Hello Creekside Manor! Part 1

Creekside Manor is the subdivision where we will call home.  It is a new subdivision behind New Union Elementary School.  We bought this land about a year in a half ago from a friend of Ryan's that he works with.  We bought 2 lots for practically the price of one.  We knew that one day we wanted to build and his price was hard to pass up.  On the day we found out we were having twins we came home and immediately started looking at house plans.  A good friend of ours, Justin McIntosh, told us that he was wanting to start building houses for a living and once again we got an offer we couldn't pass up!  He sub contracted his house when he built it years ago with the help of some of his family and our house will be the first house he will be building himself.  We narrowed down a plan that we both liked, ordered the plans and then started the building process.  After running around and getting all the permits that we needed, we broke ground on December 17th.  Our new address will be 164 Roberts Creek Circle.  Here are some picture of the footers that were dug and of the driveway. Ryan put in a freezeless faucet so water would be accessible to the workers.  

December 28th they started laying the block down.

February 6th they placed the sub floor.  Weather has been a pain and has kept us from progressing in a timely manner.  But, that is what you get when you start building a house in the middle of winter!

February 8th they started framing!  Finally, some progress!

February 14th the whole house is framed and you can finally see where everything is going to be!

February 19th OSB board was put up.  Liam gets excited when we drive out there.  He calls it "The New House."  We showed him where his room would probably be but he was more interested in stacking the left over pieces of wood.

March 4th and we have the beginning of a roof!!!

March 6th the roof is finished!

March 9th and the house is "Roughed In" (I have to consult with Ryan so that I have my terms right lol)  We have shingles and the house is wrapped.  The doors and all 3 tubs were put in at this point.

Today, March 10th, the windows were put in but I forgot to take a picture.  One of the windows was the wrong size so that window has to be reordered.  Because of unfortunate circumstances we had to choose a different brick color.  Ryan, Liam and I drove to McMinnville today to choose what we wanted.  Hopefully that will be the next thing that we see go up!  Plumbing and electric go in this week also!  Be on the look out for Part 2 of this exciting process for us!

Bye Bye Polk Street!

As of this February it has been 5 years since we have bought and moved into this house on Polk Street.  It is bittersweet that it has come to an end but I know that good things are to come.  We have had this house on the market multiple times and have taken it off of the market discouraged that someone couldn't love this house like we do so we would decide to keep it.  When we found out that we were having twins we knew that it was time.  Time for bigger and better things so we tried the whole "For Sale By Owner" thing.  That got us no where fast.  There were multiple realtors that would leave their business card at the door and we would find them when we would get home.  One day, probably in November, we decided that it was time that we put this into someone else's hands.  We decided to start fresh and use a different relator than we did in the past.  We loved our last relator that we had but just felt like we needed a complete fresh start.  Ryan called up Jeromey Crowell with Middle Tennessee Properties and we put our house on the market again.  With it being Christmas time we knew it would start out slow and it did.  By the beginning of this year, it started to pick up and we had more showings and some people that were really interested but fell through the cracks.  A couple came to look at the house at the beginning of February and a few days later there was an offer.  After counter offering a few times we finally agreed on a price and the paperwork was signed!

We did a lot of renovations to this house.  To start out we painted every room but the bathroom and our bedroom. I had all intentions of getting to that later but never did!  Redid the countertops and backsplash in the kitchen. New dishwasher in the kitchen.  Because of some unfortunate circumstances we had to replace the heating and air unit and a new metal roof.  We replaced the carpet in the bedrooms and put laminate flooring down in the living room and hall way before Liam was born.  We have put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this house and I hope that the next family that lives here appreciates it as much as we do.

A lot of memories go into this house.  This is where I start to get weepy :'(  We bought this house after we got engaged and spent 6 months getting to know all the things we love and hate about each other before we got married.  It was tough but we are making it!  It is still a work in progress :)  This is where we brought Liam home to.  This is the only home he has known and will probably never remember living here.  It was the perfect size in the beginning but with all the stuff we have acquired (mostly toys) we have no room.  And now that we are packing I realize how much stuff/crap we do have.  It's all nice things but where do you put it all?  In that brand new house we are building! HAHA! More about that on the next blog!!!!!  Here is a picture from Liam's newborn session here at the house ....

There are so many pictures that I could put on here but decided to narrow it down and just pick a few here are some of us enjoying the house throughout the years ....

 First bath in his room...

Playing in the kitchen ....

Crawling in the hall ....

Bathtime!! Liam's favorite time.   I sure am going to miss that clawfoot tub!

The kitchen after Liam's first Christmas!

Playing in his room!

The infamous snack drawer.  This drawer lets me know when he is hungry.  He goes to it and brings me a "snack" when he gets hungry!

Playing with daddy in the pool last summer in the back yard!

No more high chair for Liam! He gets to sit at his table and eat his meals!

We signed a contract at the beginning of February and have been waiting on approvals and inspections and appraisals and such till now.  We were told not to move a thing until all of that had been approved and as of last week it was!  When we signed the contract they wanted us to be out by February 28!  Sooooo ..... we have been slowly moving out everyday since we were told that they were for sure buying our house.  As I am typing this, I look around the room and its bare.  A couch, Liam's little table, a side table and the recliner that I am sitting in.  Everything echoes and I am crying as I think about all the fun times we have had here.  But good things are sure to come.  It's crazy to think that when we sign our paperwork we will have been in this house exactly 5 years and 2 days to the date that we signed our paperwork for the house.

We are moving temporarily to my grandparents vacant house on the corner of Hillschapel and Oak Drive until our house gets finished.  Hopefully we can save up some money in the meantime to pay for these twins!