I'm jealous of your finished and primed (or painted) drywall.

We wrapped up our sanding last night and cleaned up all the mess from tiling. Tonight we clean the fireplace soot, shop vac every square inch of wall, trim, window, and floor, and start carrying all the tools to the basement or garage. Gettin' ready to paint!

btw, don't worry about the sump pump. I don't like 'em either, but like 80% of houses in ne ohio either have them or should have them. Our soil types just aren't suitable for basements (seriously, find the GIS information for your county and you can see what soil type you have. Most say "not suitable for basements"). But who's going to build a house without a basement??

In my book basements are an absolute necessity in terms of storage space and getting all your utility appliances out of the way. Get that furnace and hot water heater off the main living floor for noise, comfort, and flood protection (leaking hot water tanks on your first floor suck). Also, having access to run all future wiring is nice. Furnaces on the main floor are noisy.

Anyway, looking like a great house! Watch out for cows.
 

furnaces in garages won't work in NEO unless the garage is a heated, insulated space (usually not). Otherwise you're wasting an Arzt-load of heat.
 

Yeah, like my current (N. Olmsted) heated and uninsulated--or even well-sealed garage.
 

Wow. Looking good! Only 1 more month=)

And since your home is new, youmight not need that backup ins for awhile, especially since yourhouse is warranteed for a year or so. But good advice from Ben.
 

why, what is wrong with a sump pump? we have one....anyway, great pictures.........thanks for the update...
 

Sump pumps mean there's a water problem. The sump pump solves that problem...




...So long as it doesn't fail and you have electricity. If either of those two things changes, lookout.

Sump-pumps are like a band-aid. They're not a fail-safe, solve-all solution.

Holy crap, jason, your furnace is in the garage? No wonder you have $900 heating bills.
 

you are SO going to be able to afford your new house. The difference in heating bills will be like getting a free mortgage.
 

No no no, the furnace isn't in the garage. The water heater is pretty close to the garage (it's in a utility closet off of the garage). The furnace is in the crawl space under the house.

I was just pointing out that we have a heated garage, which is nice because it melts snow off of your cars and whatnot. However, the garage has a bit of a draft and is not insulated, so we are probably losing lots of heat from there.
 

You know, I keep looking at the house and thinking to myself...it has to have at least 3 bedrooms right? And there are only 2 of YOU. Maybe a little extra rooms for little ones? Maybe? Or Kelmo could move in...sounds like she's a little desperate to keep from moving back home with yer folks!
 

By the way, the house looks beautiful!
 

Wow, Fake Kimber, I didn't know Gwen Stefani wrote and ode to me! That's very exciting. I really like the personal touch you added to it.
 

Fish man has too much time on his hands...

Great progress on the house J. I'll be there for you guys come April 1!
 

You know what really helps when building a house? Yes, You guessed correctly - cookie dough (see my blog).
 

BTW...I can't believe ~mike spammed all of us. I mean, I usually delete spammers. Is he trying to get himself flagged?
 

lol. no, I'm trying to send my kids to New York. It's a fund raiser... yes, I have resorted to the lowly class of spammer... I kept washing in the shower but I never seemed to get clean.
 

Booooooo! More pictures! There's got to be a lot happening now.


And before you go trying to reverse this on me, there's updated pics of our house at http://spaces.msn.com/derecskey