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.