More pictures

Sorry some of these are blurry, but you get the idea.

Dining Room

Guest Room - the desk in this room I've also redone.  It was my great grandmothers.

First floor/ guest bathroom

Oldest son's room, this is the room on the back of the house.

Another view of my oldest son's room.

Younger son's room.

Another view of my younger son's room.

Living Room

Another view of the living room.

One view of the basement. This area is usually littered with toys. It will eventually become a bar.

Laundry/cat room

Unpacked office

Unpacked Studio

Lucky 13 - Numbers 11, 12, 13

Tomorrow is the big day!  We close at 11 am local time tomorrow.  I've already got my van loaded with some things to take over to the house tomorrow. My head is spinning with how much stuff still needs to be done, but I'm confident everything will go just fine.  I got behind on my Lucky 13, so I'm going to finish it off today.  

Upstairs laundry - No more lugging laundry down a flight and a half of stairs. Woot woot! No doubt I look forward to this!

Basement - My husband finally has his man cave. Plus there is room to send the kids down there to play also.  There will also be storage space, so I don't have to put holiday decorations, camping gear, etc, in the attic. This will make everything so much easier to access. 

Neighborhood pool - my kids are really looking forward to this.  Another thing having an HOA affords us.  It is a short drive or bike ride from the house and I know we'll be spending some time there this summer.  The neighborhood seems to have a lot of kids in it, which will also be nice for my children. 

That's it!  I hope I make some time to unwind and update the blog this week. I haven't taken good pictures of the house since everything has been completely done, so I'll try to do that before we start moving everything in tomorrow.  Wish us luck please!

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.  

I can't believe I'm posting this

Seriously, I'm shaking my head.  Astonished.  My sister in law and her fiance were visiting and wanted to see the house progress so far.  We got the key from the sales rep and walked around in the house.  Things look good on the inside so far.  The master bath tile is in and looks great.  The mantle is up on the fireplace.  The hardwood floor is complete.  In the family room, there are rolls of carpet which are supposed to be laid today.  So, I'm looking at all of them and they all say the same color; we had chosen a different color for the basement.  I'm wondering if it just wasn't delivered at the same time.  But, I look at the carpet and I don't think the color is right.  It's been quite a long time since we chose the color, so to be fair, I don't exactly remember what it looks like.  However, I did think there was some color variation in the carpet which this does not have.  We also remembered paying extra for the upgraded carpet pad, which does not seem to be what is there.  Little alarms start going off in my head. It's important to note that like the framing, the carpet appears to be delivered pre-cut by room.  Each roll has a size listed on it, which probably denotes which room it goes in.  I go home to check my flooring selection sheet.  What do you know?  It's wrong. So, the level 1 carpet that we ordered in the basement ONLY appears to have been ordered FOR THE ENTIRE HOUSE.  We had requested a different, nicer carpet to be installed in the rest of the house.  There was only one type of carpet pad throughout the house (not installed yet).  It doesn't have the plastic barrier that we remember the nicer carpet pad having.  I believe the carpet pad is wrong. That really makes me mad because if I hadn't been at the house during that time, I would never know that was wrong because I'd never see it again.  

My husband is in the construction industry. He understands mistakes are made and has told me the more important thing is how they respond to fix the mistake.  I've got to imagine even he thinks this is too much. To be fair, so far every mistake has been fixed without argument. This is the third major ordering mistake... that I know of.  I have to start thinking that way now.  Have they messed up anything else that I haven't caught??? I can't remember if I posted on the blog, but the wrong garage doors were ordered as well.  We are still waiting for the correct ones to be delivered. There is no way that Ryan homes is making any money on the sale of our house. The garage doors can maybe be resold or used in another project.  The carpet?  I don't know.  Would someone buy that as a remnant? Possibly. The brick?  That was a total EFF up.  All the labor wasted putting it up, taking it down, then it all had to be thrown away.  Astonishing. 

