Day 58 Pictures of Progress

It's hard to believe that in just 3 weeks we will have our keys.  In about 4 weeks we will be living in a new home.  So exciting and bittersweet at the same time.  We love our current house, and the more work we do to get it ready to be rented, the nicer it seems.  It's a little sad going for walks with the kids and knowing that the streets we've walked on the past 6years won't be there for us to walk on anymore.  There are just so many memories of the kids growing up here.  We've outgrown it though and we know it's time to move on.  We love the new neighborhood and we know it's going to be so awesome, it's just a little sad to leave this stage in our life behind.

The new house is coming along and looking gorgeous.  We really love everything about it!  The siding was supposed to be complete on Thursday so we thought we'd see that when we drove out Friday, but unfortunately it still wasn't complete.  The majority was though, and it looked like they might finish the rest by the end of the day.  The painters said they would be finished up on Saturday (I'm not sure if they are painting the door and pillars or if someone else does that).  I think next on the schedule will be installing the Kids/Guest bath cabinets and mirror and then all of the plumbing, door, and light fixtures.  We'll also probably be having the flooring and shower/bath tile installed soon.  Other things on the list are paving the driveway and walk-way and landscaping.

We were so excited when we saw the front of our house now with siding, some shutters, and trim.  It's exactly like we pictured if not prettier!  We love the look of fresh, clean, and traditional.  I love shabby chic and cottage style decorating and I think this house fits us so well!  It's pretty and traditional and seems so fresh and welcoming.

Sorry in advance for the bad pictures.  The camera was picking up a lot of the dust in the air and so the pictures are spotty.

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Here's our new home!  We can't wait to see it with the rest of the siding and shutters, and the front door (dark green) and pillars (white) painted.  Hopefully next visit it will be all done!  I am so glad we decided against the stone because this looks exactly how we would want it!

We were so happy to see the second coat of paint has a cream tint to it!  It's not just stark white like we thought!  You can tell with the trim painted white the slight difference in color.  I think this will be so great since some of the rooms won't be painted right away.

The trim is all in and caulked and painted.  The painters were working and said they would have it all finished up on Saturday.

Our handrail has been stained.  I think it was called Scandia Teak.  It's a little darker than we remembered but we actually like it more this color.

The doors are starting to be painted a brighter white.

The kitchen cabinets and countertops are now all installed.  We love the beveled edges on the straight counters and the breakfast bar.  The supports under the breakfast bar and island look nice too.

Cute little supports!

The gourmet island is even bigger than I remembered.  We love it!!!

We checked to see the color of our knobs/pulls with the cabinets.

We also checked out the faucet height and size with the sink (this is just the base).  The color of the stainless steel looks more off here because of how dirty the sink is.  We were happy that they agreed to install our faucet for us so we wouldn't need to change it out right away from the standard.  We chose the Moen Lindley Pull-down faucet.

The upstairs really is looking so finished.  The walls and trim look so nice!

The vinyl has been installed in the upstairs bathrooms and laundry room.

Master bedroom-showing trim.  It was a nice day out and nice to feel the breeze coming in the windows.  I just love the view of all the trees!

Master bath-mirror, cabinets, sinks, and granite installed! 

The wheat granite has more yellow than the samples and model.   I'll just probably work some yellow into the decorating colors to pull it all together.  I'm actually not that crazy about any of the granite colors Ryan offers.  Dan really wanted granite for the bathroom since we have it in our current one so this was his splurge!  I think the wheat granite in the model looks good from afar but up close it reminds me of bird poop splatters!  Sorry I know that's gross.  Even though this one is more yellow I think I might like it more because it's less poop-splatterish.

Our pretty house!  I asked Dan if he thought everyone would think it's the prettiest house they ever saw and he laughed at me.  But hey, my mom said it was the prettiest house she ever saw so maybe I'm right;)

Up close

Build Day 55 in Pictures

Here are some pictures of the progress. We decided to go out twice this week since things are moving so quickly (so we'll go back out on Friday).    We officially now are "locked out" of the house and needed to get keys from the model home for the first time.  This is from yesterday, Tuesday, Day 55 in our building process.

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Spanish Olive siding looks complete on the right side of the house.

It looks like they are currently working on siding the back and morning room.  Siding is taking longer than we expected (maybe from the heat?).  They had a small amount of siding last Saturday so they've worked Monday and Tuesday and we have just the one side completed so far.

Front still does not have any siding but they have put in our pillars on the front stoop.

The boys on our front porch/stoop with the new pillars.

The inside now has the first coat of paint.

Almost all of the interior doors have been installed.

We now have trim on our half-wall in the stairway.  I am so glad we went with the half-wall instead of upgrading to the stair rail balusters.  The trim looks really nice on the half-wall and I think the balusters are way too thin for our crazy boys.

We have hand-rails installed too.

Our kitchen cabinets and countertops are in.  It looks like they are just finishing up the island (that's half of it)

Another view of the kitchen.  We chose Rushmore painted maple butterscotch 42in cabinets with Antique Mascarello Formica 180FX countertops.

The standard 8in stainless steel sink. 

This shows how much room is in the cabinets.  As a point of reference I can only reach the bottom two shelves.

All of the cabinets have pull-out shelving.

Morning Room-showing the paint.

Family room

Trim is up around some of the doors.

Some of the window ledge/trim is being installed.

 Master Bedroom from the bathroom.  You can see the paint and closet door installed along with trim along the floor.

We also found some of the bathroom cabinets scattered throughout the house (these are dusty they don't really look streaky like that).  We chose the Wyoming Square Cherry Bordeaux.  This is half of the cabinet for the double sinks.

