Drees Homes Update: July

I’ve had this post on my editorial calendar for a while now. Little did I know it would be particularly fitting since we are all finished with framing and have our pre-drywall meeting with the builder today!

But before I jump the gun, make sure you take a peek at the first month of our home building process or even the design meeting we had before they broke ground. In case you don’t remember, our “house” looked a little something like this:

First Week of July — Framing

So you can imagine our surprise when we brought my friend Jacqueline by the house when she was in town for the Fourth of July weekend and turned onto the street to this:

She was nice enough to take a picture for us. Our first photo with the house! (And no, I don’t know what Spencer is doing to my hair in this picture.)

Once we were finished ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the exterior, we decided to venture inside, and since the front porch still isn’t functional, we went through the garage.

It’s a little crazy finally standing in a house that you’ve put so much thought, effort, and love (plus a bit of money) into. It also made me incredibly nervous to be in a house that was being held up by wooden boards attached to the floor because 1) I’ve seen how easy demos go on HGTV, and 2) I’m way too clumsy for my own good.

Luckily I didn’t knock over any of the boards holding up our living room. In the picture above, you can even see the beginnings of the framing for our fireplace, which is going to go in that corner.

Here you can see the framing for our bay window, which was an addition that I’m so glad we made. The center section will actually be a glass sliding door that will go out to our deck, and it will have windows on either side. This area will be the “eat in” portion of our kitchen; the whole living room/kitchen area is open, and all the windows will make it bright and gorgeous.

I know I didn’t do a very good job of making these photos flow from one area of the house to the other. I was obviously enraptured by the framing for all of the windows like this huge one on the front of the house, which is at the far end of our formal dining room.

Then we made it upstairs and had a very serious conversation about keeping the house roofless and open. Guess who lost that debate…

Our stairs come up from the living room and open up to the “game room,” so everything is nice and (let me say it again) open. Plus we have prime creeping views of our neighbors!

Here’s the actual “game room” itself. I love the windows and how tall the ceiling is. Also, I thought we were using the term “game room” jokingly, but now we’re having pre-wiring for speakers done and determining where the Xbox will go, so I suppose the joke’s on me. 🙂

This is what I like to call Spencer’s “why can’t I touch both walls of our closet?” face. He’s unsure about the massive bedroom-sized closet. I don’t have quite the same hesitations.

And this is our bedroom. In that little nook with the windows is where I will read many a book in a very comfy chair. I’ve yet to find the right one, but it’ll happen soon enough.

Second Week of July — Framing

When we went back the next week to check out the progress, we had the makings of a roof!

Actually they were still shingling (on a Sunday afternoon!), so we didn’t get a chance to see any of the inside. But as you can see, our windows had been installed around the entire house and the concrete was poured in the garage. We also had that really attractive Tyvek wrap completed around the outside.

Third Week of July — Framing and Rough Mechanics

We were out of town over the weekend, so I made the trek out to the house on Monday night to grab some photos before our pre-drywall meeting today. I want to go ahead and apologize now for the lighting because twilight is probably the worst time to take pictures inside a house with no lighting.

With the huge dumpster out of the front yard, I kind of did a double take. Our lot seems absolutely huge! Otherwise, there wasn’t too much of a difference to the exterior, except that our front door had been installed. It’s all white right now, but once the house is completed, the door will match our shutters and the windows framing it will be painted the same color as all of the trim.

Here is the “little” storage area attached to our garage. We could have made it into a study or extra bedroom, so I suppose I should have realized how massive it would end up being. It’ll be a great space for trash cans, a lawn mower, and maybe even a workbench-away-from-home for my dad when he comes to build all of my furniture and custom built-ins/window seats. 🙂

Walking in through the garage, you pass the pantry, the main floor half bath, and a coat closet. At this point, there’s nothing too interesting about them, but I’ll get some pictures once the drywall starts to go in. Then you’re in the kitchen where they have finally put in our windows and sliding door.

I probably should’ve included a few photos of the kitchen because they’d starting putting in the electrical outlets and the rough ins for the sink and oven. Instead, I thought the fireplace would be a much cooler thing to see. I’m still not totally sold on the whole gas fireplace thing, but I can’t deny that it will be easier to deal with in the winter. Plus Zoey loves getting all sooty in our current wood-burning fireplace, and sooty Zoey plus brand new carpets doesn’t seem like something I want to deal with.

The lighting wasn’t fantastic, but I wanted to get a picture taken from our front door. The study (aka my library) will be on the left with the formal dining room on the right. As you walk into the living area, the stairs going down to the basement are there on the left, and the kitchen begins across from it on the right.

Venturing up the stairs, the game room is located to the left with two of the bedrooms on the right side of the hallway. Spencer and I had the option of enlarging the living room and game room above by bringing it out a few feet, but we saw a model home with the extended space and thought it was just too much. Well even without the extension, this room is huge. I’m still working out home we’re going to configure it, but we have so much more space to work with than I realized.

When you walk past the game room, there’s a linen closet and full bath to the left as well as the third bedroom. The bedrooms are all about the same size, and they each come with a smaller-than-ours-but-definitely-still-walk-in closet. Across from the third bedroom is our laundry room (woohoo for second floor laundry!), and then at the end of the hallway is the door into our master bedroom/closet/bathroom.

This space wasn’t too different from the week beforehand, but as you can see, they had installed our bathtub and the rough in for plumbing. The bed will be centered between this window and the one in our “nook” (aka my reading sanctuary), so this will be Spencer’s window.

It isn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but here is the shower pan in the master bathroom. There will be a linen closet to the left of it and a WC to the right.

And that’s about all I have to share with you today. It was impossible to get any good photos of the basement, but that’ll be my goal for the next home update post.

I’ll leave you with the exterior on the back of the house. The sliding door in our bay window will go to a deck, which we’re having Drees Homes install for us. It wasn’t until this visit out to our house that I realized just how funny it’s going to look to have a deck out there. Oh well, at least I won’t worry about anyone falling off the shortest deck ever built and killing themselves.

Once we have our pre-drywall meeting, there will be lots of insulation, drywall, and bricking in our future, so be sure to check back here for more updates!

P.S. Check out the other posts in my series on building our dream house with Drees Homes.