The countdown begins: 4 Days to Close

We close in four days.

FOUR DAYS.

Blows my mind. Our builder and his crew is knocking is out out though, everytime we go by the house there is something new, big or small, and all is amazing to us. It makes me a wee nervous on much needs to be done before we are good to go and ready to move in status, but our builder is confident which helps dramatically. 

Bathroom vanities and tops are in. Our builder accidentally ordered the same white cabinets we had in our kitchen, but caught the mistake and switched it to the dark brown like we wanted. I'm really glad we went for a contrast, and love the way it looks.

The upstairs bedrooms are all painted "Sea Salt" by Sherwin Williams. It's a soft greenish gray that changes a lot with the light, but is still neutral enough to match everything we have. 

The downstairs and hall are painted "Light French Gray" by Sherwin Williams. We compared all the grays our builder offered and opted for this one. I was nervous that we had made the wrong choice at some points, but now getting to see it on the walls I absolutely love it. It's neutral enough to match our eclectic collection of art and furniture, rich enough to make the trim look amazing (if I do say so myself),  but not too dark to make the room cavernous. Woo hoo!

One thing that took us by surprise was the sheer size of the island. It was framed out before, but has a huge overhang that you can see here, and is truly massive and amazing. I can't wait to cook on this sucker. 

Brad showed me a picture he took of a test stain of our floors and I swooned, and subsequently asked to ogle it multiple times throughout the day. Like the paint, at times I doubted our wood stain, but man alive, seeing it in person made all the difference. 

The downside of wood staining? You can't walk on the floors. I'm pretty impatient, and have a terrible insistent desire to touch wet paint/caulk/stain, so the tape X was definitely necessary. Smart builders. 

The upside of wood staining? It's freaking GORGEOUS. Can you hug floors? I want to try. The floors have been drying (and un-walked upon) all weekend, so I can't wait to trample them and run all over the house this afternoon. It's been a few a days!

So what's left?

• Toilets installed
• Downstairs pedestal sink
• All plumbing fixtures
• Mirrors in bathrooms
• Grout around the tub
• Front shutters 
• Water treated porch
• Painted porch
• Painted crawl space/foundation
• Finish concrete on driveway and back landing
• Sod & landscaping
• Kitchen appliances
• Kitchen backsplash 
• Wire racks in closets and pantry
• Carpet installed
• Quarter inch rounds installed on the floors

Look at all my [stuff]

The post title comes from the movie Spring Breakers, it's terrible, but I still want to quote it... a lot.

We have hardwood floors!

They have installed cabinets!

We have a tin roof above the porch!

They finished the cabinets!

We have a built in bar! (they must know us well)

We have most of a driveway!

We have TILE!

Clockwise from top left: master shower, guest shower downstairs, guest shower upstairs, master floor, guest floor. 

Because I love it so much - we have another view of the master bathroom!

We have fixtures and a ridiculously huge air conditioner!

We have a porch!

And we are so freaking close to having a house. FIVE DAYS TO CLOSE. 

Keep your fingers crossed for us, please.

Side Note about Spring Breakers: I don't recommend the movie, at least not because its a good movie, but I have told people to watch it because it is so ridiculous it is entertaining. You can blame me later. This particular quote? James Franco. Cornrows. Grill. Dark tanning oil. 

Go Dawgs!

Disclaimer: I am a horrible football fan. Horrible. But a fan nonetheless. 

Our friends Mitchell and Rebecca had an extra ticket to Georgia vs. Mizzou, and through some magic ended up with 2 extra tickets and asked us to join them!

Brad and I have been trying to play it very low key with the whole buying-a-house thing, trying to save money in anticipation of the many, many expenses to come, but this was one we couldn't turn down. Brad said that when he told me about us possibly going my face lit up with excitement - sign of a good time!

The only college football game I have ever been to was a UVA game where I had been in the states for 3 months and barely understood football. Granted, I still don't understand everything, but I at least understand what a first down is now - progress! Living in Georgia for years turned me into a Georgia fan, and marrying a Buckeye turned me into a Ohio State fan, but I think I can cheer for both since they are in different conferences. Right? Maybe? I like to think so.

