Wow. It’s been a month since I have written anything! I guess this whole mama-of-four-while-building-a-house is kicking my butt. Time really means nothing to me anymore. It is amazing how a day can feel like a year, and a week can seem like a second. So anyway, if you have been waiting on the edge of your seat for an update on my life (sarcasm), here it is!

The Tree HousE is coming right along. Luke and I are still married and mostly like each other despite this stressful process, and I call that a win. Of course, per the usual, we have had a couple setbacks over the last few weeks, so I think I will divide this post up into two categories, SUCKED and NON-SUCKED.

First, what SUCKED:

1. Another one bites the dust. I wrote in my last house update that our plumber dropped our project just a few weeks before we needed him. Shortly thereafter, our HVAC guy did the same thing. It is very difficult not to take these types of things personally, especially when it happens twice in a row. And maybe there was a personal problem that we weren’t aware of — not sure. However, you can imagine that curve ball really threw us off and caused a lot of anger, frustration, and worry. It was back to the drawing board, again. Luke spent the next couple of weeks calling more plumbing and HVAC companies, most all of them recommended by friends, in a desperate attempt to get someone who would want to take on our job. Thankfully, after more than a few dead-ends and hiccups, we believe that we have the right people who can help us. Fingers crossed. Eyes crossed. Legs crossed. All of it…crossed. We cannot take another round of “starting over”….but we will do what we have to do.

2. Rain, rain, go away. More rain has slowed down the process of getting the exterior finished up. Weather issues are always so frustrating because there is nothing anyone can do to make them better. You just have to wait it out. Luke has stopped checking weather forecasts in order to avoid depression.

But…what NON-SUCKED:

1. We have siding! It is so exciting to see the actual color of the house! We picked a two-tone look. The majority of the house will be white. The rest will be a dark gray. We are using fiber cement siding for a nice, clean look. We are loving the way it is looking so far.

2. All interior framing is done. Basically all of the interior framing is done. You can walk through and see all of the rooms and closets. This has been so helpful in seeing how the house will look and measuring how everything will fit. As soon as we can get subcontractors in, we will be that much closer to dry wall.

3. We picked vanities, faucets, and other fixtures for our bathrooms and kitchen. It feels so good to make decisions, and I have found that making decisions inspires more decision-making. It is easy to reach “paralysis by over-analysis,” and that is definitely something both Luke and I struggle with. We like to research and analyze everything before making the leap — and sometimes you just have to go for it. You can only talk about things so many times. So, we chose vanities, sinks, and faucets for our bathrooms and kitchen, and it felt good! And we (mostly) agreed!

4. We bought new kitchen cabinets! This was not really in the original plan. The original plan was that we would use the existing kitchen cabinets and refinish/paint them. This was a great plan until our kitchen layout changed slightly, and we realized that we needed to have three cabinets (two corner units and a sink unit) custom made. Luke tracked down a cabinet maker, but even that person couldn’t make new cabinets to match the existing style. It was looking like it was going to cost too much money and be too much effort to get cabinets made to make the existing cabinets — on top of sanding them down and painting them. We decided to go ahead and order new cabinets for the kitchen and then reuse the old kitchen cabinets in other areas of our home (laundry room, office, garage, etc). We took advantage of a sale at The RTA Store over July 4th weekend, and we were able to save 22% off the total price of our cabinets. We went with this cool gray shaker cabinet. Originally, I had my heart set on the marine blue kitchen cabinets I have seen all over Pinterest, but I realized that for our budget, I needed to make a compromise. These cabinets have a really interesting look and will be perfect for us, I believe. The idea behind this site is that you buy everything “ready to assemble” (RTA) and “do it yourself,” but for a little more money, you can get the cabinets pre-assembled, which is what we decided to do. Luke’s plate is already quite full. Adding cabinet assembly to his list of tasks might send him over the edge.

So, it appears that we had more “non-sucks” than “sucks,” and for that, I am grateful. This has been an up and down process since the very beginning, but we get more excited by the day as we continue to see progress.