Landscaping.

I had to go to Texas for work, so I haven't been by the house since Saturday. I got home yesterday, so the wife and I had to take a ride by so I could see the progress. While I was away she kept me updated, but it's not the same, as i'm sure many of you know. In my absence, the carpet was installed, as well as the countertops. Yesterday we pulled up to the house and saw that our landscaping was done too. They put several small plants in the front, and also on the side of the house. We drove around the neighborhood, and pulled up the side street towards the back of the house, and saw two trees had been planted in our side yard. We got out to take a closer look, but couldn't figure out what kind they were. A couple of the plants out front had tags on them so we could see what they were. Several white azaleas, and a few others we weren't sure of. It looked great, and can't wait to see it next spring, when they flower.

As far as the inside stuff, I was only able to look through a couple of windows, because the place was locked. From what I could see the carpet looked good, but i'm not sure I really like the countertops. We just got the laminate thinking we would swap out for granite or quartz after we moved in, so I guess it's not too big a deal. I don't know maybe i'll like them better when I can see them without having to peek through a window. That's all for now. Here are a couple of pics of the outside.

A few new pics, and a tentative closing date.

Went by the house this evening and took a couple of new pictures. Yesterday we found out that the hay and grass seed had been sprayed, and they put our mailbox out front. They also installed our outdoor light fixtures and outlets.

Today when I went by I noticed the A/C unit was in, and could see our ceiling fan in the family room. There were workers doing there thing so I just looked from the street. Another cool thing I noticed was that there are now stop signs and street signs in the neighborhood.

We also got word that our settlement date is tentatively scheduled for November 19th. Not really sure why it's not until late November, when our PM has us scheduled for pre-settlement walk through on October 23rd. I guess the house will sit there done for almost a month. Maybe settlement will get moved up, but i'm not getting my hopes up. Knowing the house will be finished is going to be torture.

As promised here are some new pics.

Update.

Went over to the model today and our SR was able to hook us up with a walk through of our house. A lot of work has been done in the last week. Paint, at least one coat is completed, as well as most of the trim work. Cabinets are installed, although one of them has a broken door. While we were walking through we also notice a lot of the recessed lights were in, and a few of the other lights. All the railings were in, not stained yet, and as I walked into the upstairs bathroom I was shocked to see the vanity mirror and lights were all in. The master bathroom also had the vanity and mirror installed. The tile was installed in both bathrooms as well.

Overall everything looked pretty good. There are a few minor things that will need to be addressed. It was so awesome to walk through the house, we've only been able to look through the windows lately. Walking through the future yard was cool also. I've already been looking at riding mowers as well as a new snowblower. There's going to be way too much snow to shovel being on a corner lot.


Here's some of the pics I took.

Electric, cabinets, and grading.

Friday we got our weekly update from our PM. He said drywall was finished and we were scheduled for paint this week. I took a drive by on Sunday to see if I could see anything different from the last time we were there. When I pulled up I immediately noticed a trench had been dug from the sidewalk to the side of the house near the electric meter. I was cautiously optimistic when I saw that, hoping that we would get our utilities ran soon. We have seen at least one house in the neighborhood that had a trench like this for more than a week with nothing being done. As our PM said, the drywall was complete.
Yesterday my wife and I really didn't plan on riding by the house, but we happened to be over that way, so why not take a look. As we drove down the main street leading to our house I could see a truck with that familiar paint job of the local utility company. We just did a quick drive by, but could see the guys were installing the meter on the side of the house. AWESOME! The one big thing that could delay the completion of the house was now being completed.
Today was another day we hadn't planned on visiting the site, and that almost happened. I got a call from one of the guys at work this morning wanting to know if i had a particular sized socket he could borrow. I know I had one, but this meant going over to the storage unit to get it. On the way back I figured, hey the house is less than a half mile down the road, so why not go take a look. I pulled in and saw the trench was all filled in. There was also a bulldozer doing some grading. They were finally working on taking down this large mound of dirt in the back corner of our lot. I went down the street a little bit and turned around to leave, but I decided to take a quick picture with my phone. While I was doing that a worker happened to see me sitting there and said hi. I had seen this guy around and knew he was working with our PM. He explained he's our PM's trainee. Very nice guy and was able to give me an update of what was going on. Surprisingly he said they were installing cabinets today. I couldn't believe it. He did say it makes more work for the painter, but they spoke to him and he said it's fine he'll just mask everything when he paints.

Wifey took a ride by this evening to check it, and sent me a few pics. Here ya go.

