First Post

Okay so I am officially entering the blogging world. I've wanted to start a blog for a long time now, but always felt like our lives weren't really that exciting and didn't want to be so forward as to think anyone would really care. However, as many of you know, Joe and I are building a house on 10 acres wayyy out in the country. Well it's not really that far, but most people think it is. We both decided we wanted to document our adventures as first-time home builders since not only are we building it ourselves, we are paying for it with cash as we go. It's been a long process so far, but we are finally starting to make progress. Yay! Right now we live with Joe's Grandma and Grandpa next to the land where we are building. We commute about an hour each way every day to work in the big city (aka Rogers). It's a big sacrifice, but to us it is SOOO worth living out in the quiet, beautiful country, away from noise, traffic and buildings. So to catch you up on some pictures, here is a current outside picture of our house:

It looks like a big red barn you say? Well it kinda is. And yes, it has garage doors, they were just open when the picture was taken. When we started this process we wanted to build as economically as possible since we are paying with cash. After a lot of research and many "plans" later, we decided to build a big metal building and build a house inside. The house will be 3000 square feet, 4 bedrooms 3 bathrooms. In addition there is a large shop for all of Joe's hobbies. Except hunting, but that's what all the land around us is for. Anyway, originally, our little plot of land looked like this:

Then we had to have a "pad" made and footings poured (note our metal building laying unassembled to the left):
Next was assembly:I neglected to take pictures during the time that they put on the sheet metal, so this is the last picture I have before the outside was complete. If I find any, I'll post them later. Anyway, recently our block layer came out and started laying block for the foundation of the house. His name is Chris:

Yay Chris!

Chris works really hard. Meanwhile, my husband does this with his BFF Jason:

Just kidding. It looks like they're shootin' the bull, but actually they're working too. Joe worked on getting the electric box up most of the day so we can hook up electric, and Jason came out later in the afternoon to help.


I told him to smile and he said something about being a carpenter. I guess carpenters don't smile. Let's just say he's not a fan of pictures. Note, this picture is not a plug for DeWalt tools, however we don't like to use anything but DeWalt. And when I say we, I mean Joe. Just sayin'.

And the electric box is on the building! I may seem overly excited about this, but every step is exciting in this process. While I was snapping all these pictures and the boys were hard at work, Jude, our almost 4 year old Wiemeraner was doing this:

He loves rawhides. And any bones or any other dead animals he finds around the farm. And trash, as is evidenced by this picture of him:

All that black on his face is soot from the burn barrel. We burn our trash because we live too far away from civilization for trash service. Actually not really, that just sounded good. It's just easier to burn the trash. And cheaper. Have a great Tuesday...