Garage, Stone, Trim

The PM and SR called today to give me an update on the house.  The garage slab is being poured today.  Once that is in, they should be able to get the garage doors installed.  They are running the electrical trench to hook the house up to the meter. The trim work should be mostly complete by the end of the day.  It will be painted on Wednesday. Later this week the stone mason will be there to complete the fireplace. There was a wonky duct that ran under a joist in the unfinished ceiling of the basement.  This would have made it difficult to finish the ceiling of that part of the basement later.  That has been corrected. The correct brick should be delivered tomorrow.  I am still waiting to talk to the DG about the tile for the master bedroom.  Things seem to moving along great!  We close 4 weeks from today!

Bathroom Tile on Backorder

Yesterday I received an email that the accent tile we chose for the master bathroom is on backorder and won't be available until the end of April.  They sent an email with what is supposed to be the same tile but upgraded because it's diamond shaped instead of rectangle.  

Above is the tile we chose.  

This is the tile they say is the same.  I'm sorry, but I don't think it is the same. I think this one is blue and green, whereas the one we chose is red.  Sigh.

So, I've made a call to the sales rep.  I think we need to go look at the tile to figure out what to do.  I definitely don't want another situation like we had with the brick.  

In other news, the house is completely primed and the cabinets have been delivered.  They were supposed to install some of the flooring Friday but I haven't been inside to see that yet.  Here's a few pictures from this week.  

Picture of the brick after they started taking it down.

Brick we ordered (left) and the brick they put on (right) Not very close.  

Cabinets delivered!

Cabinets and doors!

Kitchen, looking towards the Pantry.

Master bath, the shower is on the left, closet straight ahead. 

Upstairs hallway, looking towards the kids rooms, with a big closet between.  

Younger son's room.

My craft/studio

Hallway looking towards the Master bedroom. 

This week's progress

We went back to the house Saturday evening and they had already began to tear the brick down.  They only brick that was remaining was by the garage; I think they stopped there because the dumpster was full.  Sunday I went to get preliminary window measurements.  Afterwards I stopped by the sales office to talk to the SR.  After talking to her about what happened, she mentioned that gal who does the ordering is pregnant and has 'pregnancy brain'.  She thinks she probably just input the wrong code since we didn't make any deviations from the recommended color groupings.  I feel bad for the gal...I hope she doesn't get in too much trouble, but man, what a costly mistake.  

Now I am beginning the process of window coverings.  Holy cow, that is overwhelming.  When we bought our current house the previous owners left all the window coverings.  We've only had to replace a few and we've generally selected inexpensive options. I'm now trying to balance getting quality blinds that will last a long time vs. inexpensive blinds that I can get up quick.  I feel like I want to get the bedroom window coverings up pretty quick, but I want to make sure I either don't spend a lot in case I don't like them or make sure I get something that will go with however I choose to decorate down the line. We have 22 windows and sliding door to cover.  I am also overwhelmed by the potential cost of this. I think we are going to go with a cellular shade option for the bedrooms for now and get the rest of the windows as well as curtains later.  I stopped in JCPenney, they have a designer that will come out and help you with the process.  Of course, I can't get the designer out until we close on the house and then it takes a minimum of two weeks for the blinds to come in after they are ordered.  

I emailed the PM today to find out what our schedule is like for the week. They are hoping to begin to put the correct brick up this week as well as pour the garage slab if they weather is nice enough.  They will also be priming the walls and ceilings and putting the vinyl and ceramic flooring in.  Next week the trim and cabinets should go in.  

Major Disappointment

We understand that in construction projects mistakes get made. We were prepared and expected that they would come up at some point. 

Coming into the neighborhood we saw the back of the house first.  I thought "Wow!  They've got siding on the back!"  Then we drove to the house and saw that brick is nearly completely.  Unfortunately, it's bricked in the completely wrong color.  When we originally went through the color selections, we very quickly ruled out dark brick colors. The color that we chose is Sugar Creek.  It's a buff shade of brick.  

