11 / 19 / 2021
Oh gees, has it been a busy few months! Our last post had caught us up to when the paint was finished and an update that we were granted occupancy and moved in as of August 24 - that was a BIG day for us!
Let's catch up on some projects that happened after paint...
TILE! Holy moly, once we realized we were rapidly running out of time, we decided there was no way we'd be able to tile the three bathrooms and kitchen backsplash ourselves. So we found a fantastic company that could start almost immediately and wrap the project up within two weeks! This is pretty amazing, considering most companies we talked to couldn't begin for weeks or months. And the finished tile is sooo SEXY!
While the tiles were installed, we finished our kitchen and installed the sinks, faucets, fridge, range hood, and oven. We had not one, but two of our kitchen sinks arrived broken, and we had to wait. Gretchen worked on installing the upstairs floor (pretty much all by herself!). Jason and his mom found a beautiful, sizeable live-edge chunk of maple for Jason to install in our powder room. We installed our stacked washer and dryer. And we finished the back deck and installed all of the railings.
After the tiles were installed and grouted, we could get into the bathrooms and finish installing all the toilets and our master bathroom vanity, sinks, lighting, and the best - our master bathroom tub. We measured for glass shower walls in August, but they weren't installed until the end of October!
And beyond all of that interior work...we had to finish installing the siding on the outside of our house! Plus truck-in loads of organic compost to amend our soils - which STUNK - to incorporate into the ground around our home, and gravel for our walkways and side driveway.
Since we moved to Bremerton in 2013, we'd been renting a home in Tracyton, and this summer, we let the landlords know we'd be out by the end of August. So we'd be lying if we said there weren't any meltdowns and panic attacks (mainly from Gretchen) that we'd be able to finish everything in time. Gretchen's main goal was to be able to move in before David started kindergarten on August 30. But it was looking less and less likely with how much siding we still had left to do. We did talk to the landlord and had the option to extend our rent for another month if we didn't pass the final inspection.
With the stakes and stress high, we scheduled our final inspection on Tuesday, August 24, with the thought that our inspector would be able to provide us with a list of "fix-it" items that we'd need to pass. There was a small hope we'd pass, knowing that all of the safety measures had been finished per code, but without the siding panels done, we weren't sure what they'd say. We hoped that we'd be able to fix all of the items within the next couple of days and schedule another final inspection at the end of the week. Well, you all know by now that our inspector was a wonderful man! He made sure all of the siding panels were onsite and ready to be installed, all of our safety requirements had been met, and he let us know that we could bust open the bottle of champagne!
That evening, we celebrated by opening up a bottle of bourbon we'd been holding on to for a few years that we had engraved "To Our House" from Woodinville, WA. We didn't get to rest long, though, because we had to hurry up and move out of our rental home! It took us only one month to finish that bottle of Woodinville bourbon. ;)
After moving in, we finished installing our master closet (which is fantastic) and have been slowly installing trim throughout, kitchen shelves, light fixtures that were back-ordered, and more. We had a small checklist of items to finish for the appraiser to wrap up our construction loan - namely, the exterior siding. With a hard date of October 4, Jason and Gretchen pushed to get every last panel up (even through the rain) and were finally able to relax a bit more!
We still have some trim to install and painting touchups, but overall, our house to-do list is getting shorter, and it's been an incredible home to live in so far. Our energy bills are cheaper for a place almost double in size from our last house, and we love living in the woods! We often see deer walking past our front door, along with entertaining squirrels and birds visiting the feeders on our back deck. Autumn has been simply spectacular with a vibrant show of colors we've been able to enjoy out of every single window. We've even loved the crazy weather and are happy to report no water leaks (considering we installed all the windows ourselves)! Though we are watchful of the strong winds and 100ft trees that surround us. We still have lots of landscaping and a fence to install in our front yard, too, but aren't in any rush for the time being.
We will plan on doing some more website updates as we finish more significant projects, but in the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving! We are cutting down our tree the day after Thanksgiving, and it's a BIG one this year...so wish us luck on fitting it in our atrium!
We are excited to announce that we'll be hosting an open house in early December! So everyone who has been following our progress can take a look inside to see the (mostly) finished product! Message us if you'd like to check out the first permitted container home in Kitsap County, and we'll provide our address and date for the open house.
Cheers!
