Country Livin’ Blog

We are well underway with our lovely home at this point when my husband got a call from our builder saying that the tile we had picked for the kitchen was discontinued and we needed to go back to the flooring store to pick something else.  We just couldn’t believe it!  We called the decorator at the flooring store and asked if she would check on our tile and see if they had enough in stock to do our floors.  She said that she had already checked and they didn’t.  We would have to come back and pick out different tile.  I was very disappointed.  The tile I had chosen had a smooth surface and most of the tiles in the store had a textured surface.  It’s the style, you see.  Well, I have seven dogs and a dog door planned for the future.  Textured tile has a tendency to hold the dirt in its crevices and make the floor look dirty.  We must have looked at every tile in the store.  It was going to be a really hard choice.  We finally decided on a tile that had a relatively smooth surface and was still the color we felt would look good with the other choices we had made.

Our builder had the tile and all was right with the world.  Or so we thought.  I got a call from the cabinetry store saying the stain color we had chosen for the kitchen cabinets was discontinued and the new stain was redder than the previous one.  We went by the flooring store and got a sample of the new tile and took the ride to the cabinetry store.  The new stain was perfect with the new tile.  It had worked as if it had been planned.  So as it turned out, everything really was right with the world.

Where I made a mistake at this point was the grout I picked out for the kitchen floor.  It’s too light.  It shows dirt and the only way I can get to look clean is to pour straight bleach on it and then scrub with a scrub brush.  As you can imagine I can only get the energy to do this scrubbing once every couple of months.  If I had it to do over I would chose a grout that is darker and wouldn’t look constantly dirty.  Or, I could just let it turn black!

Well, at this point we are going to the bath store to look at bathroom sinks and counter tops. This is an area of contention. I don’t like the bathroom counters or sinks. When I do the bathrooms over they will be replaced.

In the plans for the bathroom the vanity area was supposed to bet stepped down and have a knee hole. They didn’t step down the counter top, but made it straight across. I said something to our builder about it and wasn’t given much consideration. I said something a second time and was told that my husband said it would be ok the way it was. Well, I didn’t like that answer. It wasn’t his vanity. I’m a short girl. When I sit down, I’m really short. So I wanted the stepped down section of the counter top so I could sit to do my makeup every morning. I told the builder this and he set up a meeting with the counter top people. The man was about six feet tall. He also did not want to make a change to the counter top. I took a folding chair with me when I went to meet the builder and the counter man, but I didn’t take it in with me. The counter man said it was standard height and that I wasn’t that short it would be just fine. I said, well, I brought a chair with me I’ll prove to you that I will have my chin on the counter when I’m sitting down. I went to my car and brought in the chair. I set it up and sat down. Sure enough the counter top. The counter was about at my collarbone. I wouldn’t be able to sit down to put on my makeup. The counter man and our builder were saying that the cultured marble was already poured and it would cost too much to change it. Just about then, my husband came in. He said to the counter man, just cut out the area where the step down is supposed to be and then just re-pour that area. The counter man said he had never done that before. My husband said, “If you won’t do it, I’ll do it myself.” Our builder looked at the counter man and said, “do this for them.” Right then my husband was my knight in shinning armor!

The plumbing fixtures were next. Wow! They are so expensive! Who would think faucets would be so expensive?  Ok, we picked out some pretty stuff, but I had no idea they would be so expensive. They look really nice though.

I’d never given much thought to lighting before we set out for the lighting store. I knew that the house was going to have a lot of recessed lighting because the electrician was already hard at work. All of the houses I’d lived in up to this point had been built by someone else and I may or may not have liked a particular fixture, but I suppose I just never gave the nuances of lighting much thought. Well that was all about to change. First let me say that the living room in our new home was going to be unique. The ceiling in this room is vaulted like a church ceiling. It’s very pretty and it makes the room feel much bigger than it actually is. At its highest point it is fourteen feet high. As my husband says, it’s a beautiful room of wasted space. As the house was being built the electrician said to me that we really should consider a really spectacular fixture for the room. I didn’t know what that would be so I asked him what he thought it should be. He said, “Get yourself a crystal chandelier and I’ll put it up.”

