A past due update

We've been in the house 7 months and I'm surprised how quickly this house felt like home.  Everything about it just feels right.  I was so excited to decorate for Christmas, I couldn't wait until after Thanksgiving.  I'll try to get some updated pictures in soon.  I'm going to try and jot down a few things that others may want to know, not in a particular order, just as they come to mind. But first, our house in the snow.

1) We put our own hardware up on the kitchen cabinets.  We used the same hardware we had recently updated in our old house.  We liked it there and we like it here.  In regards to the dark cabinets, I do feel like I have to wipe them more frequently than I had to wipe the lighter colored cabinets at my previous home.  That being said, they wipe pretty well.

2) I still like the darker kitchen engineered wooden floors, but they do show all kinds of dirt.  It needs to be swept frequently to avoid looking nasty.  

3) We got a one level upgrade on the appliance package.  As some others have mentioned, the only appliance I don't really like is the dishwasher.  It is noisier than my old one.  I also miss having a delay wash cycle, especially in light of the noise factor.  The microwave is fine, although there is quite a bit of cold air inside this time of year.  My husband wonders if they forgot to install the damper.  It's going to go on our one year check list just to make sure.

4) We have only painted one wall in the house; in my studio.  We painted it because we were installing shelving so it made sense. I am looking forward to painting the rest of the house.  We have quite a few nail pops coming in and a small crack above the sliding door, so I think it's going to make sense to do that after our final walkthrough.  My husband (a structural engineer) says the house will likely settle more over the winter, so we'll just hold off.  The picture below is of my studio.  Love love love the way it turned out.  

So much I love here, the table slides under the desk so I can still put an air mattress in here if we have a lot of guests. I also love the chandelier.  Being the only girl in my house, I love that this makes my room girlie.

My children occasionally use my room.  At this time, it was being used for legos.  

We found these maps at Costco.  They are a great reference for the kids (and us!).  I'm going to try and carry a bit of a map theme through the room.

5) We've had two service calls out, both in regards to the master shower.  The first was the soap dish fell off the wall.  In the middle of the night.  That gave us quite a stir.  They had used the wrong adhesive stuff when they initially installed it.  It is supposed to stay up now.  We also had two hairline cracks in the basin of the master shower.  They were not severe enough for water to get through, but might have if we had let it go.  In both cases I made a service call through the website.  I wasn't sure at first if I was going to need a log in, but you do not.  You just put your address in and your issue.  It was very simple and they called my back both times very quickly and everything was resolved to my satisfaction.  

I have a few more things to post about and I will try to get some more pictures.  I'll do that soon!

Final Walk Through

Yesterday was a whirlwind of a day.  We had our final walk through on the new home and the inspection on our current home.  I thought I was going to have to reschedule the inspection.  We've had company in town for the Easter holidays and unfortunately we all came down with food poisoning. Ugh.  It was awful.  I didn't think I was going to get my house cleaned up in time, but by the grace of God we did.  To top it off, the inspector got to my house an hour early.  I was not prepared for that.  Fortunately, he was very kind and started on the outside, otherwise I would have had to turn him away.  

Our final walk through was successful.  We taped up the walls some more with drywall and paint touch ups.  We weren't able to test the fireplace as it wasn't quite working yet, but the PM sent us an email later saying it had been fixed.  It seems as though the kitchen vent may not be completely venting outside, so he has to look into that as well.  There were a few hard spots under the carpet.  I wonder if the carpet guy didn't fully clean the full before placing the pad and carpet down.  The PM thinks it may just be nails coming up.  The correct carpet is set to be installed today, so we marked the spots I thought were bad and hopefully they'll get them taken care of when they have the carpet pulled up.  

We are four days from closing. I am in full packing mode, and I plan to have as much as I can packed by the end of the weekend.  We'll be switching to paper plates pretty soon!  It's all a bit overwhelming, but it's coming along.  

Appliances

Ok, so bear with me on this one.  I know I said this blog was to keep everyone in the know about our building process.  As I've started this and included links for stuff, I realized it's also a great way for me to keep organized and save links to the products we are getting.  While I'm sure some of you will be thrilled to know the details of our appliances, some of you will be yawning.  I get it.  Feel free to skip this post.  

I wish we had the option of not including any appliances in the building process and instead purchasing them later, but alas, that is not an option.  I guess it's something to do with the mortgage process/approval.  So, we chose the one level upgrade on the appliances in black.  This includes a stove, dishwasher and microwave.  

First the stove:

GE Stove

We could have run a gas line for a gas stove.  I used to have a gas stove growing up and they're great, don't get me wrong.  But I LOVE LOVE LOVE how easy it is to clean a flat top stove.  I've had two in the 12 years we've owned our house and I can't imagine going to anything else.  I would kind of like a double door option that allows you to cook two things at different temperatures, but maybe the next stove.  This one does have some nice features though. First, it's self cleaning.  A must have in my mind.  Second, it's hard to see in the picture but it has a warming unit.  Maybe useless, we'll have to wait and see.  Third, it has two heating elements which appear to be controlled in a way to allow you to cook two things in the oven with even heat.  Something I never have quite figured out in my current oven. And finally, it has a delay start.  This is a feature I've wanted on a stove so I'm pretty stoked it has that.  

Second the dishwasher:

GE Dishwasher

Nothing terribly fancy here.  I read some of the reviews on this dishwasher and it seems ok.  For me the most important part of a dishwasher (other than actually making sure the dishes get clean) is how quiet it is.  The reviews seem to indicate it's a pretty quiet dishwasher.  The overall negative aspect of the dishwasher is that the dry setting doesn't actually dry the dishes.  I can live with this.  My current dish washer seems to be drying my dishes a bit less lately and it's only a minor inconvenience.  The pictures of the silverware container look a bit weird.  We'll have to wait and see on that one.  

Finally, the microwave:

GE Microwave

I don't think I'm too picky about microwaves.  I really like having a +30 seconds button and a soften button for butter.  I've got to have a light above the stove for cooking.  No microwave really gives me the light I desire, but I've learned to deal with it.  A microwave we used to have had sensor cooking which was cool.  This one might have it, I can't tell yet.  

We will still have to buy a refrigerator and washer/dryer.  We'll wait closer to closing to get those and have those delivered.