishwasher. The only cabinets missing from this picture are the ones that will be hanging over the bar, which will hang from that small wall you can see dropping down from the ceiling. There will also be crown molding, some trim around the bottom of the wall cabinets to hide under cabinet lighting and the hardware still needs to be installed.

This is where the cooktop will be behind the raised bar. It will probably be wide enough for two stools and that's it. We set it up where we can be cooking and still see into the living room. The place we are now is set up like that and we really like it. The Floyd house kitchen was so isolated from the rest of the house and it didn't make it much fun to cook.

This is the wall to the left of the sink that backs up to the utility room. The fridge will go to the far left and just next to it the microwave will be mounted under the wall cabinet. Cody and I were both worried that once the cabinets went in the kitchen would look so cramped and tiny, but it almost seemed to open it up and make it feel bigger. I think it will suit our needs perfectly! I just can't wait to see the finished product. Our appliances are in, so once we get the cabinets and countertops finished (some time shortly after Christmas) I guess we'll go ahead and pick those up and install them. More pictures to come!

You asked, so here it is!

Alright Tifani, against my better judgement and sense of self respect, I'm posting a belly picture, just for you. Not a very flattering one, but it was while I was thinking about it, so I got Cody to snap a shot. This is me at 29 weeks - and don't I look happy to be having my picture taken! I'm finally in the third trimester, and things are going pretty well. I failed my first glucose screening test, so I had to go back for the three hour test today. Boy, was that fun. I guess I'll hear the results in a few days and hopefully there' s nothing to worry about. I'll let you know when I hear something. I'm feeling more movement all the time, although so far it still hasn't been anything crazy. Maybe the baby is just laid back (translation lazy) like it's mother. We go back to the doctor on the 27th of this month, and then I guess it's every two weeks from here. We're getting closer all the time!

Oh Christmas Tree.....

Well, this is about the extent of our Christmas decorations - our very own 'Charlie Brown' tree. We decided it was best not to pull out all the Christmas decorations when we're supposed to be packing things up (not I said 'supposed to be'). The only thing we'll miss about this place is our fireplace. Especially at Christmas because we'll have to figure out somewhere else to hang our stockings! Cody's become quite the fire maker too, and I'll miss it on cold nights, although they seem to be few and far between these days. Anyway, have a Merry Christmas everyone and enjoy your holidays! More to come soon on the house and the baby, but dinner calls........

The Latest News

Here's the latest photo of the house. Not much has change on the exterior, with the exception of the finished soffits, and the porch posts have been wrapped. Now we need to repaint the exterior trim and paint the doors red. I've got some pictures of the inside with the finished painting, I just haven't downloaded them onto the computer yet so I can post them. We've ordered our new living room furniture - we got a great discount by placing the order the day after Thanksgiving. Mom and Dad are giving us a pair of recliners as our Christmas gift and we are buying a new sleeper sofa that will also be our 'guest bed'. I can't wait to have new living room furniture that actually matches! We've been blessed to have what we do now, but it's falling apart and just isn't fit for a new house. We'll be getting cabinets installed next weekend - I can't wait to see how they'll look! I also have a picture of the tile, but I want to get a better picture after we've cleaned off the grout residue, so more to come on that.

As for the latest baby news, we had our last appointment on Nov. 29th and everything is going along smoothly. I'm now in the third trimester, and we'll start going to the doctor more often from now on. I just signed us up for childbirth classes and we start tomorrow. I was glad I called because the next class doesn't begin until the end of January and wouldn't be over until we're within about two weeks of the due date, which they don't recommend, so if I had not called today, we would be rolling the dice that we would finish in time! I also signed up for a newborn care class and a breastfeeding class - I figure the more information I can get, the better - then we can pick and choose from it what will work for us. So, needless to say, the month of January will be pretty booked up between packing, moving, baby classes, and hopefully unpacking! Let me now apologize in advance for any acts of insanity or general moodiness on my part that you may encounter. But, I figure if we can cram as much into January as possible, that will give us all of February to take it easy and prepare for our little one to arrive!

