09. December 2023 · Comments Off on House Progress · Categories: Colorado

I thought as we are about half-way through our house build, I’d share an update.

We moved to Colorado on September 21st, in time to see them break ground on our new house. Since then, we’ve visited the build every day to watch it grow and capture pictures on progress.

It’s really been amazing to see each stage, we are really enjoying watching the house come along, but in truth we just want it finished now so we can move in.

The projected date of completion is end of February, so we are guessing we will be moving in sometime in March (hopefully).

The phases (up to now) have been:

  1. Dig big hole! (the house is two story, but it’s a finished basement and first floor – they call them “patio homes” here).
  2. Pour foundations.
  3. Add forms and pour sides of basement.
  4. Paint basement walls with waterproof “stuff”.
  5. Add plumbing that will be below the floating basement floor (and connect to sewer).
  6. Add framing for floating floor.
  7. Pour floating floor.
  8. Frame the house – this includes the first floor, all walls and the roof.
  9. Install heating and air-conditioning – this is called HVAC and consists of the furnace and all ducting around the house.
  10. Install all plumbing – pipes and waste to all bathrooms and the laundry room.
  11. Wrap house – this involves adding a waterproof “wrap” on all the walls the roof.
  12. Pour cement driveway, front porch and patio.
  13. Install windows and doors.
  14. Add siding – this depends on the type of look you purchased, our options were “Colorado”, “Cottage” and “Farmhouse”. I liked Colorado, but Lisa liked Farmhouse, so we got Farmhouse.
  15. Install all electrical wiring, this includes 110v’s to all lights and outlets, 220v’s to laundry room and kitchen and garage and all lower voltage cabling for internet (yes there was a LOT of that).
  16. Add roof – this was delayed as there is a shortage of roof shingle, but it came in on Monday, they started the roof on Wednesday and finished Friday.

That’s where we are!

The next step is we have a pre-drywall walkthrough (scheduled for Thursday 14th), after that it’s drywall, cabinets, bathrooms, flooring, lighting etc. and of course paint the outside of the house and finish the front with brickwork.

To try and share the progress to date, I created this animated gif. But it’s really big, so give it some time to load (can take a minute to download), if it doesn’t work let me know lol.

17. October 2023 · Comments Off on Living in Colorado · Categories: Colorado, General

So we arrived in Colorado nearly a month ago and have moved into rental accommodation near our new house – that is still being built.

I’m going to capture a load of pictures of the house build and will post some images in the coming month, right now it’s basically a hole in the ground. They are currently working on plumbing and will finish the floor next week and start framing.

Bizarrely, we’ve been told that the house will be finished by the end of February – which is great, for us it can’t come fast enough.

For the last month we’ve spent most of our time learning the area, finding out where the shops are, and testing out a load of restaurants for when visitors come and see us.

So far everything has been fantastic, the weather is amazing (hot) and the sky is pretty much blue with sun every day (nothing like Washington State).

Every now and then we get an amazing sunset, and tonight was one of those moments. We jumped int he car and drove a mile to our new house and took the following picture from what will the front of the house, looking out the Study French doors (basically by our front door and porch).

Now you won’t believe me when I say there is no photoshop here, this is what it looked like – I’ve NEVER seen anything like this and wanted to share the view with everyone, hence the posting tonight.

Enjoy…

And look for more postings in the coming months.

09. August 2023 · Comments Off on A New Adventure · Categories: Colorado, Photography

It’s kind of funny. My last posting on this site was back in 2017 and I led off with “It’s been quite a while since I last posted…”

Well after that posting life got really busy, work was manic, and I pretty much stopped taking pictures.

However, this year two interesting things or life events happened.

  • Firstly, I turned 60 – so I’m officially an old fart! At least that’s what I consider myself.
  • Secondly, I retired.

I’ve worked non-stop since I was 16 years old. Working numerous unskilled jobs in my youth until I joined the British Army at 20 and served 9 years.

After that I fell into software engineering (it was just a hobby until then) and ended up working for Microsoft where I stayed for 22 years!

So, I now find myself with a LOT of free time, for the first time, well ever!

That said we are still super busy. With retirement comes the opportunity to move somewhere new, and leave the Pacific Northwest (Redmond near Seattle) behind. We’ve lived here for 20 years and fancy a change of scenery.

After a number of trips, we’ve finally purchased a house in Colorado in a small city called Erie. The city is 14 square miles and has 30,000 residents, so MUCH smaller that Redmond in Washington.

Right now, we are prepping to sell our Redmond house and plan to move to Colorado in mid-September 2023 – a month away.

Both Lisa and I are SUPER EXCITED. This is a new adventure, and we can’t wait to start. We will miss our Washington friends of course, but the world is a smaller place these days and with James our son still living in Washington we will be back to visit.

One of my goals is to learn everything I can about living in Colorado, we are right between Boulder and Denver and the scenery and views are just spectacular, I’m looking forward to getting the cameras out and sharing our new State.

Our new house is currently being built! It won’t be ready until March so we will move into rented accommodation while we wait, so we have no pictures to share.

However, I did take this picture outside the house, bit of a teaser, I’ll share more when we get there.

Let’s see if my next posting is less than 6 years away