Anyway, we drove up to Athens, GA Friday night for the Saturday game. Athens is an amazing college town and I've had an insane amount of fun every time I've come. Fun-enough-to-hurt-the-next-day-fun. I blame Sam for the most part :)

Us at the tailgate.

The game was at 8:30 at night and Mitchell was determined to start tailgating at 9 in the morning, but we managed to talk him into pushing it back a couple hours. None of us thought we'd make the game with a 12 hour tailgate beforehand!

The spot was stellar. A friend of theirs works for a restaurant opening soon in Athens, tans the location has a back yard area with picnic tables, electricity, and real bathrooms. REAL BATHROOMS. Also, it's hard to see, and I wish I'd taken a better picture, but over on the left is the old Georgia scoreboard, which was a fitting setting for the tailgate. 

I think we ate fried chicken all weekend long. No joke: chicken biscuits for breakfast, chicken tenders for lunch, and late night chicken for dinner. Georgia fans love them some chicken. Not complaining, it was delicious, but it was a lot of chicken.

The whole group! A few folks from college, and people Mitchell grew up with. All good people. 

Mind. Blown. We made the game (victory!) and I think I had a big ole shit-eating grin on my face the entire time. The crowd, the excitement, the huge red and black stadium, just about everything made me smile. For someone who can barely call herself a football fan I was blown away and enthralled. 

Photo op! Thanks to this lovely man who made this weekend possible. Thank you, you handsome devil.

Oh yeah! To cap it all off, Georgia won!!!!

Go Dawgs!

Frothy Beard

Beer Fridays continue!

As I mentioned before, our friend TJ is really the inspiration behind us hitting up a local brewery every Friday. He lives in Chicago but has family down here and visits fairly frequently. We've been saving Frothy Beard for when he came back next, and it was worth the wait. 

The location is a little bit of a pain to get to, especially since we went right after work. Its in North Charleston up on Ashley Phosphate, so we battled traffic, stopped trains, and bad drivers to get there, but thankfully were ready for a cold brew once we arrived. 

TJ, Brad, and I saying CHEERS!

They had five while we were there: Andale (Pale Ale w/ jalapeno), Cucumber Thyme (American Wheat), Hip Cannon (Double IPA), Great White Wit (Wit), and Smokey the Ambear (Amber). 

I'm a sucker for a herb-y bear so the Wit and the Cucumber Thyme was perfect for a hot day, but we bought a bottle of the Hip Cannon to take home because it was YUMMY.

TJ was headed downtown for night 2/3 of Umphrey's McGee (he's a HUGE fan) so we meandered downtown to Revelry for round 2. We love the environment at Revelry, and we were really impressed with their food too, but Frothy Beard's beer definitely won out. 

So, cheers! What are you drinking?

Mac Off

We bought tickets to the Mac and Cheese festival this year. Yes, my dreams have come true, and there is entire festival dedicated to macaroni and cheese. Plus they have beer? Plus the weather is gorgeous? Plus my handsome husband is my date? I was a happy Happy HAPPY camper.

And then we got there. Whomp whomp.

Ok, I can't be too much of a debbie downer, but as good as Charleston is about throwing amazing food events, they are not so good at organizing them. There was about 10 different lines to get into the event, all with different purposes, and no signage. All the lines spilled into the street, with shuttles trying to get past, people yelling, and inevitably cutting in line. Our only saving grace was that we had printed out tickets beforehand so once we found the right line (third try!) we were ushered to the front and let in. 

Another line for over-21 bracelets, another line for food & beverage tickets, another line for a much needed cold beer, and we finally made it to the first mac and cheese line. And only 45 minutes later we had our first taste! It was a bitter 45 minutes for us, but not gonna lie, we were in the Crave line, and it was GOOD and thankfully worth the wait. Perfectly al dente spiral paste, in a cheesy delicious sauce, topped with Parmesan, for $1. We got three. 

I'm very torn about this event in general. The weather was perfect, the offerings were great, and the mac and cheese was oh-so-delicious, but the lines made everything painful. 

Here is a general shot of the crowd.

We were able to try 3 different mac and cheese samples, which were all delicious and hard to beat at $1 each, but we definitely spent the majority of our time just waiting in line. Granted, the silver lining is that people are pretty amazing. We struck up a number of conversations, met a few Buckeye fans, and Brad even got pulled aside for a cheers to the Buckeys. Man, I love this city. 