Crib Bedding

Here are some pictures of the crib bedding we bought. I just love it! There are hundreds of little accessories they can sell you, but right now we just have the crib bedding and a diaper stacker that came with it. It also came with a valance that I think we might use to make a pillow. I might add the mobile and possibly the hamper, but we'll see.

Baby Gifts

Ricky & Keri and Chad & Kim gave us a 'gift tub' since they said they wouldn't be able to come to a baby shower. It was so nicely put together I asked Keri to take a picture - thanks guys!

Chad & Kim said they saw this and knew that the baby had to have this to wear at Grandma Mary's house - or will it be MeMe? She still hasn't decided. In case you can't read it it says "my favorite colors are green and yellow" I love it!

Me & Carson

Here we are at Katie's party - as you can see, I bored her to sleep!

How long has it been?

Well first, let me say I'm sorry it's been awhile since the last post. There's been a lot going on and I've been neglecting the site. Also, we just got our camera back (actually they just replaced it for free with a brand new upgraded model - thanks Canon!) so I've still been unable to take pictures of the house. I've got the day off tomorrow, so I plan to go out and take a few pictures to post because it's supposed to be a beautiful day. Mom and I were talking, and I don't think the picture I've got on here does justice to the color of the house - I just love it! But anyway, we just got back from a weekend in Charlotte visiting our family for my cousin Katie's 16th birthday party who, by the way, is on her way to Raleigh this very minute in her brand new 2007 Honda CRV with her mom - congrats Katie! Speaking of Raleigh, they're on their way to stay with my cousin Keri and her new little girl Carson for the weekend. I finally got to meet Carson this weekend and she is one of the most beautiful little girls I've ever seen! We had a great weekend and it was nice to see all the family, with the exception of Anna and John, Layton, and Granny (and Cody who had to work, but I see him all the time!). We also had an eventful weekend because we were able to find our bedding for the nursery! I've been searching and searching and finally found something neutral that I love - and it was even cheaper than I found it online. It's still more than I would have expected I would pay, but I'm getting so excited about the thought of a new house that I wanted some new nursery bedding to go with it - sue me.

As for the house, the guys are (hopefully) finishing up the drywall this week and it will be time to start painting the inside. We've already ordered our tile, and we're finalizing plans on our cabinets. We were really lucky to have a family friend who's an interior designer here in town to agree to help us pick out some things. She found us a great deal on cabinets - there's a guy who just started ordering a new kind of cabinet in from China that is really sturdy and just beautiful. If we would have gone to Lowe's or somewhere to pick out this same thing, it would have cost us twice as much. And the great thing is that he's ordering them in bulk so we don't have to place an order and wait for them to come in. They'll be here in a week or two, and all we have to tell him is what exactly we want. Then we can either install them ourselves or have them installed. I was really stressed about cabinets because we spend so much time in the kitchen and we have so much kitchen stuff to store, but we didn't budget much money for the cabinets. The way this is working out, it looks like we may be only a few hundred dollars over the cabinet budget, and I was expecting it to be maybe a couple thousand over.

So that's all for now. I'm still feeling great and have no complaints. We're 23 weeks along, and our next appointment is Nov. 29th. Everything is going great for us right now - we're so very blessed!

Baby Banner

Here's the latest picture of our little one, taken at our 20 week ultrasound yesterday afternoon. This is a side profile of the face and upper body - you can see the little pointy nose and a hand below the face. We got a DVD, but the baby didn't move around much at all. 'A very laid back baby' according to the nurse - "like it's Daddy" said Cody. It's either laid back or stubborn (like both its parents) - at one point the nurse was trying to roll him/her over to get a better look at the spine, and the baby just wasn't having it! But we did at least get to see the arms, legs, fingers and toes move around enough to know that they can, and that's all we need to know. It was tough not finding out the sex, but what a fun surprise it will be at the delivery! Right now the baby's a little bigger than the average for this stage, but we'll have to wait and see if that trend continues. Hopefully it won't be too big, because I'm hoping to deliver naturally and I have no idea what my pain threshold will be because I've never had any serious injuries or illnesses to test it. Most mothers laugh when I say this is my plan, but I know it can be done because I know women who have done it. We'll just have to wait and see how this one cooperates - I'm counting on the Conder history of fast labor, but I don't want to have any false hopes either! But we've still got four more months to prepare for all of that - right now Cody and I are just excited to know that everything is fine and we've got a healthy little Banner we can't wait to meet!

