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)!