Rain!

Rain.
That's been pretty much the name of the game for the last week. So we've been doing a lot of porch sittin'!

We still had to place the foundation for the front half of the house. They managed to get the footer dug and poured before the rain hit. Somewhere under the mud in the middle picture is our footer. But yesterday the sun finally came out and our builder made up for lost time. And as of yesterday we have a complete foundation!

Footer dug, poured, hidden underneath DAYS of rain, finally a foundation!

I know this looks like we're missing a wall, but it's a walkout, so the entire basement has an outside wall.

Now our real work begins. Windows. Cabinets. Countertops. Lights. Floors. Fixtures. Tiles. The list goes on. And on. And on... 

We made our first official decisions last weekend with the selection of a piece of granite for our countertops (no, we're not basing every decorative decision on this granite, it just happened to be the first thing we bought)

In the beginning I looked at literally THOUSANDS of plans. I have not one but two Pinterest boards with nothing but house plans. Scott's requirement was a big great room with big windows. My requirement was a dedicated mud room. We both want a sunroom. My only request for the kitchen is that it not be a tiny galley kitchen, nor was I keen on it being completely open to the living room, I wanted a little bit of separation. After months of searching, we finally landed on a plan that hit everything on our wishlist. But what we got as a bonus was a huge kitchen. Much bigger than either of us ever even thought about. And between that and the mudroom and bathrooms, we ended up needing a LOT of cabinets and countertops. Do you have any idea how freaking expensive cabinets are? I DO!

We wanted to see if we could go with something a little better than the builder's grade cabinets. So we got our first estimate from Lowe's, which proved to be a huge mistake. Overpriced and weird design sent us running to find our next option. Finally, our builder recommended a local man who just happens to live on the next ridge over - neighbors in this part of the world! After just one meeting we knew we had our cabinetmaker. His estimate for handmade solid-wood cabinets, was HALF the estimate from Lowe's for factory-built cabinets that were probably coming from China. And with the phenomenal deal we got on our granite, we will have an awesome custom kitchen that we never even planned for!