Days 113-120 Exterior & Drywall Completed & Doors/Casings installed

There wasn't too much fun stuff going on this past week, I had hoped to see paint on the walls...but nope. The exterior is all finished except for painting and stonework. The drywall is completely done and looks really great. I didn't see any places that needed to be touched up so that's a plus. They had installed all the doors and the casings around the windows. All the baseboards and trim pieces were sitting in the living room, there was a ton! I'm assuming they'll put all the trim up and baseboards up and then paint.

I asked when I needed to pick our stone out and they said "in a few weeks" That seems to be cutting our deadline of Christmas really close. We are at 29 days today. *nerve wracking* As of today we are still on track though to be in, according to our SR.

There are just a few things that are wrong:

• Our fireplace was supposed to be wrapped with a ledge completely around the base. They have to add the framing for it still, I brought it to their attention.
• The dining room window is still broken and needs to be replaced.
• The electrician installed conduit in our media room, I need to make sure they cut out the drywall for the box.

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Couldn't find my memory card so the pics are from my not so great I phone!

All the baseboards and trim in the living room

Master bedroom doors

Foyer

Lanie's Windows

All hardi-board is up

"The View" Sorry, it was freezing so I was a tad crooked! ha!

Things to do Interior:
Baseboards/Trim (Coffered ceiling crown/Dining room moulding and crown/9 decorated columns)
Paint
Cabinets
Flooring
Shower Tiled
Railings
Stone around fireplace
Counters/Faucets
Door hardware
Shelving
Toilets
Final electrical installs (fans/light)
Grates installed
Appliances delivered (this is on us, they are sitting in Lowes)

Things to do Exterior:
Exterior trim ( idk what it's called but under the roof overhang)
Gutters
Paint Exterior
Stonework/Pillars/Fill in porch
Final Grade
Landscaping
Screened in porch
Cement for walkway and garage/driveway
Cement for patio
Mailbox
Install water heater/hvac/etc..



We found out there are now 5 houses that will be starting construction in the next few months! We will have neighbors on both sides of us soon. I'm excited to see what kind of house they will be building....not so excited about the construction phase.

Days 110-112: Windows completed/ Drywall Almost Done / Failed Inspection

The last two windows have been installed! So happy that's done and I love the triple window in the front! The siding isn't completed; it looks like they have 2-3 days worth left. The back is almost done as well as the left side. All that's left on the front is the 2 gables with Shakes; I saw the shakes laying in the front yard so those will probably be done first.

There was a note posted on our inspection sheet that said "Seal boxes in envelope" This had yesterday's date on it; and looks to be the only thing they need to do in order to get the power turned on permanently. I wonder what that means? I can only think of the caulking around the windows. Those last two windows they just installed were not caulked so maybe that's it and we will have power in a few days. Then the "finals" begin!

I think the first of this week will be drywall repair; I noticed lots of imperfections. The last of this week should mean painting and trim! This is when it will get fun.

Pics are below, nothing majorly different from Wednesday, well other than the drywall but you can't really tell that in the pictures! I probably won't go back until next Sunday; because this is my final week of school for this semester and I have lots of studying to do.

Triple window, loving it!

Girls enjoying their new steps, blurry pic :(

My Favorite View of The House

Rate is Locked!

Whew! I have been waiting for this moment since March, haha. So stressful throughout this entire process! When we started, like a lot of you guys; the rates were around 3.50%. We locked today at 4.375%. I am happy with this. I thought I was locking at 4.50% but my loan officer called me and caught them in a random dip this afternoon. Sooooooo thankful! We locked in for 60 days and have to close by January 14th.

 

This is great, we can move in over the holidays and things will have

 time to settle down before closing.

 

 

I'm off tomorrow so I'm going to run over to the house to see what happened these last couple of days; will post tomorrow.