And the work continues.....

It's been quite awhile since I've updated this - our camera is broken so I've been unable to take pictures. Here is the latest image, complements of Uncle Carlton. We've gotten one coat of exterior paint on the outside - we've had lots of help with the painting from my family - a whole group showed up on Sunday and helped us get the whole first coat completed. We're lucky to have such a great family. You can't tell from this picture, but all of the rough-in work is complete (a/c, plumbing, electrical) and we passed our framing and rough-in inspection. We just picked up our next draw check on Friday, and now we're ready to order the drywall work. Hopefully our camera will be fixed quickly and we can get some more pictures up, but until then I'll try to do a better job of at least updating the site to let you know where we are in the process. Oh - and I almost forgot to mention - we have our 20 week ultrasound this afternoon at 4:00. I can't wait to see our little one on the big screen! We're still hoping not to find out, but I guess we'll have to see if Baby Banner wants to cooperate. It's so nice to know we're halfway there - the time has flown by, so I'm hoping the same will be true for the second half. It's been really nice - no sickness, no cravings, no mood swings (and this is according to Cody!) - I couldn't have asked for it to be any better!

It's a Wrap!

The window trim is up, the house is wrapped, and the siding is going up. This is not a recent picture. I haven't been able to make it out there since last Friday, but I hear that the siding is almost or may even be completely finished. Now it just needs to be painted. I think the only major thing that's left on the outside is the soffits, and then it's on to the inside to begin work in there - pretty exciting!

Some of the Work Crew

Here's the head honcho - busy as usual. You should see how easy he makes it look to hammer those nails in the wall! Puts me to shame, that's for sure.

My hubby - such a stud! I'm sure he'll be a happy camper if he never sees another hurricane clip for as long as he lives.

Here's Mom - always looking good no matter how hard she's working! I hope baby gets those good Conder genes!

He was too busy working to get a head shot, but here's Dad working on hurricane clips - you have to have so many of those things! But it's worth it because I know they could come in handy one day.

Grandpa worked so hard he decided he needed a two week vacation at the beach! I'm sure there will be plenty of painting for him to do when he gets back.

House Update

It's been a while since I've updated everyone on how the homebuilding is going. We've now got the complete roof, the rough in electrical and plumbing, and we're working on getting the A/C roughed in. All the trim is up and the siding is going up too. It's almost time for our next inspection and loan draw. I don't know what comes next, other than painting the exterior. We went ahead and bought a five gallon bucket of the 'Mother Nature' green that we painted the shed. I still have hesitations about painting the house green in a field full of green grass, but I think it will look really good, especially once we add some color around the house with our landscaping. I'm hoping what they say isn't true about how if you live with a mechanic your car's never running, when you live with a plumber there's always a pipe leaking, and so on and so forth. Otherwise, we'll never have any landscaping!

We have a roof!

As you can see, the metal roof is now on - doesn't it look great! It's so exciting to see it look more like a house all the time. Today is our framing inspection. Hopefully I'll find out in a few hours that we passed! We had some wonderful help this weekend from U. Carlton, Grandpa, Mom and Dad to get everything finished up. Thanks guys!

Doors are on

As you can see, we've got the doors up and now the house is secure. All the interior framing is done, the colums are ready for installation on the front porch, and Cody is busily working to finish up with those hurricane clips so we can hopefully get our framing inspection on Monday.