Pre-drywall Meeting

We had our pre-drywall meeting last night.  We got lucky and my Mom was able to come babysit (so I could go) and my Dad came along to the meeting as well as Dan's parents.  So we had lots of eyes to check things out and ask questions (while the kids enjoyed light-saber time with Grandma).

The meeting went well, nothing too crazy.  Some small gaps that will be filled with caulk or insultation, a chip in the front door, the morning room roof looked like it had a small dip in the shingles so that will be checked out, a too tight window in the morning room, and the stairs in the basement seemed like the one side wasn't perfectly straight.  The plumbing and electric was pretty much all done (I think the PM said some is still needed in the basement).  All the light boxes (not sure if that's the right term!) were in so we were able to see the rough-ins and the recessed light locations. We also saw all the outlet and lightswitch locations and the doorbell box location.

 A couple other things of concern for us were:

The outlet on the island will be on the opposite side than it was at the model.  We had liked it how it was at the model (closer to the family room) because I thought Dan could be way across the kitchen with the griddle and I could be at the stove for breakfast time.  No big deal though-we realized the stools would be closer to that side and it might actually work out better to have the griddle closer to the stove and further away from the kids if they are on the stools.

Still no budging on helping us out with pendant lights.  I keep hoping they'll just agree to rough them in even though we were late on the request.  No go.  Cutting drywall and routing wires doesn't sound like a fun project for us after closing.

The exhaust fan in the master bath is in the water closet instead of near the shower.  We heard this at pre-construction and I thought it was weird (didn't realize I could request it to be moved).  We are hoping it will still get the moisture out of the room and it won't just get all sucked up on the ceiling above the shower.  We'll have to try and keep the water-closet door open when showering hoping that'll do the trick.  Otherwise my Dad will have to help us install another fan.

The cable box still has not been moved.  It should have been moved a month ago.  PM is going to check with Armstrong cable again.

The fuse box is located in the area of the basement that we will be finishing later.  I guess there is nothing we can do about this and it just depends on where your stuff comes in from the street.  The PM said it has to be so many feet from the front of the house on that side of the street.  I'm hoping it doesn't stick out and the boys won't try and get in it.

Good things:

Our garage door was in!  Dan was so excited to see that and had the PM put it down so he could take pictures!  There are also little wired boxes (I forget what he called them) where our exterior lights will go on the side of the garage and the recessed light is now in the front stoop area.

The front door handle mystery was solved!  It actually is the door-knob typically used from the garage to the mudroom.  They didn't have our round-knob at the time so used this one.  We actually like it better than the round though so the PM said we could keep it!

We realized not only do we have pond or golf course view in girly's room but also in all of the other bedrooms (except master bc it has the wooded tree view of the back of the house)! We didn't see it before because of all the paper up on the windows. We had originally wanted a golf-course view until we saw the only lots open were close to the pond.  We didn't want to have to worry about the kids near the pond so we decided on the bigger wooded lot instead.  But because of the height of our house we got the best of both worlds!  Still a nice pond/golf course view but now also the wooded view, bigger yard, and no worry of the kids near the pond!  Score!  We are super excited about that!

Overall both of our Dad's were really impressed with the construction of the house and there were no major issues that needed corrected.

Next up: More inspections and insulation, drywall should start next Wed, and we are 3rd in line for siding.  Probably within 2 weeks we'll be seeing all of that completed!

Here's a couple pictures.  We didn't take many this time.  We probably won't go out to the house until next weekend so we should have drywall by then!

 All of the guys with the PM (I think they were talking about the air-return thing there)

The recessed lights in the kitchen

Light rough-in for the family room

I think Dan took this picture of the wiring so he knew where things are to tie in the pendant lights

 (I could be totally wrong though!)

 Garage door installed

House front now with garage door!  Can't wait until the trim, shutters, and siding are up!

Bedroom Dilemma and More pictures from Saturday

We were over at our friends house this week for a playdate (the ones that also built with Ryan).  They have a Ravenna and the Bonus Room is such a great size for a playroom.  Originally we had planned on using our smallest room for the playroom until we finish the basement (which is pretty tiny because it's a loft converted into a bedroom 9'4 x 10'6).  It got me thinking that maybe it would be smarter to use the largest kids room for the playroom (which was planned for the boys to share).  That room is 15'5 x 12 so close in size to the Ravenna bonus room.  If we did that we'd have to move the boys to bedroom 4 which is 13'10 x 10.  I think it would still work because the model had a bunk bed in that room and that's what the boys had planned on getting.  But then it would make the smallest room be the guest room and future nursery instead of bedroom 4.  We have a queen bed so that would be tight in the small room and it would be a smaller nursery (if we ever have another baby).  But, it might be the smartest decision since we'll spend more time in the playroom and don't have guests stay the night often.  We're still thinking on this...

I also wanted to post a few more pictures that we took yesterday.  And for my dear husband, I will now caption the bottom;)

 Garage door and handle-this is the same they used on the front door.  I'm not sure if it on the front door is an upgrade or a mistake and it's usually just for something else.  It doesn't look like a traditional exterior door knob:/  Anyone know?

I'm not going to pretend I know technical terms...HVAC vent hole?

More HVAC stuff

I think this might be a fan/vent because it's in the bathroom.

More HVAC and on the right in orange you can see some of the PM markings for the framers to fix.  Some of the things we saw he marked were bowed wood, spots that needed additional support, or a squeeky floor.

 HVAC in the master bedroom

Attic area of master bedroom

A squeeky floor that needs fixed in Bedroom 4