Days 107-109: More Siding & Second coat of mud, Cracks in cement and drywall

 

The house is looking great! We made some compromises today about the exterior. The guy was there that was over the siding and had already done some more that was incorrect :(. We talked and he said he asked the PM several times about the style of siding and was told the wrong stuff. So even since I emailed Sunday night about it being wrong; he continued to work on the wrong stuff unknowingly! Poor guy! I felt really bad because he had been working hard on it and I could tell he was frustrated however he was so nice and said he would change everything for us to make us happy because he didn't want us to settle on something we didn't love. After all that we decided to leave it as-is for two reasons. 1) We are sick of this building process, haha, but seriously. We don't want any more delays. 2) It does look really good...we would have loved to be a little different but this set up is a little more traditional and will never go out of style.

Almost done with the exterior, just these two sections left of regular horizontal board

The siding guy is also the window guy and still has the last 2 windows to put in; I can't wait to see the front with the massive triple window!

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Some questions now about some things we found. The basement floor has a TON of cracks...and they are not hairline small ; they are thick and crumbling :-/. This worries me.  I know some cracks are normal, but there are several cracks that span the width and length of the basement; and that's a large space. Our superintendent is going to check them out and get back to us. What can they do at this point?

 

Another issue is the drywall has major cracking and creasing on all of our arches in the downstairs. I'm wondering if this is because the windows and doors stay open and the cold air (we've had 30 degree days/nights lately) is making It shrink to fast? Because the upstairs arch has not one crack in it and there are no open windows up there? Not sure, I know they'll fix it.

I can tell they did the second coat of mud today because some of the walls felt dough-y still. Hopefully drywall will be completed by Friday and we'll have painted walls next week! Exciting!

Lanie's Room

Lanie's Room

Addi's Room

Addi's Room

Media/Bonus Room

Master

Entering master bath

Master bath

Master bath. Toilet on left, hallway to master and Justin's closet on right

Guest room--Who's my first visitor? :)

Living room through to Kitchen

Breakfast area to kitchen, garage on left

Garage

Dining room, to the far left is the family room

Another view

Family room

Kitchen through to living room

 

 

We will go back Sunday-I wonder if we will see paint? Probably next week...

Days 103-106: Taped & Mudded; More exterior (another mistake)

It was a beautiful day today, we drove up to the house and saw that the siding is almost done, yay! It looked gorgeous. There is still the back 1/3 to finish and one of the sides and a few gables. These are not the colors of the exterior, they still have to paint the navy and cream colors. Stone will be on the right bump out and on the garage between the brick and siding area.

I also wanted to say, thank you for your sweet comments on my last post. I really hope I love my home and I'm sure I will, but this process is really tough and it continues to be trying!

This side is completely finished

Almost done with the front

Just a little left

 

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When we got home I was drooling over the look of the front when I noticed something just wasn't right. Sure enough, there isn't supposed to be shakes on the entire section above the garage (picture below). It is supposed to be vertical board (like underneath the porch and beside the front door)

 

 

It's a huge bummer because I bet that took a lot of time and I know this material isn't cheap; but we have it in writing from our rep. that above the garage is vertical board as well as the top two gables. shakes are only supposed to be in the left top gable. I don't mind the shakes, but we are doing a two tone paint with the vertical board and it won't look right without the vertical board above the garage.

Similar to this I posted a while back

 

 

 I've emailed our rep. to bring it to her attention; however I still haven't heard back from her from last week's hardwood in the foyer issue; so we'll see where this goes.

 

The interior looked great, there were a few spots they didn't get to but for the most part, the first coat is done. They also put up all the corner pieces, I wonder how they get those covered because they are so chunky and thick! There were tons of bees and bugs in the rooms...I guess because the windows are being left open; kinda gross. Two of our tubs were filled to the brim with water, I guess the workers use that to mix their material?

Living room looking into kitchen

Lanie's Room

 

Master

 

Front entrance, family room and dining room in the far right

 

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They still need to install the 2 windows, and now fix the siding on the front of the garage. I am still waiting on a response about the foyer hardwood. Let's see what this Monday-Wednesday brings us...we'll head back up Wednesday afternoon!