"Will you have a finished basement?"

By far the most common question we're asked is if we'll have a finished basement.  Well right now that's the ONLY thing "finished"!  Progress has been slow for two reasons.  Whenever it rains we actually lose the rain day and a couple of days after since it's too muddy to work.  The ground is not densely packed immediately around the house since it was backfilled.  This makes it unsafe for scaffolding and walking around.  The good thing is that the rain is helping to compact this area of soil.  The second issue is availability of the wood floor trusses (I think that's the right term).  Here's the thing:  they are locally sourced from a mill in central Missouri and while they aren't FSC certified, they are nonetheless from a managed forest.  Plus they are specially designed to accommodate the high velocity, insulated, flexible duct work we're using.  So with all of that going on, it's no wonder the trusses are taking longer to get here than we would like.

Jason is anxious to get going (though I bet we're more anxious) and we're hoping the wood will arrive in time to start framing next week.  The framing should only take a couple of weeks, weather permitting.  That's fast in my mind since it can take me days to put together a bird house.  Such rapid visible progress should be very pleasing to watch over that short space of time.  We'll start to see the 3-D shape after living with drawings for almost two years.

And what about that basement?  Does anyone like this? . . . . . . .

It fits with our indoor/outdoor concept for the house, but where will Mom stay?  Honestly, we have a plan for the finished basement, but will probably wait to implement it.  As we age we're actually learning how true it is that you can't do everything all at once.