Too good to be true?

In the back of my mind, I've been a little worried that everything seemed to be moving to smoothly, and I've been mentally preparing myself for the news that something is going to be delayed.  Well, I got that phone call on Thursday.  I'm still not sure what the whole story is, but apparently last week, someone stole the wire connecting the house to the main electrical supply.  A new wire was ordered and the power company (West Penn Power. GRRRR!) was supposed to be out Thursday to hook it back up.  Our PM talked to them Thursday morning to verify they were coming and was informed they would not be out until Monday.  We are supposed to close on Tuesday, which doesn't give our PM enough time to get all of the inspections completed before closing.  We were initially extremely upset.  We have sitters and movers lined up and now everything has to be rescheduled.  We even tried calling the power company ourselves to see if we could get them out sooner.  At the end of the day, it's not as bad as initially expected.  Our biggest concern was that the movers wouldn't be available.  We only have our storage until through December 15th, so if we couldn't get movers scheduled before then, we'd have to pay for another whole month for the units.  So, now we're closing December 13th and moving the 14th and I'm crossing my fingers and knocking on wood that nothing is delayed going forward. Here's hoping!

Final Walk-Through Scheduled... I think?

We are getting really close to closing and part of me is super excited, but the other part is nervous that something will go wrong and we won't be able to close next week.  Hubs has been very diligent about getting in touch with NVR to make sure they have everything they need, since they don't seem to be concerned with asking for everything themselves.  We've had a few different days/times tentatively scheduled for our final walk-through, but I think we're finally down to an official day.  Time is still yet to be determined. I'm definitely starting to get annoyed with the whole process and how nothing ever seems to go according to schedule.  It's frustrating that I'm living 45 minutes away with a baby, so I plan to be in the area for something and it ultimately gets pushed back a day or two.  Haven't they built enough of these things that the timeline should be fairly consistent? I also can't wait to see what happens in our final walk-through with a few issues in the house.  We try not to bug our PM too much with small issues that we see because we realize he may not have done an inspection yet, but when there are obvious cracks in cabinets that have been hanging for weeks, it was time to say something and not just hope that they would be fixed in the next few days.  I understand that he's busy, but our home is also a priority and he should be there to look at things before the last week and hope that everything he needs to get fixed will.  I have a feeling there will be a lot of post-its hung around the house for our 30 day inspection. Every switch plate will be hung level if it's the last thing I do!

Blinds

We bought blinds!  It was kind of an impulse thing one night right before bed.  Hubs saw a sale going on at JCPenney's, so we checked them out online and in addition to the sale, there was an extra 25% off the entire order.  Score!  So, we ordered two different types.  Bamboo for the morning room and cellular for the rest of the house, and all of them are cordless.  A few days after we ordered them, I was having some doubts that we ordered the correct size, so we swung by the house yesterday to take some measurements.  We had ordered 36x64, but the windows are about 35" at the top and some of them are close to 34.5" at the bottom.  Darn!  There's still another day to get the sale price, so I'm going to re-order them tonight.  The blinds came today, so I got one out of the box to make sure that I like the color and to measure it.  Love the color and the blinds are 35.5", so we're going to order the 35x64, which should be 34.5 wide and fit perfectly!

The sale price is awesome and free shipping!  For anyone that's been looking, here's what he paid:

Double Cellular Shades - Originally $110/piece, we paid $41.25/piece
Bamboo Roman Shades - Originally $82/piece, we paid $30.75/piece

Here are pics of what we ordered:

JCP Home Cordless Double Cellular Shade

Natural Woven Bamboo Cordless Roman Shade

 Now we need to make a decision on which refrigerator to buy...

*UPDATE:  It all seemed so easy, right?  Well, apparently, I didn't measure the blinds exactly and they're closer to 35.75", so they won't fit in the bottom of the window, but we're not positive, so we're going to order  both the 34" and 35" ones.  The other issue is the length. Even though they say 64" long, when pulled all the way down, they pull back up to about 58", so we might order the 72" length, just to be safe.  I can see why people have blinds custom measured!

Weeks 10, 11, 12

Time to play catch-up!  I feel like I haven't been up to see the house in a long time, but the hubs has been there regularly to see how everything is coming along and has been sending pics.  I'm so excited that the siding is done and can't wait to go see it in person. We've really been worrying about how everything will look, but i think we'll be happy. I think the hubs is a little iffy on the berry shutters, but I like them! It will definitely be one of the more colorful houses in the neighborhood.  It seems like there are a lot of white/yellow houses right now.

I love the brick accent and the extra roof tier with the garage extension!

Closing Scheduled

We finally got our closing date!  We've been asking for what seems like forever for a final date and have just been given ballpark weeks.  The final inspection on the house will be December 4th and we'll close on December 10th.  Can't see we're entirely thrilled with the long wait between the house being finished and closing, though.  If the house can be done this quickly, how long does it take to get the paperwork ready?  I feel like we've given NVR information on every aspect of our life, with the exception of maybe our kindergarten report cards.  Now I need to check on our storage units, because if we have to pay for an extra month, there will be some phone calls made.

Week 9 - Brick complete and kitchen delivered

So excited to see some pics of stuff that will go into the house!  The brick is exciting, too, I guess!