So began the first of at least three trips to the lighting store. I thought there would be no way I could afford a crystal chandelier for any room of the house so I didn’t even consider it. Well, I thought about it and even looked at them in the lighting store, but put it out of my mind because, let’s face it, they’re expensive! But I kept going back. I didn’t think I liked the light I had originally picked out for the dining room and I went back and changed it. That was a good move. I like the dining room chandelier. I went back and changed the light we chose for over the kitchen island too. They had written down “standard florescent” and I knew that I didn’t want the standard light. The ceiling fans that the lighting store had weren’t the nicest ceiling fans I’d ever seen. I know that they have really gone out of vogue, but let’s face it folks I live in Alabama and you just can’t live here without the ceiling fans. We use them so much more then you could possibly imagine. We ended up buying them at Lowe’s instead of the lighting store because the ones at Lowe’s were prettier and less expensive. We had remote controls put on the one in the family room and the one in our master bedroom so they are easy to use.

Now, we are in the lighting store, and what are you doing when you are in a lighting store? You’re looking up. Almost all of the fixtures are hanging from the ceiling. I was walking along, looking up, when my feet came into contact with something on the floor and they stopped, but my body kept going. I was sprawled out on the floor in a heartbeat. My husband couldn’t catch me because he was on crutches. Folks, it took me right out of my shoes! I was so embarrassed! I wasn’t injured, except for my pride, but I could have been. It was the most cluttered store in the state of Alabama.

I wasn’t able to stop looking at the crystal chandeliers. I knew the room was going to be very pretty and I knew I didn’t want a ceiling fan in that room. The girl at the store kept asking what type of lighting was going to be in that room. I’m sure she was out of high school, but to me she looked about 16. She was very young and very unsure of herself. She didn’t offer a great deal of advice, but she did know what was available in the color and style we were picking out. That is about all I can say for her. We took back and purchased more items from the lighting store than any other vendor we worked with.

I did eventually purchase a crystal chandelier. I just couldn’t help it. They are so pretty and the room is so pretty that I needed a crystal chandelier. There was no getting away from it. My husband had to finally submit to the extra money so I could have a jewel for the beautiful room of wasted space. And I only went over budget by $764.40.

Ok! The flooring store is behind us and the cabinetry lies ahead. Keeping in mind that my husband is in a cast, we set off to the cabinetry store on a sunny day, but there are clouds in the sky. Just about the time we arrive at the cabinetry store the bottom falls out and it is pouring down rain in buckets! I parked as close to the door as possible, but there is still no way to get inside without getting drenched. We sat in the car for awhile hoping it would stop raining, but it looked like it was going to be raining longer than we were willing to sit in the car. So I attempted to hold an umbrella over my husband as he crutched his way into the store.

One of the smart things we did was to take a sample of the tile we had chosen for the kitchen floor with us to look at cabinet stains. At least at the time I thought it was pretty smart. We put the tile up to several different stains and picked one that looked nice with our tile choice. The builder had allowed us $11,000 for cabinets. We spent $12,472. Not bad. We were ok with that figure. We got some really nice kitchen cabinets and then just took the standard cabinets for the bathrooms. What the heck? They would be in the bathrooms after all. I hate the bathroom cabinets! This is one of the things I would do differently if I were going to do it over. I would put nice cabinets in the bathrooms, too. It’s not that the cabinets in the bathrooms are bad; they just aren’t as nice as the rest of the house. I could live with the standard cabinets in the laundry room, but I really wish I had gone with some nicer cabinets in the bathrooms. I think about it every day. One day we will remodel and then the cabinets will be nicer. I’m just waiting for the day!

