If you've ever done any 3D design, you'll know that feeling you get the first time you see your objects with their skin on. They're no longer wire-framed sketches, they're solid.

Drywall!

The electrician hasn't put in the wires for cable or ethernet, like I asked. So I assume he's going to have to fish them through the drywall. Why not start the cabling in the months before the drywall went up? Beats me! I asked the builder about it three (now four) times. But that's just not how they do it.

Turns out we can't even get cable on that street. The cable co. won't run a line without knowing they'll have a certain number of customers, and the people there apparently don't want it. Which is fucking crazy because that means the only options for internet are satellite or DSL. And the DSL carrier's website says we'll be able to get 3Mbs (three!) at our new house. Currently, we have cable and while we're paying for 30Mbs, we're actually pulling down 100Mbs (according to on-line speed tests).

We were planning to drop cable anyway, but we thought we'd be replacing it with Hulu, Netflix & Amazon. 3Mbs is slow enough that those might not actually be options - at least not in HD.

Honestly, if I had known about this before we bought the lot, I would have disqualified the lot. I just couldn't believe that we'd have trouble getting a decent connection. It's only a mile (literally, as the crow flies) from our current house, so I assumed we'd have the same options. Nope! Fail!

Update:
The DSL provider's website says we'd get 3Mbs. But their sales rep says we'll get 8Mbps. 8 would be fine. Crisis averted?

Nothing is happening in the new house. Progress has stopped. It's been over three weeks since anything visible happened. Well, OK, one thing changed: they've stacked drywall sheets in each room. So I assume that's going to start soon. I hope it does. But I hope they put in the ethernet, cable and speaker wires like I asked, first.

Cabinets and countertops have been selected and ordered. Mrs is breaking her brain trying to pick out light fixtures. I'd help, but our tastes are different enough that my participation just makes the job even harder.

They haven't started heating, or AC; they haven't dug the wells; the haven't cut down the trees for the solar stuff; they haven't done a lot. And this is making me doubt if we'll be in by Thanksgiving or not. Last month, the builder seemed confident that it would happen. But looking back at the timeline for our current house, and knowing how fast that builder builds does things vs how fast the new builder does things, I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen. This time, last house, the drywall was done, the floor was done, trim carpentry was in progress, driveway was done, cabinets were days from being installed. Nah gun hapn.

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They've blown foam insulation into the spaces between the studs on the exterior walls and roof. It looks like they just open up the foam hose and spray foam everywhere, let it dry, then scrape it back to the studs - hence the big piles of foam on the floor. This will be the first house we've had with insulated walls. Hopefully this will help reduce our heating bill next winter...

Went to the stone yard to look for counter top material, Saturday. That's always fun - some of the rocks they have are truly amazing to look at (especially, the onyx - which we certainly can't afford and wouldn't use anyway because we're not that flashy). But as with the last time, it's impossible to know what things cost. The stone yard has a colored sticker pricing system (green, blue, yellow, red - "$" through "$$$$") but no actual prices. And they won't give us a quote - only our "fabricator" can. And the fabricator is sub-contractor of the cabinet people. So, we picked a few stones we liked, gave that list to the stone people. They're going to give that list to the cabinet people, who will give it to the fabricator, who will then contact the stone people for wholesale prices. Then the fabricator will give her estimate to the cabinet people who will then email us to tell us that we're going to be anywhere from 500% to 10,000% over budget. Most efficient. It's like shopping for major surgery (in the US, not in places with rational health care systems).

Current house goes on the market next month. This is the worst part, for me. It was six months of stress last time. I hear the market is better now, but there are houses in our neighborhood that have been on the market for over a year. We're going to undercut them like crazy, but still...

Sat down with the cabinet people, talked about options, cut this and that, and ended up getting our cabinet cost down to 120% of the allowance. It's still over budget (as everything has been), but it's manageable.

We'll just have to eat ramen noodles for the next 20 years.

Our new house is actually the same design as a house our builder was showcasing last fall. Mrs found it and took a tour, liked it, had me take a tour, etc.. That house had some really nice hand-built cabinets in the kitchen, done by a couple of local guys. We wanted similar cabinets (because they were nice!), but the builder thought those guys took too long to complete them in that other house; so for our house he proposed that we go with a traditional cabinet company. He said it would be cheaper, too. And that it would fit into our allowance, no problem.

Our contract specifies a certain allowance for cabinets in the house (kitchen, bathrooms, laundry room, etc.). Let's call it $X.

Five weeks ago we met with the cabinet company to pick out cabinets. We did a 3 hour meeting with the cabinet guy; then nothing happened for three weeks. Then we had a three hour meeting with a woman at the cabinet company. We picked out everything except the kitchen counter top surface - Mrs wants to look around for that. We picked out cabinets and counter tops for all the other rooms. And, everything was their lowest end stuff. There were at least two levels higher.

Then nothing happened for two weeks. After much complaining by us and the builder, the cabinet guy finally came back with an estimate: 160% of $X, not counting the cost of any counter tops. Why no counter tops ? Beats me! But there's little doubt that they'll contribute a huge amount to the final cost. 200% of $X wouldn't surprise me a bit.

So, we're kinda fucked.

Siding is almost complete. It will be painted blue, someday.

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Electrical outlets, switches and in-ceiling lights have been tentatively placed (no wires, just the plastic boxes nailed to studs), for our approval. Plumbing is complete. We made a second pass at picking out cabinets on Saturday. And now we're awaiting the estimate from the cabinet place, to see if we can afford what we asked for. We've nearly decided on the floor: natural maple most places, and some streaky grey/white/black tile in the bathrooms.

We've decided to install solar panels on the house. So some big old trees have to come down. Which is a drag. But, free electricity!

We will not be installing bespoke leather floors made from vintage leather belts.

Yesterday, we went to the store to select cabinets. It was almost exactly three years ago that we went shopping for cabinets for the current house. That time, the cabinet people had laid-out all the rooms ahead of time and we just got to pick color, door style and the pulls. This time, it was a different vendor. And, they hadn't done anything ahead of time. We talked about layout and features for two hours. We said almost nothing about colors or door styles, and absolutely nothing about pulls. Different vendor, different system. They're going to put together draft layouts of all the rooms and send them to us and we'll go back and forth with changes and tweaks until we fit what we want into the budget we have.

My biggest issue: I want the counters to be a little taller than the standard 36". Maybe just an inch and a half. No problem, they say.

Windows are in.

This is the dining room, with the sliding door onto the back porch.

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All of the windows are the hand-cranked side-opening kind (aka "casement"). They're much more efficient than double or single hung windows. And we're all about efficiency these days.

Right now, the house is home to many mud wasps who could probably use a little breeze, however.

Today we pick out cabinets and counters for three bathrooms, kitchen, laundry room and the 'office'. Whew.

It's coming along.

All of the windows are in the house. As in: they're all stacked up in the middle of the living room. I guess that means they'll be installed this week.

We're getting ready to pick out counters and cabinets and flooring. That will be fun. And we're going to meet with the electrician to go over switch and light and outlet placement. The builder says that this will take a couple of hours. I'm skeptical. But, I wasn't involved in that process for our current house (Mrs handled that one), so maybe that's how long it takes. I hope not.