Offer Accepted!

Late last night we got another counter offer on our current house that we accepted!  If everything goes smoothly, we should have dual occupancy for about 3 weeks.  I'm relieved that we have some overlap; that allows us to remove everything from our current house at a good pace and gives me enough time to clean up for the new people. I plan on having my son ride the bus to the current house at least until we close, so I'll be at the house almost every day and I can do a little bit at a time. Of course, it's also a relief not to have two mortgages for any longer than necessary. 

We registered my younger son for kindergarten at the new school district last night, so we went to the house and the hardwood floors are going in.  The master bath tile still isn't in, but hopefully it will go in soon.  

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!

Our Loan is Approved!

Tonight I was having dinner with my former neighbor. The phone rang, a number I didn't recognize. I wasn't going to answer it, but thought better of it and decided to. Boy, am I glad I did.  It was our loan processor calling to let us know our loan was approved! We weren't expecting confirmation until closer to the end of the month, so it was a big surprise. 

This won't push our schedule up at all, but that's ok. Our PM will be on vacation from Christmas until the first of the year.  Tentatively, we are scheduled to meet with him on January 6th, and we may break ground that week! Things are moving along nicely. 

More Documentation

Things seem to be moving along.  Bob has received a few emails from the loan gal.  We had to get a copy of the check for our paid federal income taxes to show they were paid. I'm guessing this is to make sure Uncle Sam's not going to want to put a lien on our home any time soon. The bigger project is that Bob has to document every deposit into the business account for the past two months, matching them to his invoices. Blah.  It's not really something I can do to help, and I don't envy having to do that. 

We also received an updated purchase agreement in the mail.  It didn't include the flooring. I wasn't real concerned but went ahead and called our sales rep.  Turns out Ryan sends these out every few weeks or so, so it will be on the next one. She did tell me they are moving things along on her end. Although it's possible it could change, we are on schedule to meet with the PM the last week of December and to break ground right after the first of the year. Fingers are crossed that we keep on track!

Meetings, Meetings, Meetings

Yesterday Bob met with the financial dude (FD) to begin the loan application process.  There was a list of over 20 documents we had to gather before the meeting.  This included pay stubs, w2, personal and business tax returns, business documents including a letter from our CPA, bank statements, investment information, current home documents and other things.  Bob had made copies of all of these along with a cover sheet of all the documents annotated.  From what Bob said, it sounds like FD may have actually swooned.  I guess not everyone is as anal organized as us.  Weird. The normal time frame for approval is about 30 days.  Since Bob is self employed it will take closer to 45-60 days.  We are really hoping for 45 days as that would allow us to break ground before the end of the year.  Ryan homes and NVR (the mortgage company) are sister companies, so they have a vested interest in getting this done as quickly as possible.  

On Tuesday we are set to meet with Guardian.  Guardian does the wiring for cable, security systems, stereo systems, etc.  Bob and I talked a bit about what we want to have done but haven't made the final decisions since we don't know the cost of everything.  So, we'll let the Guardian dude do his sales pitch and go from there.  We did go over the floor plan in detail last night in case we need to decide where to put our cable lines sooner than later.  We know we'll have one in the master bedroom, the living room and the basement.  We've also decided to put one in the guest room.  We quickly decided where the furniture would go in the bedroom, allowing for new furniture somewhere down the road.  The basement and guest room are no brainers.  The family room is a bit more complicated.  

Basically, we have to decide if the TV should go on the wall shared with the study or above the fireplace.  The fireplace is a beautiful stone that goes up to the ceiling.  They will put in an outlet in the stone for this.  I'm not sure if the TV would then sit on the mantle, or if we could hang in on the stone a bit up from the mantle.  Assuming we did that, I believe they would run the necessary cables behind the wall and then we would need something to hold/hide the cable box to the right or left of the TV.  We also need to decide placement of the couch(es) and chair(s).  We know that a new couch set is high on the list of things to buy soon after moving into the house but we don't know if it will be two couches or a combination with some chairs.  Decisions, decisions. Assuming the cost isn't outrageous, I'm now leaning towards putting two cable outlets in the room to provide flexibility and avoid regrets down the road.  

Next Saturday is the meeting I look forward to the most.  That's when we meet with the Design Gal (DG) to decide the flooring in the house.  We'll also confirm our cabinet choices, chose the granite for the kitchen, the brick and paint colors for the outside and probably some other miscellaneous items. Aside from picking the floor plan this has to be one of the most fun parts of building.  

Guardian Technologies