I’d like to tell you some features of the kitchen cabinets that I really like. Over the oven I chose to have a cabinet that has dividers for cookie sheets, cake pans, pie pans, cupcake pans, etc. This is an excellent cabinet! I have always struggled with the baking pan cabinet. You try to get out a cookie sheet and you have to take everything else out first because the cookie sheets are always on the bottom since they are flat! Well, they are easily accessible in the divided cabinet. They stand on their sides and there is one division just for cookie sheets! I really love it.

I really like the pots and pans cabinet, too! It’s under the cook top and it is has two drawers. The top drawer easily holds the cookware I use everyday. The bottom drawer is large enough to store the wok and other bigger pans I use only occasionally. Since I had new cabinets, I bought new cookware too! Just an added little bonus. J

Another feature I would do differently if I were doing it over is the cabinet with the trashcan in it. It is currently between the cook top and the kitchen sink. A convenient location, but I don’t like it. If I had designed the island correctly the island wouldn’t have a sink in it and it would have been turned so the cabinet side was facing the cook top. The trashcan would be in the island instead of where it is. Then I could have my dishtowels in the drawer next to the sink. I can’t have them there right now because the trashcan is under the drawer next to the sink! Do you see my problem? Who wants to use dishtowels that were in a drawer directly over the trashcan? Yuck! So the dishtowels are all the way on the other side of the kitchen away from the sink. Yes, I made a big mistake there. If only I had had the wisdom to see that one coming. I didn’t know the vegetable sink was going to be under utilized so there was no way I could have guessed the cabinet under the island would have been a better place for the trashcan. If only I had known then what I know now!

On the whole I really like my kitchen cabinets. If I had it to do over I would change a few things, but for the most part the cabinets are really nice and I love the look of my kitchen.

Even though I’ve been writing about putting brick on the house, I want to back up and tell you that when you buy your plans, buy as many as you can afford at the beginning. The builders you interview will want a copy and everywhere you go after that, they will want a copy of the plans. The foundation people, the plumbers, the wall board people, the electrician will all want a copy of the plans. As our builder said if you got twenty-four copies of the plans he could use twenty-four copies. We got ten copies and didn’t end up with a copy we could keep, so if I were going to do it over I’d get twelve to fifteen copies.

Now, off we go to the flooring store! When we went to the flooring store we had specific ideas in mind. Having seven dogs at the time we wanted flooring that was easy to clean and wouldn’t show dirt. So we chose a tile for the kitchen that was a gold color, pine laminate for the dining room, living room, and foyer going down the hallway. We chose carpet for the family room and the bedrooms that we believed wouldn’t show the dirt. At the same store we chose our wall paints. We chose moss green for the family room, dining room, and the foyer and hallway. The rest of the house would be ‘dark sand’ and the trim in the whole house would be ‘light sand’. The kitchen counter tops and the bathrooms would have the same tile.

Things seemed to be going right on schedule when at about this time my husband took some time off from work to do some things in our house in Montgomery. There were several things that needed repair and there was a lot of stuff stored in the attic that needed to come down. When I left for work I remember telling my husband to be very careful climbing on ladders when no one else was home. I left for work. A couple of hours later my husband called me at work and said he had fallen off the ladder and he thought his ankle was broken! At the time I was really busy, so I said he should stay there and as soon as I could I’d come get him. He couldn’t wait for me to get there so he drove himself to the emergency room. Then he called me from the emergency room and said his ankle was so severely broken that he was being sent to another hospital for surgery. He asked me to come get him so he wouldn’t have to go by ambulance. By the time I arrived he had had a shot of morphine and was ready to be transported to the other hospital. In hindsight I wish I had told them to take him by ambulance because getting him in my truck, then in the hospital wasn’t easy to say the least.

This injury was far more devastating than just that my husband wasn’t able to make repairs to the house in Montgomery. He wasn’t able to get around easily on crutches. All of the running around we needed to do was now hampered by the cast and crutches. We had the lightening store and the cabinetry store yet to go but I’ll let you think about how my poor husband was now hobbling around on crutches in a cast that he couldn’t put weight on.

