House Details

I've been remiss in posting more about the floor plan. When I asked recently the builders were kind enough to send me some simplified outlines of the house. This should give a better idea of what kind of house we're building. Summed up it's a 3 bedroom ranch with a bonus room upstairs and a walkout basement downstairs. The most unique feature is that the walkout basement includes an indoor pool and the living room windows look onto the pool. This the grande scheme of my husband who works at home and has dreamed of an indoor pool for years.

If you'd like to know more about our builders you can go to their website, Steinorth Fine Homes.
Images of the exterior of the house are here.
Here are the labelled floor plans:

The main floor

The basement level

The upstairs bonus room

Walls!

Shortly after I posted the pictures this morning of the basement floor the builders surprised me with even more photos, of WALLS!! I can't believe how much has gone up. The blue colored wood is treated for moisture/mold resistance. That wood is on the walls that will be inside the pool room. The outside pool room walls are not up and the pool is now covered with white plastic.

In John's office looking out: to the left a window and
door, to the outside to the right a large window looking onto the pool

In the pool room: looking at the window into John's office
To the left the doorway onto the pool room,
to the left the family room and exercise room
Looking on the east side of the house
The door into John's office from the outside
In the downstairs family room: doorway onto the pool room in back
The east side of the basement with walls
The basement walls going in

More pool and basement pictures

We still won't be going up to see the house until next week but I got a few new pictures from the builders this morning. They've finished installing the radiant heat and poured the basement floor. This morning the first tier of concrete is being installed around the pool. The next tier should be poured in the next few days. They will be covering up the pool before we get up to see it but it's for the best since the framers are getting started and need to be able to work around the area building the pool room walls.

I hope we'll get a ton of pictures of the house and land next week. It will be great to see all of the progress in person. Alex saw these pictures and asked me if he could lay on the floor now. I think he really wants to get in the house and play with his Bionicles inside. He's going to love running around in there when we go up next. We may even have the beginning of a first floor by next week!

The basement floor after being poured

The pool with the basement family room in the foreground
The west side of the basement
The pool before they pour the first tier of concrete
The east side of the basement
The framed area for the automatic pool cover

We have a POOL!

Forget the house, the pool is in and full of water! I haven't gotten around to posting the full house layout but if you look here you can see how the pool is going to be indoors on the walkout basement level. It looks pretty crazy right now in the middle of a foundation, without a house, in the middle of the woods. It is killing John and myself to not go up and see (and swim in) it. These pictures were taken by our builders.

The pool from the northeast

The pool from the west

The pool from the east, with the builder's kids

The bench in the deep end

The steps in the shallow end

Back filling and pool digging pictures

I received pictures of the house from our builders today. They've installed some foam insulation and back filled. The garage floor is poured. The radiant heating is going in the basement floor and it has to be inspected before the basement floor is poured. And the pool should be coming soon! You can see them digging out the pool hole in the above picture which is taken from where the front door will eventually be. It looks so much better than when we were up last. I think it makes a huge difference to have the piles of earth pushed back into place. Now it feels like a building site again and not a war zone. It's killing us that we're not up to see it in person. Here are the other pictures:

Looking at the garage from the driveway, after back filling the foundation

The garage, after the back filling and pouring the floorEastern front of the house after back filling
Looking down onto the western side of the basement
Eastern side of the basementDigging the pool hole

Foundation pictures

I finally decided on a house color! I choose the above yellow with white trim. The house pictured above is just the preview picture from the paint website. We're planning on mixing the styles of siding. Several sections will be 8 inch lap siding with a few sections in 2 foot board and batten. We went up to see the progress and we now have a foundation! The cement was finishing its curing and exterior had been coated in tar. They will attach exterior insulation and back fill and then there is the radiant heat flooring and plumbing to go in before the basement floor is poured. And then...THE POOL! The darn pool gets filled with water and then boarded up until everything else is set up. Since hotel prices are so crazy in Traverse City right now we probably won't be able to see the pool but it's still nice to think it'll be waiting for us.

I made some major decisions regarding kitchen materials and I'm really happy with the layout that the designer worked out for me. There are also designs for the master and kid's bathrooms mostly finished. But, I still haven't any pictures of those things for you. Instead enjoy the lovely shots of walls of concrete...

Front of the house: garage to the right, front door in the middle, then the kid's rooms

The west side of the foundation: pool is in the center
The space for the pool: John's office is to the right, the stairs to the main floor are behind the pool room
The west side of the house from below
The east side of the house: pool room to the left, John's office to the rightLooking onto the pool room from John's office
It was fun to walk around the space and picture the rooms