Baby Update

Here's the latest image of baby Banner. Cody and I went Friday afternoon for a quick appointment and the doctor said it was still a little early to hear the heartbeat with the doppler, so she did a quick ultrasound, which we weren't expecting. On the right is the head, and on the left you can see the little legs. Every few seconds, you would see him/her do a little jump! It was nice to know that everything is okay and the baby's moving around in there. I'm in week eleven right now so the first trimester is almost over with no sickness to speak of. I've got another appointment the first week of September and then again in early October. The end of October I'll be at 20 weeks and so that's when we'll have the full ultrasound.

All OSB is Up

As you can see here, all the windows are installed and all the OSB is up around the outside. The headers on the front porch are finished, the posts for the porch are made and ready to install, and the exterior doors will probably be installed this weekend. Then Cody has to install around 400 hurricane clips along the inside (10 nails per clip!), and we should be hurricane ready!

On this side of the house the window you see is what will be our bedroom, the front room will be the nursery/guest room, and a closet runs along the wall so there are no windows.

Here you can see some of the back of the house. The far window is in our bedroom, and the near window is in the kitchen over the sink. There is a door on the side here that comes out through the kitchen, and a door in the back that's in the utility room.

Another side view.

And the front.

Moving Along - Windows

Here's the latest on the hacienda. We're moving right along. This week they should be finishing installing the windows, and it's time to go get the doors as well. Then I don't know what comes next, but it looks like it might be the roof! We're moving right along - please help us in praying that hurricane season will either avoid us altogether or at least hold off until we've got a solid exterior structure!

And the roofing begins....

You can see on the far left side of the house that the OSB is going up on the roof. Cody, U. Carlton and Mr. Register finished up the front and back of the left side last night, and are starting on the larger side tonight. Then we call for a nail pattern inspection before they put the roof felt on and can move forward. And if you look closely, you can see leaning up inside against the far left wall are our windows already delivered! The two larger squares you see on the front will be picture windows and the others are all single windows. We ordered the style that are colonial on top, and solid pane on the bottom. Our 'design consultant' (my aunt Elaine in Charlotte) said this would be a way to help our ranch style house look a little more 'low country' which is what I was really hoping for. I think the front porch will help too. I don't think I've mentioned this before, but the house will be 1,000 square feet and we designed it to add on to the right side in the future. All the windows you see will become doorways or hallways. We plan to have about another ten feet or so of the taller roof, and then step back down on the far right where we'll put the master suite. That is of course, if we can ever afford it. It'll be several years down the road, but it helps to plan ahead because we'll save on the cost by making it easy to do.

Trusses Are Up

Here's the truss crew (L to R): Buddy Register, Art Hursey and Richard Bryan. Grandpa was there helping too, and of course our contractor extraordinare, Uncle Carlton, was the photographer.

The trusses being delivered.

The finished product. It's really starting to look like a house!

The Shed - A Work in Progress

Here's a picture of our shed/pump house. I think I need to replace it with a better picture, but this is the color we're going to paint our house. Luckily we were building this, so we could experiment with paint color. I don't know how well you can tell here, but this a light green Behr paint called 'Mother Nature'. We don't have the trim boards up yet, but they're going to be an off-white color and we'll be painting the door a dark brownish red. This will be the color we'll use on shutters for the actual house, and probably the door too.

Update on the Trusses

We got some good news this week. It looks like the trusses will be ready tomorrow - sooner than expected! The plan is to set them all this Saturday - we're so excited to see things moving along. We'll be out there helping (okay, so I won't really be helping) Uncle Carlton and then we're heading off to the river for Cody's 30th birthday. It should be a nice time, but I must admit that I'm not looking forward to putting myself in a bathing suit! I don't look pregnant yet, just kinda pudgy. But I guess that's no different than usual!

We're going to be parents!