So, basically, they put our least favorite color of brick on the house.  When I spoke to the PM the other day, I had no idea they were starting to brick.  Had I known, I would have made a point to go check it out.  I probably would have been able to stop it before it got too far, but he only told me they were finishing up dry wall.  

We texted the PM, of course he first assumes that maybe it's a different shade of the correct brick.  I get that; I'm sure that happens a lot.  The brick color can change a bit because of materials, fire processes, whatever.  This brick is actually called Allendale.  To make matters worse, the houses on either side of us are red brick houses.  We believe there is something in the HOA that says you can't have similar brick side by side and this one might actually match the house to the West of us.  

In less than an hour, the PM advised that the brick was shipped wrong from the supplier, something that's never happened as long as he's worked with this supplier.  The right brick will be shipped and it will be corrected.  I'm happy about this; we really did not want the red brick.  That would have been a MAJOR problem.  I feel bad that the brick is so far complete and they are just going to tear it down.  It feels so wasteful.  I hope it doesn't slow them down at all.  I imagine it will a bit.  :(

In good news, the drywall is mostly complete.  They were out mudding the joints while we were there.  Again, I was surprised they were working on a Saturday.  

I didn't take a lot of pictures of the drywall.  The top picture is the kitchen pantry and the bottom is the dining room.  Cool stuff.  Glad this is coming along nicely.  

Closing Date!!!

Our PM just called me to let us know our pre settlement date and our closing date.  Our pre settlement date is April 23rd with closing set for April 28th! That makes closing less than 40 days from now! Holy Moly!  

Pre Drywall Walkthrough

On Friday we had our Pre Drywall meeting walk through.  The PM lead us through the house explaining various things such as light switches, where things were located, how the plumbing was ran, what they do for the energy star rating, etc.  We were pleasantly surprised that almost all the insulation has been put in.  It was extremely windy and so some of the insulation and attic vent things were actually being blown out by the wind.  

Here is the Porch.

This is the back of the mudroom closet looking towards the kitchen.

This is the wall the Fridge will go on.  You can see what the wind has done to the insulation.

The stove wall; that is the vent for the microwave.

My husband being helpful, putting the arch up.

Living room wall.  Need to be careful not to puncture those water lines!

Living Room wall looking into husbands office.  The TV will be on this wall.  Again; water lines.

Master Bedroom.  The bed will go between the windows.

Master Bath sinks.

Master bathroom looking into master closet.  Extra outlet put in for my towel warmer that will go outside the shower.  So excited!

This will be my oldest son's room.  It shares the wall with the boys bathroom, you can look through to the master, but not for long!

This will be my younger son's room.  It shares a wall with the laundry room.  You can look through to my studio, again, not for long!

Here is the panel and water heater in the basement.  

The PM had already fixed the closet issues.  He had originally planned on using the door from the laundry closet in the guest linen closet but it didn't size right, so he ordered a new door for that.  I think he said it was 18 or 20" so it will be a small door.  I don't mind the size, I just want to be able to have a place to store guest towels, a first aid kit and extra toilet paper.  It should do the job!  The nice thing is, he will leave us the extra door. With any luck it will work for the future basement bathroom. Speaking of the basement bathroom.  Really, the only thing that we found on the walk through involved the bathroom.  There is an outlet at the bottom of the stairs going into the basement.  It is also on the wall that the door to the future bathroom will go. They hung the outlet on the side of the stud where the door will go according to the plans.  Its an easy fix before the drywall goes out.  They simply have to remove the staples that hold the wires and stuff in place and move it to the other side of the stud.  They had also continued the 2x4 along the floor where there will be a door going into another section of the basement. Basically, I don't think the door would fit with a 2x4 on the ground and it would be a serious tripping hazard for my clumsy self.  They were aware of that and it was on their punch list.  

