Matt and Katie roll with it.: Brush-burning, plumbing, and lots of dirt!

A couple of weeks ago, while Matt was chopping wood, our neighbor Scott stopped by with his son and asked if he could burn the brush in our back yard. Matt was thrilled, and Scott did a fabulous job. No more brush piles (at least until we do more work down by the river)!

View from the backyard, facing east toward the river:

Earlier this week, plumbing was installed, and Matt captured some photos of that as well:

Next they brought in some dirt and some sand:

View from the south side of the house, facing north (our north neighbors have a beautiful, tree-filled front yard that we will be able to see from our kitchen window over the sink):

Every time we go out to visit the site, we are amazed at how high up the house is going to sit. We already knew we had a beautiful view of the river, but now we're seeing that our ranch-style house with a walk-out basement will be level with (or slightly higher) than the street with a gorgeous view of the trees, river, and the east bank. And our neighbor to the west has a huge back yard directly across from our house with a pretty windmill. The only house directly in our line of site is to the south.

They are getting ready to pour the basement floor this week:

We went to the Wichita Area Builders Association Home Show at Century II on Saturday and attempted to educate ourselves on the cost, durability, and maintenance for counter tops, flooring, and cabinets. Matt snapped a few photos ...

One granite counter installer said his installations of granite start at $29 a square foot (pretty inexpensive ... to good to be true?).

Consumer Reports likes quartz (thanks, Dad!), but we're also curious about Corian, which is less expensive and still looks pretty. Even the granite and quartz guys don't recommend setting hot pots directly on the counters. We know how to use trivets, so Corian could be the way to go if we find the look we want.

Here are some tiles we liked for the walk-in shower, maybe ...