Well, in case you haven't heard the news, there's a little Banner on the way! You can't really see much on this picture, but it's the little blob on the left in the middle of the black circle. You can't tell here, but we could see the fastest little heartbeat! This will be the first Banner grandchild, and the first great grandchild on both sides. We're very excited. We went to the doctor last Friday, and they set our due date as March 4 - the day after my birthday! I have a friend at work whose daughter was born five days before her, which she said is great because it would have been torture for her little girl to have to sit through all her mom's birthday celebrations waiting on her own every year - so hopefully this little one will come a few days earlier than expected! And no - we don't think we're going to find out what it is. We both love surprises. But who knows if we'll be able to stand it or not when the time comes that we could find out. We've got a long way to go still. More news to come as the little one grows!

We have walls!

Uncle Carlton just sent me this picture of some work they did last night (he, Cody and Buddy Register). It's going to be a couple more weeks before the trusses are ready, so they're going ahead and putting the OSB up on the outside walls. They may start building the interior walls too. As you can see, the right side of the house is taller. We're going to have 9 foot ceilings in the living room and kitchen, and 8 foot ceilings on the left side, which is the bedrooms and bathrooms. There's more and more progress all the time!



Exterior framing

Pouring the Slab

Cody surveying the finished product.


Cody and Uncle Carlton (the 'Contractor') discussing very important things I'm sure.


This is our friend Scott - he's the one that did the slab for our shed and for the house. He helped save us some money. Thanks Scott!


Here is one of the trucks pouring the slab


And this is me and Grandpa 'supervising'. Tough work, but somebody's gotta do it!

A Skeleton!

So, you've just got to hear this. When digging the footers for the foundation, we dug up a skeleton! How crazy is that!?! Actually it's my husband who's crazy. He thought we needed to add a little 'spice' to our blog, like digging up a skeleton, or saying we're building a basement with an elevator. So there it is.....BAM! We kicked it up a notch.

Plumbing Rough-In

Well, it may not look like much to you, but we're finally making some forward progress! This is the rough-in plumbing. Most of the pipes are along the back wall, as you can see. The kitchen is in the back right corner, and next to it is the utility room, and then the bathroom. Then there's just another half bath in our bedroom that you can see about midway along the left wall. I called Columbia County about 3PM this afternoon, and they said they would be out tomorrow to do the inspection! We can only pray that the rest of the process will go as well. I shudder to think how long we would have to wait in Alachua County - our inspectors are running themselves ragged all the time, and they're still behind!

Our Children

This is Sunny. She will be five years old next month. She's spent her last couple of years going back and forth to the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine to deal with a problem on her tongue. After many different procedures and medications, she is finally back to her old self (albeit about 30 lbs heavier due to the steroids), and we are finally starting to wean her off her medication. Thank you Dr. Liska! Sunny is such a good girl - everybody always talks about how well behaved she is - if only our children turn out so well!!

This is Little Baby. She just turned five in May. Her real name is Mary Jane, but we started calling her Little Baby when she was a kitten, and it just stuck. Boy, does she live up to it! Every morning she comes in our room and cries and cries until she gets her morning snack and a little lovin'. To her credit, she doesn't get to eat near as much as she used to since her little sister Sunny took to eating all her food any chance she gets (again, we credit the steroids). She's a good cat too - we're so blessed to have such amazing pets. She's never mean to anyone (except Sunny when she's had enough of the food stealing!). She's usually either hungry, wants some petting, or is sound asleep. This picture doesn't do her justice, but I'll get a good one some time soon and replace it.

Breaking Ground

This is some of the first pictures of the homesite. This was all we could do without a building permit. Now we've just got to wait on Uncle Carlton to get back from Montana to start things in full swing! I'll post some pictures of our shed once we get it painted - we're using it to experiment on what color to paint the house.

And the fun begins......

We finally got our building permit! After some minor delays, we're off and rolling and ready to get started. Hopefully we'll be in our new home by the end of the year.

Just Getting Started

Well, I must admit for the longest time I was embarassed to say I had no clue what a 'blog' was. Now after checking out Celena's I'm hooked. What a great idea! You can share info with friends and family all over the place. Not sure what I'll do with it yet, but I'm thinking at a minimum I can keep people posted on the house building process. Thanks, Celena!