I emailed the PM last night and I'm sure he's handling it today.  We are set to close in 2 weeks.  How long does it take for carpet to be delivered?  Can we close if there's no carpet throughout the house?  Do I want to?  I wouldn't be able to move anything in.  I already have a moving company scheduled. GAH!!!! I feel my blood pressure rising.  It is my intent to call the SR this morning after she gets in, if the PM doesn't call me before then. 

Back to good news, for a minute. We met the other neighbors on the other side of our home. They are a bit older than us, with a daughter that is a senior in college. They have an adorable basset hound.  They seem very nice. 

And finally, here is a picture of my pretty house.  With the correct brick. It will look even prettier when the shutters go up and the door is painted.

Update: I spoke with the PM and SR.  Basically, I told them I needed someone to make me feel warm and fuzzy about keeping our closing date. (Hug me and tell me it's gonna be alright!) After making some calls the PM said that the carpet we chose is not an unusual carpet so they don't see any trouble getting it in.  It's been ordered but because it was just done they can't actually track it yet.  He told them they need it installed no later that the middle of next week. He also confirmed that the pad is correct. In the meantime, the crew is out installing the incorrect carpet today.  They are doing this as a precaution so that it does not delay inspection or closing. When the new carpet comes in, they will rip it out and replace it. My heart breaks a little bit for the wastefulness of this. He apologized for all the mistakes that have been made in the choices.  

The Tennis Match Begins

Our current home has been on the market for about 6 weeks.  Traffic through the house was slow after the first 2-3 weeks so we dropped the price a bit. Yesterday we had two showings at basically the same time.  Well, the first couple through made an offer.  Between their offer, their request for closing costs and a request for an appliance that wasn't in the offer, it came in a bit lower than we were hoping. So, we are going to counter offer and see what happens. 

In the news for our Ryan home, things are coming along nicely.  Brick laying began (again) Tuesday.  I drove by today and they were almost done. It truly looked like they may have had another hour of work or so left to do.  In addition, our fireplace was completed and it appears that most of the house has received its final coat of paint.  I was pretty hesitate about the flat Ryan white paint, but at first glance it looks much better than I expected.  It's not a bright white, but has some warmer undertones.  We realized driving through the other day that our house appears to be the only Ryan house that didn't get windows in the garage doors.  So, I emailed the PM about it; he said he was aware of it and they are working on it.  I guess it's one more thing that got ordered correctly.  Fortunately they have been superb in correcting the mistakes; I just really wish we didn't have this many.  I hope this is the last of them.  

Correct color brick!

Pretty stone fireplace!

The unfinished part of the basement has been insulated.  I didn't realize they do this, but it's probably required to meet the energy star criteria.  

Older son's room, freshly painted

Very basic stairs going up to the mudroom from the garage. 

We are 18 days from closing on this new house!  I just can't believe it. I probably sound like a broken record but I am so excited. Everything looks beautiful so far.  

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!

Other Bathroom and Flooring Choices

There will be two other bathrooms in the house, one on the main level which I think of the guest bath because it's right by the guest room.  The other one is upstairs and will be the boys bathrooms.  The options in these two bathrooms will be the same except the boys bathroom has two sinks.  The pictures I took of these cabinets and ceramic don't seem as accurate as they are in person.  

Carpet will be in most of the main rooms; all the bedrooms, the office, the family room and the dining room.  In all of these rooms we will have the same carpet throughout.  There will be a different but complementary carpet in the basement.  The first picture is the main carpet.  It doesn't really show the flecking that is in the carpet, but you get the idea.

This is the basement carpet.  Pretty standard carpet.  

We will have a stone fireplace in the family room on the main level.  There is one of these in the model home and it is so pretty.  Below is an example of what the fireplace looks like and then a picture of the actual stone we chose.  

Finally, the laundry room will have a resilient vinyl flooring.  Nothing special here, but functional.  

Tomorrow I'll add details for the outside brick and color choices.