About 83 million years ago a meteorite hit just east of where the city of Wetumpka now sits. This is a feature the city likes to point out to visitors. So it is no surprise the city designed its New Year’s celebration with the meteorite in mind.

As everyone on the planet knows, New York has its famous New Year’s ball drop in Times Square. One of the cool things about living in a town like Wetumpka is that the city is able to do things you wouldn’t normally see in a bigger city unless you are in New York. Wetumpka has its own version of the ball drop. Three years ago in our first year as residents we went down to the courthouse for the first “Meteor Drop.”

The ball was constructed by students at the Elmore County Technical Center and is covered with Christmas lights. It has rockets attached to it that stream sparks as it shoots down a zip line to the base of the flag pole in front of the courthouse. All of this was the brain child of Jack DeVenney who when driving past the courthouse one day thought it would be a great place for a New Year’s Times Square type celebration¹. Prior to the meteorite type ball Mr. DeVenney had been dropping a lighted ball from the top of the flagpole. The meteorite ball drops down a zip line from the top of a hill to the base of the flagpole where a traditional ball lights up.

On our first trip to the meteor drop 300 to 500 people were there to watch the spectacular event. This, after all, was the first meteor drop as opposed to the lighted ball from the top of the flagpole. We arrived at about 11:45 p.m. and the loud speaker was playing music. I’m not talking about music like you would hear on the radio. This was like music you would hear on ‘Main Street’ of Disney World. One piece of ‘umpa umpa’ music had a family of four attempt to do a little bounce up and down so that mom and daughter were up when dad and son went down. They never really got it together, but it was a good try! The boy scouts were selling hot cocoa and donuts and the whole thing had a feeling of a family fair. During the 15 minute wait an announcer (I’m assuming it was Mr. DeVenney) would come on the speaker and say, “It’s quarter to, folks!” And the crowd would cheer. At last the announcer said, “Ten seconds, nine, eight, seven, . . .” Sure enough the ball came streaking down the zip line to the base of the flagpole. As it reached the bottom and the lights of the ball came on, fireworks began to erupt from the opposite shore of the Coosa River. Big beautiful sparkles in the cool night air of an Alabama midnight. Appreciatively the crowd “ooooed” and “ahhhhed” during the fireworks and at the finale the crowd applauded. Then the announcer came on and said, “Happy New Year folks! Drive safe.” We were back home by 12:20.

This will be our third New Year’s Asteroid Drop in Wetumpka. As the years have gone by the crowd has gotten larger, but the feel is still that of a family fair. People will come with their children. Enjoy hot cocoa and support the boy scouts, be thrilled by the streaking rockets of the “meteorite” and the fireworks.

Life in a small town. Thanks Wetumpka.

1. The Wetumpka Hearld Article

After the lot was bush hogged and we had met with our builder to determine where the house would set on the property the process of building began. When we signed the contract with our builder he put aside $10,000 in what he called “The Murphy Fund” explaining that things happen during the building process that are always unforeseen. We must have looked skeptical because he said he hadn’t had a job where “Murphy” didn’t get paid. Two weeks into the building process the foundation was laid and the concrete slab was poured. The lot that we believed was very flat turned out to be on a much steeper slope than we could have guessed. The north side of the slab was a comfortable 18 inches above the ground, the south end of the house was approximately six feet above the ground! Levels set on the slab showed it to be perfectly level. The cost of the foundation had been underestimated by about $8,000 dollars! Nearly all of our builder’s “Murphy Fund” was gone in the first step of building.

Just about the time the foundation was completed a little storm named Ivan blew in from the Gulf of Mexico. Since we only had a foundation and construction hadn’t begun we didn’t have any damage. However, building materials were now in high demand. The cost of lumber and brick skyrocketed from our original estimates. Our builder made a wise choice to wait a few weeks to see if prices would come back down when the shock and havoc of Ivan had dissipated. Even though costs didn’t come down to pre-Ivan amounts they did come down some and it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but our builder’s “Murphy Fund” was now empty.

