Smooth Criminal

I apologize for not posting pictures as soon as possible like promised.  Guess I'm not only a criminal, but a liar, too.  But we'll get to the criminal part later.

Our Friday Walk-Through with John went well; dude is a creeper, but that's neither here nor there.  Anywho, Adam, my mom and I got to see the place with painted walls and cabinets and tiling and all the jazz.  Looks like a real house! I got the run-down of what's supposed to happen next - shelving, dry-wall and paint touch ups, appliance deliveries, carpeting, etc. etc.

On Sunday, Adam's mom wanted to check out the house since she hadn't seen it with walls yet.  We figured we'd stop by, see if the doors were unlocked and if they were, show her the place.  Here's where things get good... So, we find out that the back door is unlocked and walk through the house with mom, blah blah blah, floors, cabinets, blah blah blah.  Before we leave, we make sure to turn all of the lights off, lock the doors (which weren't done prior to our arrival), and head out.  As we're walking out of our front door I look up and say, "Uhhh, Adam? Cops are here."  Turns out our illegal walking through the house actually got noticed! Oops! Apparently, one of the neighbors called us in - thought we were "stealing materials"... on a Sunday afternoon... driving our nice, little chevy malibus.  Right.  We calmly explained to nice officer that we are the home owners, were just showing the place to our mom, and were not, in fact, stealing the materials.  He let us go with a warning.  Or with a, "that's what I figured.  Have a nice day."  Either way, we left with more pictures of our home. 

Anywho, we stopped by yesterday and the painters were there finishing up the doors and baseboards.  We didn't want to be in the way, so we just looked around the first floor; our new black flat top stove, microwave, and dishwasher had all been delivered and were unpacked and hooked up, so that was fun.  The painters told us that the carpeting would be going in tomorrow (Friday).  I can't believe that we're moving in 14 days.  Two weeks from today! We've been able to switch over all of our utilities, have set up trash pick-up, are in the process of trying to set up Cable and Internet, and I called the US Postal Service to have them send in a request to make our address "valid."  May not hear from me again until Closing (so long as everything goes as planned)... we have a lot of packing and cleaning to do :-)

Good News!

Adam got a (happy!!!) phonecall from John today! We'd e-mailed him asking if the drywall had been finished (since his projected finish time was yeterday [Wednesday]) and his response was most pleasant! Not only is our drywall finished, but the walls are painted, the hard flooring is in, and the carpet trimmers are in doing whatever they do! Woo hoo! For the first time it sounds like we're ahead of schedule and I'm so happy! And our gutters have been put on!

We're going to  meet John tomorrow after work and get a walk-through to see how the house looks with walls and floors! I'm so incredibly stoked! We'll post pictures as soon as we can :-)

The Long Journey to the Pre-Drywall Meeting

Last week was a little crazy...

We were supposed to have our pre-drywall meeting last Friday (February 24th) but that never happened.  About halfway through the week, John called us saying there were going to be some (more) delays.  Apparently, the anchor bolts (which are used on slabs - to hold down the framing to the concrete) that the subcontractor used were different than the ones on the blueprints, therefore when Montgomery County did their inspections, our house failed.  John's architect then had to write a letter to the County asking for approval on the bolts and it became a huge thing.  Adam and I are not big fans of things. 

The next day, John called to say they were waiting to hear back from the County, but basically couldn't do anymore work until it was resolved.  Towards the end of the day (and after hearing Adam vent) Adam's lovely mom, Gail, who works for the County, decided she'd take a little walk to the Building Inspections Division.  She basically asked them where our permit was and if it had been approved, and, what do you know? It had been, and had been sitting on the desk for the majority of the day waiting to be picked up! Guess the County had contacted the subcontracter letting them know everything had passed/been approved, but they failed to call Ryan Homes.  After getting this information from his mom, Adam called John and told him they could continue working on our house.  We decided that Gail could be our Project Manager from here on out.  Thanks again, Gail!

