Trenches!

They are digging trenches and laying plumbing. From the back yard.



From the back yard. My truck is in front of what will be my neighbor's house.



From the back yard, looking toward the street corner. It's a big yard.



They just got the last permit from the city so they can get this inspected. They should pour in a couple of weeks, if not sooner. They started a house across from where we are staying right after we moved and it just looks ready to sell. It took three months from the time they started moving dirt. We are told four months and this sounds right.

Comfortable but full house.

When my wife's family moved to Texas last year they bought her youngest sister a house for her future. She spends most of her time with her family in the big house they bought for the oldest sister and the parents so when we moved out here she moved in with the family so we could stay here while our home was built. We had been planning to rent a place so this was very nice for us. We have not unpacked much of our things as we will be moving soon. It does make things a bit crowded.

Double furniture in the living room.



Boxes in the dining room.



And of course the garage is half full of "stuff".



We are grateful for the comfort we have but it will be nice to unpack everything.

A taste of......something else.

Is this decadence?

Laziness has led me to get out of shape and overweight over the last decade. Breaking my shoulder last February made things worse. Both Elena and I are determined to improve the situation. I have been walking for some time but I never seem to be able to do it daily. The truth is I hate going out more that I hate the exercise so we got a treadmill for the garage. I have my opera, a fan, privacy, and I don't have to be exposed to the evil orb. We have both done our punishment every day and have done more than we did before. I simply can't come up with an excuse why I can't spend a half hour in the garage each day. Is this extreme?





That is a powered antenna and a DVD player hooked up to a VCR connected to a TV and an amplifier powering two speakers. That's Die Walkure on the screen. I did an extra half mile because a good part was coming up. We will see if I'm a fool or just nuts.

A taste of heaven.

The front bedroom/study is the biggest bedroom other than the master bedroom. This will be MINE!! The library and movie collection will go in the other two extra rooms. This will be for using and building computers, although I will put a reclining chair and a bookcase in there as well. I can read while playing my music. My retreat!

This is what I have now. Only a taste of what is to come but still better than what I had. The two computers shown are networked through a firewall router. The laptop can also be connected. It sits on a table to the left. The computers share the printer and they use the same monitor and keyboard through a KVM switch. I use a separate mouse for each. To the left of the black computer is a VCR and a VCR/DVD recorder combo. I can record video into the computer or play it out through a VCR. I can do the same with audio cassettes once I hook up the rest of my equipment at the new house. The black computer has 1.16 TB of storage plus external drives. The gray computer has 450 GB plus external drives. I currently have almost a TB of external drive capacity.





In California I had to fit most of my books, my office, and my computer setup into one smaller room. I know it's better than some had but I really wanted more space. To build the computer in the black case I had to set up a folding table in front of the bookcases.

Fear the camel's nose!

This is why you must not let the camel get it's nose into the tent. It starts out as "just one plant!"



Before you know it...



The TV to the left is so she can watch her Spanish soap operas while in the kitchen, if not...



Just try to put that mushroom cloud back into that little bomb! Not in my computer room!

Threats!!

The foundation is not even poured and already I am menaced by this!! Taunted even!



Don't people know the danger of plants? Even grass?!??

What it will look like.(sort of)

This is the same model house, without the extra garage. The brick color will be different and the vertical window by the front door is deleted.





We will have 3' walkways along both sides.

It begins!

Late last week they started on the lot. They have leveled the pad and are trenching for the services and foundation.

This picture shows the garage, with the third section on the right.



This shows the large yard to the right of the house.

The development, with our lot marked. To the right is a golf course.



The three car garage required a wider lot. You can see it is much larger than the standard lot.



The house will be right up against the left edge of the lot.

We are having the builder put 3' concrete walkway down both sides of the house with two gates. The concrete across the back will be 8' wide. The driveway is three cars wide. The concrete is important as the soil has a lot of clay and is very sticky and stays wet.

Why close?

Pictures taken by my wifes family in the last two years. It does not usually snow but ice can form. My wife is afraid to drive on the freeway in this.

The basic floorplan

This is the floor plan of the house we chose. As shown it is 2045 sf but we have made it a three car garage so it will extend ten ft to the right and will make it 2245 sf. Should be enough for two old folks and a couple of cats. There are some modifications in the master bath. The double door is moved to the closet and the door to the bath from the bedroom is a single door. The enclosure around the toilet is gone. The tub is deleted and the shower will be six feet long 42" X 72", with marble walls, seat, and pan. The shower door will be a sliding door. The window on the outside wall between the shower and the closet will open for ventilation.

First Post

I will use this blog to share pictures and details of our new house in Texas. My wife and I moved to the Dallas area from California in mid-July of 2007. My wife's family already lives here and we wanted to find a house as close to her mother's house as we could afford. We found one we like within about two miles of her mother's house. The family is very happy. It is an expensive area. We could have gotten a nicer house for less money if we moved out six or seven miles, but she will be going there every weekday to care for her parents and it can get icy in winter. We should be happy here.