One afternoon my husband was at the construction site when no one else was there. A truck pulled up and the driver off loaded several pallets of framing materials. When it was all off the truck the driver looked at my husband and asked if this was the construction site of our builder’s. My husband said yes. The driver looked relived and said he was glad because he wasn’t really sure where he was supposed to deliver the wood and if it was the wrong place he would have to reload all the wood on the truck!

A few weeks went by as the house was being framed and it was now time to begin to pick out the exterior brick colors. This is the fun part! We skipped along to the brickyard and told them the address of a house in Montgomery that had the very brick we wanted. They said they would send someone to look at the house and order the brick. Two weeks went by and our builder contacted the brickyard to set up a time to have our brick delivered. The brickyard didn’t have our order. We had to go by the house we had liked to get the address again and then go back to the brickyard. Once again the brickyard employee assured us someone would go by the house and order our brick. Again, we must have looked skeptical because the brickyard employee said that they do this often and we didn’t need to worry. A few days later my husband got a phone call from the brickyard employee saying they had looked at the brick and it is one they keep in stock. Our builder could request delivery anytime and they would have the brick sent out to the construction site. About a week later my husband called me at work and said the brick had arrived, but he didn’t think it was the right brick. I remember the scene well, our builder, my husband, and me all looking at the stack of bricks. Our builder said if we really hated the brick that was sent he would send it back and get whatever we wanted, but he thought we would like it when it was on the house. Turns out we do like it, but it isn’t exactly the brick we had hoped it would be. I just avoid driving by the house in Montgomery that has the brick I really wanted. It saves my feelings a little!

Three years ago my husband and I were living in the city of Montgomery, Alabama. We had been talking for a while about moving out of the city and having more room to exercise our seven dogs. Yes, you read that right, seven dogs. Don’t think we stopped there! We currently have nine! So, there we were thinking and talking about moving out of the city. Shortly after Christmas our daughter-in-law told us her cousin had a house for sale north of Wetumpka, Alabama. Why not take a ride out to see where the house is located? So we loaded up into our Suburban and drove the twenty miles north to Wetumpka and kept going. The house we were going to see was further out than where we finally settled, but it got us out of the “thinking” and “talking” stages and into the “looking” stage.

We were both on the internet one Sunday afternoon looking at land for sale in the Wetumpka area. My husband said to me, “Take a look at these lots. They are reasonably priced and they are 3 to 3.5 acres.” I looked and said we should take a look at them. We contacted the real estate agent who was selling the lots and put in a bid which was accepted by the seller. Our lot is 3.25 acres and relatively flat or at least we thought so until we started building! But, I’m getting ahead of myself. We then entered into the process of looking at home plans and interviewing home builders. What we discovered is be careful if you want to buy your plans from the internet. Some builders won’t use plans from the net. Our builder said they sometimes run into problems and need to talk to the person who drew the plans. If they came from the internet it can be difficult to impossible to speak to the person who drew the plans. We used a local architect who was able to modify our plans to suit our need for space for our seven dogs. Square footage was taken from a storage area of the house and used to put in a “mudroom” that we use to house dog crates. That was one of the smart things we did!

There are some things we learned in the building process that we would have done differently if we were going to build the house today. For starters we would not have opted to have a vegetable sink in the island of our kitchen. Out here in the sticks we have a septic system and garbage disposals and septic systems don’t mix! The only time I use the vegetable sink is to fill my watering can when I water my plants. I would much rather have had the surface space.

I know that currently the “hot” look for kitchens is granite countertops. We didn’t want granite countertops. They are more delicate than you would expect. We decided to put in ceramic tile countertops and that was a good idea. I love them. I can set down a pot or pan directly from the cook top onto the counter without worry. They clean up easily and I can use bleach and other strong detergents when I’m cleaning. If you own nine dogs, you want to be able to really clean those countertops! I highly recommend ceramic tile on the counters.

I know this blog is about living in the country and I will get to that in later posts. I hope you will find this blog fun to visit and will come back often to see what we are up to. Thanks for stopping by, y’all come back!