After all of that, John told us that that once the framing inspection had been completed (and passed) then we could go forth with the pre-drywall meeting.  But wait! John told us we needed to change our attic access before the framing inspection (which is actually in a better place for us than it would have been)... in doing so, they had to move some wires... which meant there had to be another electrical inspection followed by another framing inspection.

With these problem, John told us he wasn't thinking we'd be in the house in March at all.   This did not sit well with either of us, especially since we'd been told time and time again, throughout the entire process, that getting into our new house in March wouldn't be an issue.  I took the liberty of contacting Sherrie (our Ryan Homes Rep) and did some serious bitching.  I hated to do it, but hey, it worked! Not long after I talked to her, Adam got a phonecall from the Ryan Homes - Dayton Division giving us our official final walk-through date (March 28th) and closing date (March 29th)! Hooray! Our lease is up on March 31st, so it's definitely cutting it close, but it's better than not having a place to live at all! I'm sure with a little help from our family and friends (cough hint cough) and some muscles and coffee we'll get it all taken care of!

John called Adam this morning, and on our lunch breaks we were actually able to have our pre-drywall meeting! Yay! Finally! We did our walk-through with John and he explained some things that we weren't sure of/showed us where some important things were.  Inside, they had almost finished insulation and the drywall was actually being delivered (and sent through one of our upstairs windows)! They should have drywall complete by next Wednesday, and then will start on painting, flooring, cabinets, etc. etc.  I asked John to give us a call when drywall is complete so we could come in and take a look at it with actual walls.  I can't wait!

The outside is pretty much finished, as well.  The siding went up towards the end of last week (and was finished on Saturday) and they started putting up our cobble stone today.  John said he called and ordered our gutters and they should be in any day now.  I'm ecstatic by how the outside of our house looks.  I think it looks absolutely amazing.  I can't wait until they paint our door red! Then it will be perfect!

I'm very happy to say that things are coming along nicely... and I hope it stays that way!

Here are some more pictures, as promised...

The two pictures below is our drywall being delivered (through our masterbedroom closet window)!

Happy President's Day!

Not enough has happened to give you your much needed daily blog, but I suppose it's about time to fill you in on the happenings around here.

Last week, we got a call from Sherrie telling us that since we had a roof on our house it would be a good idea to look into locking our rate.  Originally, we had been quoted a 4% interest rate, but when Adam talked to Dean (our NVR Mortgage Rep) the rate was down to 3.75% and there was a cash back towards closing incentive.  We were pretty excited about that, because we weren't expecting any incentive and it'll take our monthly payment down about $20 which is really nice.  In order for us to lock in our rate, we had to give Dean a "closing date" which we hadn't been able to get out of John (Proj. Manager) yet.  After some prompting he finally gave us March 28th or 29th.  Ugh.  Totally not what we wanted to hear.  That'll give us about 2 days to move and clean the house we're in now.  Hopefully they get their little heinies in gear and make up for lost time. 

When Adam talked to John about the closing date, he also told us we'd have our pre-drywall meeting this Friday, Feb 24th (or next Monday - depending on if they'd be able to get all of the inspections they needed done today since it's a holiday - lets hope for Friday)!

Before our pre-drywall meeting we were supposed to meet with Guardian and do a walk-through with them to discuss where the cable and internet jacks would go, along with Adam's speakers, subwoofer, etc.  We actually e-mailed Sherrie last night asking her to give us Ron's contact information (our Guardian contact) so we could set up a time to meet with him.  This morning, before we even got a response from Sherrie, Adam got a phone call from Ron saying one of his men was at the house and needed one of us to go do the walk through.  Talk about last minute! Guess it wasn't just us, though.  Ron got a phone call this morning, too, saying it was time for Guardian to get over there and work their magic. Luckily, I'm off work today for the holiday and was able to race up there.

The walk through with Jeff (from Guardian) was barely 5 minutes.  Guess technically we didn't have to be there, but it was nice to see the house in the daylight (and walk through it legally - haha).  I had my mom meet me up there and we walked around inside and outside for a bit, talked to one of the workers (Ian, who was very nice).  It was funny, when we left there were only 3 people working on the house (two guys working on the heat and a/c ducts, and Jeff from Guardian).  I went over to my mom's to grab lunch, and an hour later when I drove past on my way home there was a semi-truck in the driveway from an electrical company, another van for heating and a/c, and the Guardian van.  I guess they plan on getting a lot done inside today!

