Caught up

Finally caught up and now it's Thursday already. I think I mentioned last week or prior that I had signed DH up for short term non-Obamacare insurance to start on Nov 1st. I cancelled his old insurance effective the end of October. I also just received the notification in the mail on what the 2019 premium would be (had I kept it). Another $90 per month! Not to mention out of pocket costs increased. No. Thank. You. I am so done with paying that. That would have been $650 a month, starting in January. I am now paying $181 per month. Boy, it will be SO nice to have almost an extra $500 a month back in my bank account! That will save almost $6000 next year.

The house is coming along, bit by bit. The roofers got the paper covering the roof this week and started on some shingles (leftover from shop) and that's all they got to (waiting on the rest of shingles and they had another job to finish). So, at least it's not raining inside my house anymore.....or so I thought. It rained a bunch again last night and DH came back inside the shop this morning, fit to be tied, because it's obviously still not completely dried in, like they said, because water is still coming inside the house. GAH! The framers brought a couple of heaters yesterday, and DH got out his big oil heater and they had those going yesterday. Pretty much a waste of time, since some of it just got all wet again.

The upstairs is being a pain. Nothing is really going according to the plan, due to how they did the roof trusses. Using roof trusses (because it's easier than having to build trusses) made the usable space cut way down. We've had to reconfigure quite a bit. It was going to end up that I had no office room! That doesn't fly! I didn't want to make one of our guest bedrooms into an office, either. And now that they are getting to putting up the walls in those rooms, they would be too small to be an office and a guest room anyway. Oy vey! We ended up making the big guest bathroom a bedroom, one of the original guest rooms (with the river view) is my office and the other bedroom is the same. Now - we had to put a bathroom someplace and it is now in the angled area, that was originally supposed to be my office (with window/view). No window, of course, but not necessary. And  not nearly the nice size the original upstairs bathroom was supposed to be, with a neat clawfoot tub :(  So, the upstairs has been a bit disappointing, as it's coming along. The bedroom (with river view), with the dormer walls/ceiling and where the door needs to go, was not even really fitting a queen sized bed! Finally we just decided the bed will have to go into the dormer space, up against the window. Not my first choice. Then when framer was trying to lay out the "hallway" wall to this bedroom, it was leaving a very narrow space to get back to the bathroom and bonus room above garage. He's like "you won't be able to get any furniture past here.  Well, duh, we need to be able to furnish the bonus room! Couch, chairs, etc.  Finally, it got all figured out, but it was frustrating. I'm sure it will all be fine and look nice, once all said and done.

They got the back wall made for the kitchen island, which now makes the kitchen start to feel more like a kitchen. They did manage to fit in a nice sized walk in closet in the upstairs bedroom next to the bathroom, so that is good. There will also be another storage "room" space up there, where I can store like Christmas stuff or whatever.

In our great room, we planned to have a gas fireplace. Is anyone familiar with an electric fireplace? Seems like one of these would be much cheaper route to go, unless I am missing something. No hook up to propane needed, no venting needed. We are just wanting it for the "ambiance" - not so much heat or anything, though it appears the electric ones blow out heat, too. I know I am using a small electric one up in the loft room, which is why I started thinking about using one in the main fireplace, too. It's not like we will be using it all the time, either.

I've read a couple more good books lately.  The first was called The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. Really really good. I just started reading another book by him last night.  The other one was Ghost Boy, a true story by Martin Pistorius. Very interesting and inspiring. The human body is quite the mystery.