Today the city inspector will be in for the inspection.  The energy star inspector will also be in today.  They make sure that the house can qualify for the energy star rating.  If the house passes both of these inspections, drywall will start tomorrow.  Once drywall starts to go up, the PM will prepare a letter that goes to the mortgage company advising our completion date.  With that, we should know our closing date by the middle of the week!  We've only had a couple of showings on our current house, so we hope that once the weather starts to stay consistently nice that will start to move along a bit better.  

We are really pleased with the way things have gone with Ryan homes so far. We are getting really excited for the house to be complete and move in!

Guardian Walk Through

This morning we had our walk through with the Guardian Rep.  It was a pretty straightforward meeting.  It was technically our first time to walk through the house since being framed (but I went one day last week after the crew had left.)  It was however my husbands first time through.  Every other room he walked in, he would say "this house is so big!"  It's true, we are kinda building an obnoxiously big house. Anyway, our purpose today was to finalize the placement of our internet and cable wires as well as the securing system. Walking through we realized that some of our special requests had not yet been done.  They included removing the closet in the laundry room and placing a closet in the guest bath downstairs.  We also realized that the extra gas line had not been run to the backyard.  We weren't too concerned but wanted to let the PM know before our pre drywall meeting.  We figured the earlier he knew, the easier it would be for him to fix.  On his way out, my husband stopped at the model home, PM#2 was there and explained to him that sometimes the framers get tunnel vision and miss special requests on the plans.  He said they would be walking through this week to recheck everything, make sure things were level, etc.  He said it would be addressed then.  Awesome.  

It looks like our pre drywall meeting will probably happen on Friday and then they will be drywalling next week.  I took my camera with today, however, I did not take the camera batteries.  Yup, I'm a smart cookie sometimes. Shouldn't matter too much, we'll take plenty of pictures on Friday.  I want to be able to fully document whats going on under the drywall in case we have any questions in the years to come.  Everything looks great so far and we are super excited with the way everything is moving along.  

Windows! Doors! A Porch!

I am so thrilled how quickly things are moving along right now.  I've felt the need to drive by the house at least once a day so I can keep track of what's going on.  On Monday the crew was out wrapping the house.  Since Ryan is an Energy Star Builder, one of the things that they do is wrap the house in a silver material.  

Big 'ol roll of wrap. 

Today when I drove by they already had the windows and doors installed.  Oh! And I have a porch!  Boo-ya!  

It looks so pretty!  Although, it wasn't until I started writing this that I realized...  There's a window that is on the backside of the garage, facing the porch.  It's not supposed to be there. We asked them to delete and brick over that spot.  The reason being, it may be the only spot Bob has to put a work bench in the garage.  Looks like I'll be calling or emailing the PM about that. I imagine that's an easy fix though.  

We are supposed to have a high around 50 on Friday.  I think the next step might be shingling.  

Today my friend and Realtor is coming over for dinner so that we can get our house on the market.  I've got everything clean, now it's just a matter of keeping it that way. How do you do that with 2 kids???  Yikes.  

Roofed!

On Saturday we celebrated my son's 9th and 5th birthday together. We had friends and family in from out of town. The weather was nice and so after the party we decided to drive by the house.  Saturday was a lovely day, about 50 degrees.  However, we were forecasted to get snow starting Saturday night with 6"+.  With that in mind, my husband had called the PM on Friday to find out what they would do if it snowed, like, inside the house.  He advised us that they would probably shovel it out as there was no way they would have the roof done before the weekend.  Imagine our surprise when we drove by to see this:

Holy Smokes!  That's our house!  With a roof! I spoke to one of the crew and told him, how excited we were to see the roof today, and thanked him for the hard work they have put in on our house.  I know that this winter has slowed them down, and I know that's not their fault.  I probably sound like a broken record but it's so exciting to see how much they've accomplished.  We were a bit concerned about what the snow would do to the inside plywood and with what they got done on Saturday that concern has gone away.  

We were waiting until after this weekend, because of the birthday parties, but now it really feels like we need to get going on putting our current house on the market.