Pour

Here are pics from the day of the concrete pour...Jesse had some very helpful hands to assist him in this big project. It literally poured RAIN the day before and made the lot a muddy mess. I was selling our belongings at our garage sale, so I was unable to attend this part of the building process. Jesse was happy to capture the moment for me :)

Heat and plumbing

We've got two things...HEAT and PLUMBING! We decided to go with gas forced air heating system. Its pretty standard and relatively efficient. We would have liked to do in floor heat, but we're on a budget ;) Plus, we were advised that we wouldn't get our money out of putting such a large heating system into the house if we are planning on selling in the next few years.








Digging dirt for plumbing pipes
















Plumbing supplies...

















Main component to our heating system

Our main bathroom

Here is Jesse with our plumber (and friend) Justin Wellcome.

Set The Forms

So again, my apologies for my tardiness :)

Jesse has set the forms! The forms are the "outline" of the house. They are used for when the concrete gets poured, it sets the floor in place.

Before he set the forms he used a machine called a Plate Compactor. It is used to smooth out the dirt to make it even and compacted. Get it?

Here is from the front of the house.

Here is the dining room.

And here is from the front door looking to the south (where the two guest bedrooms will be)

That's all for now! Check back tomorrow for a new post!

Busy bee!

So sorry! I've been neglecting in updating you with the latest in the soon-to-be Casa Martinka!

I headed to Minneapolis on Saturday and returned Tuesday. I kept myself busy spending time with my dad and step mom, brother and niece, lots of dear friends, coffee talks, state fair foods, retail therapy and most importantly LADY GAGA! She was fantastic -- such a great performer. And my concert goer-pal couldn't have been better.

I'll get you updated tomorrow - I promise! Check back :)

The Plan Stan!

This gives you a general idea of the floor plan. We found this floor plan, both liked it and went with it. We looked and looked and looked for floor plans to at least give us somewhat of an outline of what we want the house to be. After you look at so many, you go a little cross eyed. As you can see, its all one level (they call it "slab on grade"). There have been modifications made to this floor plan (as you will see once the house is finished:)

The items that caught my eye, you ask? The "split bedroom"...meaning the master bedroom is on the other half of the house from the other two bedrooms. The two back entrances of the house (great for our two doggies). The front and back covered porches (ask Jesse, a porch was a NECESSITY in my book), and the open kitchen.

What ya'll think? What do you like about this layout?

DIRT

DIRT HAS NEVER LOOKED SO GOOD!

Its at our lot and ready to be pushed around and leveled out. Jesse said to me as we pulled up to the lot "this is where you'll find me until dark every night until we're moved in"...what a hard working man!


View from the where the driveway will begin...














Its nice dirt. I guess its called "fill sand". It looks and feels soft. You can tell by how smooth it is!















Check out those tracks! Must have been some big trucks bringing in the dirt.

We left our tracks too...can you tell which one is mine?

Someone else left some tracks...Jesse was excited to see those.














Happy to see his "fill sand" has arrived!

Class 5

Jesse and I took my brother, his wonderful girlfriend and my darling niece out to our lot on Saturday to show them where one day a house will sit. (sorry, I forgot to take pics). Not much has changed except a small pile of dirt that was pushed by Bobcat. There was a large turn-around put at the end of the road and into the south end of our lot since the road is not going through to the school as originally planned (see previous post). The turnaround is about 2 cars wide, and 2 cars deep. Since it took up more space in our lot then we thought, we decided to push the house to the north a bit.

Another thing that changed was "class 5" was put down on the road which is the type of sand/dirt mixture they put down before the road is blacktopped. I think as soon as that blacktop goes down and can be driven on - we will have dirt and Jesse will be there in no time to get movin'!

My niece Ivy was really digging seeing the bull-dozers and tractor out on the lot. She wanted to "see trac-tor" (used in your best 2 year old voice). My brother, Michael brought her up and set her in the seat of each one. It was to her liking...Michael was thrilled to know his daughter liked big trucks & tractors :)

Up-to-date

So let me bring you all up to date...

Our road (Anitas Way) is under construction and pretty much has been since the photos you saw in the last post. The township was originally going to have a thru-road up to the elementary school to the south of us. The school didn't like that idea since the area between the school and where our development is-is part of their "science learning area"...so it got the kabosh. I wonder what is back there?!?! Sometimes we forget what we learned in elementary school. I better go on a treasure hunt sometime to refresh my memory of elementary science. I support the sciences! I also support a road not being put thru to the elementary school! Less traffic by our house = the better. Who wants to hear school bus' wizzing by in the early hours of the a.m?? Not this guy & gal!

So Anitas Way has been out of commission for us to get to until the road is complete. We check with the neighbors (the Johnson's) frequently to see if there is any updates. According to many sources, its better they get it done now and not in the spring when the snow is melting and it becomes a mud pit. Even after just one day of rain, the sand and dirt has turned into mud and makes it very difficult to get to.

I guess they are making progress on building the road up and getting ready to tar. Hopefully by the end of the week we'll be able to get back there and begin to push some dirt. Put that bobcat to work, my dear! :)

The beginning

Here we are, on our new building lot a few days after it became "ours" in mid-May.

Looks like an empty lot, huh?















Happy soon-to-be tenants of Oak Ridge (the development name)!

Here we go...

So...as you can see, I started this blog a while back. My mom thought that I'd be good at it and I listened to her. As I began to think of this blog, I realized...I don't really have anything to write about. After some inspiration from my blogging friends, I figured it out.

My husband and I just became first-time home buyers...I say buyers but its more like owners --- since we aren't buying an exisiting home, but rather building a new one! Our very first home that we own is going to be brand-spanking new! I had never thought the first home I would own, would be new...well and with that...in Bemidji. I had always envisioned my first home to be a small, older home in a cute neighborhood of St. Paul or Minne...with a nice fenced in yard and porch on the front. Funny how things change, but now I wouldn't change it for the world. I'm very excited to see what Jesse's bare hands and my direction can do! Jesse and I are lucky to have a very similar vision of what we want this house to be and look like. FINALLY, a place we can call "our own"

Stay tuned for updates on the process...you'll hear all our excitement, ideas, photos of progress, design, the up's, the down's and everything in between!