Is anyone still reading?

Finally some new pictures of the the house and some recent pictures of the family, including Granny's recent visit and Jordan and Collin's trip to Pine Mountain with Larry and Cheryl.

Workers were here today to frame the driveway for concrete to be poured hopefully tomorrow (see picture). Otherwise, the changes around the house and farm are not as noticeable, so maybe that's why we haven't posted in a while.

Included is a picture of the half bath faucet. That's probably one of the top things people comment on the most.

We've had lots of rain recently so one of our pastimes is watching the storm front move across the mountains and wondering if it will reach us or pass over. It's beautiful!

AJ

We're Back

We had a wonderful time visiting our kids and grandkids and getting to know our newest granddaughter, Emma. We didn't find my passport, so I flew to New Orleans to get a new one, had a great overnight visit with Madelyn & Mike, and left from Atlanta only 3 days later than originally planned! Thanks for your prayers! We're home now and working hard to get settled in the house. Check out our progress --






Moving In

Here's Larry, carrying in the first piece of furniture and then sitting down to enjoy the great room -- for about 30 seconds!




We've been working hard, trying to get moved in before we leave for Amman & Beirut to visit our family. I'm supposed to leave tomorrow for Beirut; Larry flies to Amman on Wednesday. We realized last night that my passport is missing! Larry has his primary passport, but his 2nd passport is missing also. They're not in the place where we always keep them, and we have been going through boxes, drawers, suitcases, purses and everything else all day, trying to find them. Please pray with us that mine will turn up in time for me to get on the plane tomorrow.
cc

Finished!

The house is finished -- except for a few little things -- and we started moving in on Friday. It's a big mess right now, but we took some pictures between the cleaning and the moving in and wanted to give you a tour of the finished product. We'll post more pictures when we get a little more settled.

Great room, kitchen and dining room:




Master bedroom and bath:





Downstairs:



The loft:

Update

Right after I finished the previous post, Larry called to say that we passed the inspection! Thanks for walking with us through this and praying for us. There's still a lot of finishing up to do at the house, plus a lot of cleaning and packing to be done before Friday.
Maybe some of you haven't heard our best and most important news -- Emma Grace Cox was born yesterday to Kimberly & Jeremy at 3:00 pm EST in Amman, Jordan! I tried to post the picture they sent us, but it didn't work. We'll try again later.
cc

Inspection

Things are pretty crazy around here, but I wanted to give you all an update concerning the inspection. The inspector came on Monday and came up with a long list of things that needed to be done or corrected, some of them reasonable, many of them definitely unreasonable. It's pretty hard to get everything right when you don't even know what the codes are, and even if you did know, I'm not sure it would help, because they keep changing them and adding to them. Anyway, Larry/Dad, Ron & his crew have been working just about around the clock since then, trying to get everything ready for them to come back today (Wednesday). Please pray with us that everything will pass so that we can begin moving in on Friday.
cc

Progress

We're making progress! You can see some of what Larry & Jeff accomplished outside on Tuesday:


The 100 year old barn wood looks great in the guest bath:

The stairs up to the screened porch are almost complete. You can get a glimpse of Larry on the porch, moving at his usual speed!

Stonework on the concrete wall is almost complete. This wall is a wing off the poured concrete basement wall and connects to the natural stone wall.

A view of the railing in the loft -- almost complete.

We had hoped to have the final inspection tomorrow, but their office is closed tomorrow for Good Friday, so it will be Monday before the inspector can come. Gives us a little more time before the inspection, but less time between the inspection and our departure for the Middle East.
cc

Our clock is ticking!

The kitchen countertops arrived last week -- after two delays -- and have been installed, along with the sinks, microwave/vent, and cooktop. This picture shows progress that has been made, but also some of the things that still have to be done.

The ballusters and newell posts have been set on both stairways.

We wanted an old piece of wood to use for our mantle, and Larry found this 100 year old beam in an old mill that closed down some time ago. It definitely has character! Larry's rubbing it with tung oil.

We're pushing to be ready for final inspection by Friday. Larry has 4 guys coming tomorrow to help him finish up around the outside of the house (Jeff & his brother, Jon, and 2 Berry students). We'll let you know how things are going.
There's a lot going on at the house, but it seems like very slow progress. Maybe that's because we're anxious to get moved in before we leave for the Middle East the first of April!
Over the weekend, Collin & Jordan helped us do some painting in the mechanical room in the basement. They loved it, and they did a great job!


They're still working on the kitchen cabinets. We had a complication last week that will set us back a little since we had to order some replacement parts.

Laundry room cabinets are almost complete. There will be a utility sink in the base cabinet.

Carpet has been installed in the loft:

Looking down the stairs from the loft. Treads have been stained--still a lot to do.

We're using wood from a 100 year old barn on the walls beside the fireplace. Ron & Larry have been cleaning and planing the wood. You can see the first board mounted next to the fireplace:

The mason has been working on the stone wall extending from the ground floor patio to the driveway, and the stonework covering the poured wall on the side of the house and on the entry side. The bare concrete wall you see will also be covered with stone.



They are framing up the driveway and walkways to the entry porch and the screened porch, and hope to be able to pour cement later this week.
ckc

cabinets

Cheryl/Mom and I are off to Orlando in a few minutes for the annual Chick-fil-A seminar, but I wanted to get a post up before we left. We won't be posting until next Thursday.
The garage metal roof is complete, but I failed to get a photo of it. They started the wiring in the garage and they have moved the water tank into the garage. We already have a resident owl in the garage! When the workers force him to move he just moves to another quiet place in the loft of the garage. The garage doors will be installed next week so we will have an IDO to deal with --- Internally Displaced Owl...
Our crew is working on installing cabinets right now as it is freezing cold. There are some shots of the cabinets below. These photos were taken on Wednesday, so there is more progress on the installation. The countertops will be ordered today and it will take two weeks for them to come in, so hopefully we will move in three weeks. We have purchased the carpet for the loft and it will be installed hopefully the first of next week, so the crew can complete the stair ballusters and rails (it is much easier to install the carpet before this work is done). There is still a lot of small things that have to be done -- in addition to some big things like forming and pouring the concrete drive.
So, we are under a bit of pressure to finish the house, move in and get somewhat settled before leaving for the month of April to visit with the overseas families. Cheryl will be gone the whole month and I will be overseas on business and visiting family for nearly three weeks.
Kitchen. Double oven cabinet.

Kids

Fireplace is 99% compete. It has both man-made stone that were designed to match stones on the farm and some natural stones with fossils and moss on them.

Ground floor bath.

Ground floor kitchen.

Wash room.

Master bath

A Little Bit of Color

Sorry that I have not posted pictures for several days, but there really hasn't been anything new to see. The painters started on Tuesday -- a day later than planned. They sprayed the primer all over the house, painted doors and trim, and finally today began to paint the first coat of color. They did a lot of cutting in around doors and windows (this is a little dark, but you can kind of see where they painted around the windows in the greatroom). . .


. . . and they started rolling the first coat in the ground floor family room. The walls below the chair rail will be a darker shade. The walls above the rail and the ceiling are the same color, but it looks lighter on the ceiling.


I was glad I went out there this afternoon, because they had started painting the ground floor bathroom the wrong color! Now that they've started rolling, maybe things will move faster, and I'll have some more colorful photos to post this weekend.