I did fall head over heels over a local vendor who makes Charleston prints, so I bought a few cards and a 8x10 Charleston print of the Ravenel bridge that I have big plans for in the house once we move in... Hooray!

Moving right along

Things are going fast and we are so excited! After the home inspection we got windows, insulation, walls, siding, and a roof! It was good timing too, because Charleston had a monsoon over the weekend due to hurricane Joaquin aftermath.

It's so squishy looking, like a wall I want to hug.

Basking in the magical glow of INSULATION. 

Windows and doors

Walls and our island all framed up.

Master tub. The window in here is smaller than all the other ones in the house, and they ordered the wrong size, so this is the only window we're missing. Well, was the only window we're missing. Apparently glass breaks easily, so we are now down two. Whoops!

Master bedroom! Love the windows and light in here.

Siding! Starting to look like a real live house!

Starting to look good!

Mr House Inspector

In late September we hired an inspector to come look at the house. At first, we were planning on getting an inspection done right before we moved in, but we decided to do it during the building process since this would really be our only chance to have the bones and guts of our house looked at before the walls went up. For the stuff on the surface, we could always do another inspection later on.

 We used the same gentlemen who did our home inspection on the first house we were going to buy, Chad from Cardinal Home Inspections. He did a great job on the house before, and we were not disappointed this time either, he was great to work with!

We did the walk through with the inspector and Nathan, our builder, and it worked out well as Nathan answered a number of questions as we went. There were a few things he pointed out that needed adjustments, and Nathan marked me as we went.

They forgot to frame in a linen closet upstairs, so when they went back to do it, the vent that was supposed to be in our walk-in closet was instead in our hall closet - whoops!

This wall was free-floating and wasn't secured to the beams above.

There were 2 studs that were a little warped, so our walls weren't flush.

The great news is that we went back about a week later and everything we could see was fixed already! Our builder tacked a to-do list up in the house, and was very receptive to everything the inspector had noted, which we appreciated. The even greater news was that after the inspection, Chad told us overall, he was really impressed with the the house and the build, and we had some great  things going for us. Hooray!

Here is a picture of our house around inspection time.

Savannah with Friends

We went to Savannah, GA over Labor Day weekend!

Our friends Mitchell and Rebecca bought a house in August, and we were the first guests to make a mess visit and tour the new digs. My friend Sam has been in Korea for TWO YEARS and the last time I saw her was our wedding, so overall the weekend was a big fun reunion weekend and was TONS OF FUN.

Mitchell's and Rebecca's new house is awesome, and they've done a lot for only have been in it a couple weeks. Its in the Ardsley Park area of Savannah, and the house is a really cute 1940's house that has been upgraded over the years. It's different from the house we are building, and absolutely perfect for them. I asked them about ten million questions about the home buying process, the moving process, and generally - everything. 

We stayed for the long weekend hanging out, tasting beer, and going to the beach.

On Saturday we went to a beer festival. So naturally, we started off the day with - mimosas. We went to Treylor Park for lunch (yum!), then took the ferry over to the Savannah Craft Brew Festival. There were over 60 breweries there, each with a few selections, and you could walk around and sample anything you wanted. 

Waiting in line for the free ferry across the river. We have all lived in Savannah for 5+ years, and this was the first ferry ride for all of us!

We bought upgraded tickets to get into the festival early, which turned out great since it got really crowded and the lines got a lot longer an hour later. 

and we had a lot of fun tasting as much as we could

and we tried to take as many cheesy photo opportunities as we could. I love these guys, they are just wonderful.

On Sunday, we had planned to go to the beach. We woke up, and it was dismally overcast, but we headed out anyway. Thankfully, it ended up being perfect! The clouds cooled it off enough to not make it scorchingly hot, but the sun came out enough to make it a great beach day. 

The selfie stick did not make it to the beach, much to Sam's chagrin. 

My friend Sarah come out with her two boys, all of which I hadn't seen in ages, so it was a lot of fun. Then... the rain rolled in FAST and we headed to a local Tybee restaurant for lunch. 

The last night we were beat, so we kicked on our pajamas, played games, and got silly. We had a great time all weekend, but moments like these when we are doing nothing more but hanging out and enjoying each other's company were some of my favorite.

And, crisis averted - we found the selfie stick.