Love how the counter comes with the sink already installed

Kitchen cabinets!

Week 8 - Drywall

We went to check the house out late last week and were super excited to see the drywall was all up.  They still need to sand and paint, but it's awesome to see the house with some walls.  They also started our brick this past weekend, so we went over again to see it.  I think we're happy with it, but I'll have a better idea once I see it with some siding.

Garage

Morning Room

Kitchen

Family Room

This is one of the transfer grille's I was talking about in a previous post.

Brick on the back of the house

Pre-Drywall Meeting

Pre-drywall meeting is complete! I'd like to say that it was super exciting, but we've been to look at the house so many times now, that there really wasn't anything new to look at.  The meeting was fine and our PM explained a lot of things in the house.  We were okay with everything while we were there, but after talking about a few things later between the two of us, there were a few things we weren't thrilled with. They're just minor issues and nothing that was done incorrectly, just not what we were expecting. 

One of that things is the return air for the two bedrooms.  The master bedroom has it's own return air vent, but the two other bedrooms will have transfer grilles above the doors. At first I wasn't thinking anything of it, just that, yeah, I guess that makes sense to vent the rooms, but my husband brought up the point later that you'll also get noise coming in and going out of the vent. This must be something that has changed since we signed our contract because I'm pretty sure the model home doesn't have these. After talking with a few people, we don't think too much noise will come through.  I guess it's better than undercutting the doors, which I think was what they did in our RH townhouse.

The other thing we're not entirely thrilled about is the way some of the piping was installed in the basement. Since we're not having RH finish the basement, they didn't take the time/effort to place some of the pipes/wires so that it would be easy to finish the basement.  When we go to do it, now, we'll definitely have to re-run some wires and either move some piping or make a larger bulkhead.  Also, the main water line coming into the house was put in a position that we'll have to build a wall out around it instead of it being tucked in under the stairs. Again, these are just minor issues, but it's a little bit disappointing that they're doing things differently just because they're not the ones finishing the basement.

I realize it's not a custom home and we can't have everything our way, but we're still paying a lot of money and it would be nice to know that they have our best interest in mind during construction. Oh well. On a happier note... drywall starts this week and the brick will also be delivered!  I'm excited to see what the brick will look like on the house, especially once the siding goes on.

Locked!

I haven't been worrying too much about interest rates, because my husband is worrying about them enough for both of us!  The good news, is, though that we finally locked our rate!  It's nowhere near where it was when we first started looking, but it's not bad.  Hopefully they don't go down soon or we'll be sad that we locked so soon.  The good news is that we're under 60 days until close!  We have our pre-drywall meeting early next week then hopefully time will fly by after then!

Week 6 & 7

The house is coming along great!  Now that all the framing is done, it's time for all of the utilities are going in.

Garage Door!

Fireplace insert

Duct work in kitchen

Main Bath

Furnace

House plans taped to sliding door. 

Week 5 - Framing

I was shocked to go see the house this week, because it finally looks like a house!  They worked super hard this week and got all of the framing done!  Apparently, we were pretty lucky in the timing of everything that the framing showed up on site and the framers were available to start on it the next day.  Sometimes people have to wait weeks for the framers to be available.  If everything goes according to plan from here on, we should be having our pre-drywall meeting in 2 weeks and the house should be done by late November, maybe first week of December.  We were originally told December 10, so if we can get in earlier, that would be great!  I can't wait to start decorating for Christmas!

First floor framing complete, view of morning room.

Front of house, first floor framing.  I'm so glad we did a 2' extension on the garage, because I like the different levels of roof on garage and entryway.

Kitchen with view of the pantry.

Standing in kitchen looking into morning room.

Family room looking at fireplace

Dining Room (which will be our play room).  Front door opening to right.

Upstairs bedroom on front of house.

Bedroom 2

Master Bath

Standing in Loft looking at stairs and 2 bedrooms.

Basement. Utilities will go on left

Basement looking back at bathroom rough-in

Basement doors to back yard.

Framing complete on both levels!  It finally looks like a house!

Week 4 - Foundation Poured

Not too much exciting this week, but the foundation was poured and all of the framing showed up on the site. I'm still amazed at how small everything looks, even though I know what it will look like when finished.

Garage on Left, Basement below.

Our front door and windows arrived!

Basement with supports for stairs.

Week 3 - We have basement walls!

Time to play catch-up!  It's been a little hectic running back and forth between both parent's houses and living out of suitcases, but in my absence online, the house has really been coming together and it's amazing how fast things are moving along.  They got the basement walls poured during week 3!

View from the back of the house. The hole will be our doors to backyard

Garage

Plumbing in basement

Week 2 - Footers/Foundation Walls

The footers are poured (pics are in week 1 post, oops!) and the foundation walls are getting ready to be poured next! Also, I'll be doing my best throughout this whole process to get all of the construction lingo correct, but don't be surprised if I get some (or many) things wrong!

Week 1 - Breaking Ground

Well, it's official! Our house construction has begun!  It was very exciting in theory, but not very exciting to see. Still makes us happy to finally see some progress and the beginning of our journey!

Site is dug!

Footers are in!