Mike and Georges Web Site: Blog

We are Done!

Sun, 04 May 2008 13:59:01 -0500

We had our appraisal on Thursday and although we have not had the official report yet all appears to be well with nothing left that we HAVE to do. There is still a little staining and paint touch up but we can take our time on that now. We celebrated by buying a new couch and spent the weekend lounging around on it - what a treat! All we have to do now is wait for the paperwork to be done and then sign on the dotted line to convert from a construction loan to a conventional mortgage and commit ourselves to 30 years of debt - oh joy! There have been rumors that the house prices have dropped since we had the original appraisal last year - we are hoping not too much or we will end up having to pay mortgage insurance which would be a bummer. I have been taking tons of photos to capture the house in its beautifully tidy state - I am sure it wont last long.

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:31:35 -0500

Well it has been a busy month for us! Julia is now a month old already. We cant believe how the days have flown. Mum and dad are still here with us working VERY hard. Mum has been incharge of trim and dad has been tiling the upstairs bathroom. We are really getting to the end now. We have made an appointment to have the house appraised on the 29th to that is our deadline. It will be a busy last couple of weeks but I think we can do it. I will try and get some new pics up one of these days. Hope you are all enjoyign spring (it wont stop snowing here) Love and Hugs, George

Julia has Arrived

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:39:47 -0500

Hi All Michael and I are pleased to announce the birth of our baby. Julia Margaret Gibson was born on Sunday 16th March. She seems really titchy although she weighed in at a healthy 7lbs 10ozs. We have been really lucky to have Mum with us to help out before and just after the birth - and she has just extended her ticket for another month - yipee!! Dad arrived yesterday and will be here for 6 weeks. We are hoping to have our finished house inspected on May 1st so we will be keeping him busy - one of these days he will come and visit us and actually have a vacation. Hope you are all well, George XoXoXoX

Huge progress

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:05:55 -0500

We have had quite a bonanza week on the house front. Michael got the downstairs toilet hooked up - a huge luxuary. This was just in time for our first guest - Wendy -who stayed the night with us on Thursday. We also managed to get the washer, dryer and stove operational and even cooked our first pizza to celebrate! Pammie and Cashell helped me start tiling the bathroom vanity and shower. We are very pleased with how its turning out. Hopefully it wont be long before we have a fully functioning bathroom. Tim and Michael finished laminating the living room floor so our 1st floor no longer looks like a construction zone -quite a landmark! Mum should be arriving tomorrow to stay with us for 3 weeks which we are very excited about. Still pregnant so it looks like she will be here for the birth which will be nice. Hope you are all doing well, Love and Hugs, George XXX

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Elias Room

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:15:14 -0600

Elias moved into his own this weekend and took it like a champion - not even a little bit of fuss - I was completely amazed! He loves his new room - it is so nice to have a construction free zone. Tim and Cashell also got the flooring down in the Baby room so Michael and I have moved in there for now - Best nights sleep I have had in a long time - makes a big difference when the boiler doesnt wake you up every time it fires up. Only 2 weeks till my Mum arrives -and hopefully the baby will be soon after that (due on the 15th). My goal this week is to tile the kitchen so that we can get our appliances in. How nice it will be not to have to microwave everything. Hope you are all well, Love and Hugs, George XXX

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Now the fun begins...

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:53:26 -0600

Well it took way longer then we hoped for the mud/tapers/painters to get done but we are very happy with the work the did. Before they finished I started laying the tile in the downstairs bathroom and this weekend Michael and I got busy installing the kitchen cabinets. It turned out to be not as painfull as we thought and now we are ready to hook the appliances up and tile the kitchen floor. Yesterday Michael and BJ put down the flooring in Elias bedroom so hopefully we will move him in next weekend (not sure what he will think of that). There is still so much more to do (and so little time before the baby arrives) but it does feel like we are making progress and slowly getting things wrapped up. Love and Hugs to all, George XXX

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All hung up

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 15:35:29 -0600

The drywall crew finished hanging the sheetrock yesterday and got all the scraps cleaned up and hauled out of the house in preperation for the mud and taping crew. What a difference it makes - it already looks so much more like a home. We are very pleased with how all the walls and rooms took shape. We are having yet another move this weekend. Into the utility room for us this time so that Michael can insulate the garage before hanging sheetrock in there. We opted to do that bit ourselves in and effort to save a bit of money. Not sure how long the taping will take - I guess another week or so. I am off to Anchorage for a conference tomorrow so hopefully It will be mostly done when I get back. I have posed a few pictures from the early days of hanging and will try and upload some more recent ones soon.

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The walls are closing in ...

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:30:01 -0600

Well the sheetrockers showed up as scheduled yesterday morning and made great progress. On the 1st floor all the ceiling is done, along with Elias's bedroom, downstairs bathroom and kitchen. The ceiling on the 2nd floor is taking much longer because it is high and angled. Everything seemed to go well except they ignored our request to put cement backerboard behind the shower. We have decided that at this stage it will be easier if we just deal with adding it ourselves once they are done. The house certainly has a very different feel now - the rooms definately feel smaller and the ceilings lower. It will probably take a little while to get used to. The whole place is very dusty and this will probably only get worse once the mudding and taping start. Kitchen cabinets should arrive this afternoon Yipee!! - I guess they will be sitting out in the snow for a while as we have no where to put them at the moment.

Love and hugs, George XXX

The rough in is done -FINALLY!!

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:21:46 -0600

Michael and I hada VERY busy xmas and new years. We worked on the house everyday except xmas mostly finishing up the rough in electric and plumbing but we also turned our hands to framing a couple of clossets, adding sheetrock backers where required, supports for stair banisters etc. etc.etc. We had our inspector come and take a look on Saturday and he found no major problems - which is good as we had booked the sheetrockers for today. Michael roped Johhny, Steve and Tim into helping him haul several thousand pounds of very large sheetrock panels into the house this weekend. It was a lot of hard work and took two days but they got it done -THANKS GUYS!! We are now living in the garage/utility room temporarily while the rock is being hung. Apparently the sheet rockers started this morning so I am excited to go home and see the progress they made.

Things are going to start looking pretty different!

Hope you are all well, Love and hugs, George

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Party Time

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:46:49 -0600

We had a fun filled weeked. On Saturday our friends Crane and Wendy were in town and it was great to hang out with them. I think Elias has a thing for their little girl Sadie. We also got to see Santa at the daycare Xmas party and went to Chena hotsprings to celebrate Elias's birthday. I think he had a great time. Needless to say with all the partying and relaxing we didnt get too much work done on the house. We did meet with some drywall folks though and have made plans to have them start on Jan 15th. That means that we will be very busy over the xmas break finishing up all the rough in work. My latest project is framing in a closet in the master bedroom. I think Michael just has to run water supply to the radiant baseboard locations upstairs and then hes is going to frame off our entry way to seperate it from the garage. One of these days I'll post some more pictures of the progress - Not that the mechanical rough in is very exciting to look at.

Ho Ho Ho ,Mery Christmas to all!

Love and Hugs,

George, MIchael and Elias

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