There hasn't been too much visible progress on the house (at least not from the outside).  Since I've last updated, they've finished the roof and garage and finished putting in all of the plumbing rough-in's as wells as our bath tubs.  I'm pretty excited to see what's been done today when we drive by again later tonight! I'll probably update again after the pre-drywall meeting.  In the meantime, here are some pictures to enjoy :-)

 We've got a garage door (see below)!

 The next picture shows the completely finished roof (over garage and front door, as well)...

The following pictures are just random plumbing pipes that are run throughout our house.  I thought it was pretty neat. It reminded me of Blue Man Group - but not as fun.  And you couldn't talk through one tube and have someone hear you through another tube on the other side of the room. 

 Here is our extra bathroom tub!

 And last, but not least, is a picture of me standing in my tub! Oversized masterbath soaking tub.  Sighs.  I can't wait.  For my birthday my mother-in-law and sister-in-law got me lots of things to use for my new tub - bubbles, wine, candles, chocolate, new towels, etc.  Can't wait!

You Make a Better Door than a Window

Talked to our Project Manager today; he said everything is coming along nicely.  Our closing date should be late March (hopefully not too late in March - we need a place to live!) and we should have our pre-drywall meeting week after next!

I asked John about how many people were working on our house so I could drop off coffee and donuts one morning and he said that on some days there could be up to 50 people! I couldn't believe that! The most I've seen working on the house at a time are seven.  Maybe they're sneaky and quick like ninjas?  Who knows. 

Today, when Adam and I went by the house the biggest difference we saw was that they put in most of the windows and doors.  That was it.  But hey, doors and windows are important!

I really am very excited about our Morning Room.  It looks really nice and I'm so glad that we got that incentive - I can't imagine our house with out it.

Check out that sliding door! Sadly, it's not on the tracks so we couldn't close it.  I'm sure they'll fix that though, right? Here's hoping!

That's about it for Day 3 of framing! Toodles!

Raise the Roof!

The roof... the roof... the roof is on our house! Woo! We decided to illegally go inside again but went one level higher - literally! We very sneakily (and verrrrrry carefully) went upstairs! We got to see all of the rooms and they even put the bathtubs in their appropriate bathrooms! We even got to stand in our bedroom... but then the floor creaked and I freaked out so we went back downstairs.  But either way, more progress and happiness! Yay!

The Glorious Erection (...of our house... sheesh)!

Here ye, here ye! We actually have a house (kind of)! There hasn't really been much to update you all on since ground breaking.  Honestly, not really sure what they've been doing for the past two weeks other than piling up some dirt and digging a hole.  Yesterday, they finally poured our foundation and today, they started framing our house! It's absolutely incredible how much they accomplished in 8 hours.  It went from being just a slab of concrete and now they have the entire bottom floor framed, and have started the top floor as well! We've driven by every day since our groundbreaking, and today we finally were able to see something! Here are some pictures from the entire progress (from right before ground breaking to today).

The first picture is our plot of nothingness with the bunch of sticks in it (which I mentioned in an earlier post - not pictured are the orange pillows on the street). 

 This next picture is what happened after ground breaking.  Lots of dirt piles and bricks.  Woo.

In the picture below (you can't really tell, but...) the foundation is poured and the ground is leveled out.  We've been looking at pretty much this picture for the past week or so.  A whole lot of nothing to look at, but apparently the guys had been there every day doing... something...?

And now... A HOUSE! Ta da! Isn't it beautiful? I illegally ran inside the house (in the morning room - Adam reluctantly followed me) to get a peak.  It was awesome! We could see our pantry and our stairs and other parts of the house barely being held up by one beam!

So, now that they've started framing there should be some serious blog updates from now on! Pretty soon we should meet with our Project Manager and get a walk-through before dry wall goes up, and we'll also meet with Guardian to talk about where all of our outlets and such go! So ready! Hooray! Peace out.