ROOF!!!

TA-DA!!!! :)

Friday morning at work, my lovely neighbor Ashlee sent me a picture of my ROOF going on! :) I think every person at district office saw that picture inside 10 minutes...SO EXCITING!

I was telling Anna earlier this week how I get so overwhelmed with pride and a sense of accomplishment every time I crest the hill to see our little neighborhood taking shape. Call me a sap, call me a dweeb, call me overly-sentimental, but it's true. I am so proud of my family, of my neighbors, my friends. Everytime I see a new house painted, I think "Right on, Sam! Good work!" (Sam is currently our resident paint expert!) Everytime I see a neighbor with new windows, siding, or sheet rock, it's exciting! Even the things we don't do ourselves are another step on the journey. It's incredible. So if I haven't said it lately, thank you to all my Kingston Cedars I neighbors. I truly care about all of you, and am honored to share in this adventure with you! :)

PICTURES! I think I promised 2 weeks ago, but here are some updates:



Tinas: Painted, sheetrocked, taped and mudded! :)



Zhans: Accent color went on AFTER I took this pic, sheetrocked, taped and mudded!

Robin: Also finished painting after the pic! :) I believe she's also mudded and taped.

Anna and Josh: Got all their windows in TODAY! :)

Pennoyers: Windows! YAY!

Linda: Has a roof now, too! :)

Selina and Jerica: Ready for Sheet Rock!

Ashlee: Ready for paint! :)

Nathan: Also ready for paint

Robert: Ready for Sheetrock

Garrett and Amanda: Also ready for Sheetrock! :)


Ross said Garage Doors are being delivered for the first few houses this week. GARAGE DOORS! And then CABINETS!!!!! YAHOOOOOOOOO!!!! :)

Until next week! :)

HB

12 Houses

Yup...12 houses. That's what we have. Saturday we rolled out all of our trusses, while two other groups worked on Tyvek/Windows and painting. We have 12 houses COMPLETELY FRAMED. ##andthecrowdgoeswild## :)

Super Sam has been doing the exterior painting, and it looks great! Tina's house has both the accent and main color on, and looks great! Zhan's house has all the base color down (which is the same red that ours will be and I LOVE IT), and I wouldn't be suprised if there will be more painting this weekend!

Otherwise it's all the punch lists (you know how I love those), and little things that need to be done here or there. A good chunk of the houses have sheetrock, and I believe Ross said they were going to start on tape and mud. Linda's house had the roof and punch list completed yesterday. We will get roof sheeting sometime in the not so distant future, and then we will be tyvek and window'd. :)

I can't wait to start on the next big project (whatever that will be). I really liked framing. Really. Very instant-gratification, and I understood it! Now we are going to have painting, flooring, kitchens, landscaping...yup. you guessed it...I know nothing. All this wandering around with a list written in construction gibberish gives me a slight headache. I hope we have a super productive summer, and blow any other group out of the water as far as production time! LET'S GO CEDARS ONE! :)

Oh...and all our new neighbors started last week. 14 houses. I met our next door neighbor, and she seems really nice. :) Also, I was at the mall this week buying nail polish, handed the girl my debit card, and she looks up and said "Oh, you're Heather Ben-Judah." Uhhh...yeah? "We are going to be neighbors. I'm 23." To which I so poetically responded "Oh..you're the hole!" :) (There's a blank lot between Jerica and Linda..the hole.) It was so refreshing to look down from my second story window while the boys were rolling out our trusses and see that group laying down their first mudsil. I hated that. :) I muttered about how advanced we were now...to which Ross muttered back something and snorted. I think I'm glad I didn't hear him. :)

It's coming along. :) I fear the next phase is going to be a lot of little here-and-there stuff, and it's going to take a lot to keep us focused and motivated. BUT WE CAN DO IT! We're building a freaking community. That takes a whole lotta awesome...and we've GOT IT! :)

Happy Father's Day to all you dad's out there! :) Hope it's a relaxing day for you all! :)

HB

From black and white to COLOR!!!!

Ok...not really black and white! But COLOR is so very exciting! :) Saturday, Sam and an entourage of Tina's family and friends put the first paint on a house! :) YAY! It's really amazing! By the time Ahren left on Saturday, 2 walls of Zhan's house were painted as well!

As for the rest of us, Ross didn't call it this, but we were TOTALLY punch listing! :) We did a few things on our house...fixing some un-square walls, finishing the stairs, putting up the scaffolding for the trusses (WHICH COME WEDNESDAY!), top plates, and Anna and I cleaned out the house, which was so lovely! It's really too bad we can't do something productive with sawdust, because we have TONS of it!

People were working on Linda and Pennoyers as well! Linda's will get trusses with ours on Wednesday. The last sets of trusses! :) I walked through Pennoyers and Linda's for the first time. There are things I LOVE about every house!! Three of the houses are drywalled, I believe almost everyone has plumbing/electric that's ready for it, Anna and Pennoyers should be ready for Tyvek/Windows soon! It's all coming right along.

We brought this silly little BBQ out on Saturday and grilled bratwursts and had chips with everyone. It was a beautiful day, and was so nice to have a little lunch break with everyone! :) I know how blessed I am to be in this project at all, but to be in it with people I truly admire, respect and care about is really more than I ever could have hoped for!

So next week we'll be rolling trusses, and doing more punch list stuff. I get such a sense of awe when I walk into one of the houses that has finished drywall. It's a HOUSE people...a house. No question. I remember when I'd look at the framing book, and it may as well have been something in greek. Now, not only do I completely understand those books, but I can walk in a house that I helped build and sit down on it's floor, lean against it's REAL wall, and plug something into it's outlet! What a sense of accomplishment!

I didn't take many pictures...ended up having to leave unexpectedly because I had a really sick baby at home! I'll get twice as many next week!

Til next week!
HB