This was from the other day.

Drywall being installed.

Just wanted to post a quick update. They started installing our drywall yesterday. My wife and I took a drive over to the park that backs up to the development, so we could take the dog for a walk. This also gives an excuse to walk past the house and see what's going on, like we need an excuse. As we're walking up our new street we could see a couple of vans parked out front, so we knew some work was being done. It was about 6:30pm and the guys were still hard at work hanging the drywall. Not wanting to be in the way we just looked in the windows from the street. It looked like they were making great progress. From what we could see, most of the downstairs area was complete, and at least some of the upstairs too. The garage was complete, other than the ceiling. A couple of other things we noticed were that our gutters and downspouts had been installed, and the sidewalk was poured. I really couldn't get any pics with the workers still there, but when I get them i'll post them. Now that it's getting dark earlier, and the workers stay until close to 7pm it's harder to get in when they're not around.

Pre-drywall

Woke up yesterday morning and headed over to the homesite for our pre-drywall meeting. Our PM drove up shortly after we arrived, and we got to it. The meeting was pretty straight forward. We made sure all of our add on recessed light fixtures were in the correct spots, they were. We also made sure Guardian put their stuff in the right spots, they got it almost right. We opted to have the pre-wiring for surround sound in the basement, and one of the locations was incorrect, ok not too bad. Overall everything looked good to us. I think reading through so many blogs gave us a good idea of things to look for during the walk through.

Our Pm told us our Pre-settlement walk through is scheduled for October 23rd, which actually doesn't feel that far off. He mentioned, as i've seen in other blogs, that the biggest thing that can hold us up right now is the local utility company. In fact he has one home that he's lost ten days on so far due to lack of utilities. Hoping we don't run into that issue. As I mentioned in my last post we have a driveway, well as we were making our way out of the garage a worker pulled up in a back-hoe and started digging the area between the driveway and the curb for the sidewalk. The wife and I took a ride over today to see if the sidewalk had been poured, but it wasn't, all the forms were in place though. We'll check back Monday afternoon.

I'll end this with some pictures, Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

First pic is from the basement near the furnace.

Next two are of the second bathroom upstairs. First one is from inside the bathroom, you can see the loft on the other side of the tub. The second pic is from the master bedroom closet, looking in.

From one of the second floor bedrooms, looking towards the master bathroom.

 This one is from inside the powder room looking into the family room.

We have shingles.

Haven't blogged in a few days, but I wanted to wait until the roof was complete. They started to put the shingles on Thursday, but only got the main portion of the roof done. It rained overnight into Friday and again on Saturday, so nothing was done. Surprisingly I saw them working on the house this morning, finishing the roof. I couldn't believe they were working on a Sunday.

We also have our siding and shutters sitting in the front yard, and pipe for the plumbing in the garage. Can't wait to see the house with the siding on, will update then. For now here are some new pictures.

The wife and I also had to put something on one of the studs inside before they get covered up with insulation and drywall. Just kept it simple.

We're also huge Seinfeld fans, so I had to add this to the powder room on the first floor.

This one is from down the street. It's starting to look like a neighborhood now. Our house is on the right. To the far left is a Ravenna, then fellow blogger Frank Andre's Rome is the white one. Tucked in the back is another Ravenna.

Getting there.

A little more progress. Looks like all the windows are in, the roof trusses over the garage are in, and stairs from the garage leading into the laundry room were built. They also put the roof on the morning room. Looks like the roof sheathing will be next. There was also a pile of shingles out front.

Not long after we got home last night we got a call from the Guardian rep. He said he needed to schedule a walk through with us for the placement of our selections. We were blown away that this was happening already, so Friday evening we'll be walking through seeing where our cable hookups will be. That's all for now.

First pic is looking into the garage.

Second floor

We have a second floor, and some roof trusses. The wife and I drove by yesterday after I got home from work. As we're approaching the house we could see a piece of the roof about to be lifted into place. We've been getting lucky at seeing some cool stuff so far.

We decided to sit and watch a little of the process. While we were sitting there we were remarking how tall the house looked. It looked as tall as the Ravenna being built across the street. This surprised us, because most of the Florence models we've seen don't look nearly as tall. The pitch of the roof looked much steeper than any Florence we have seen too. I even pulled out a picture of a Florence from a different development that has our same siding to compare. Maybe it's just an illusion, like so many things look strange during the building process. Maybe it is changed? During our pre-con the SR and PM told us there had been a few changes on the Florence. They weren't sure if ours would be getting these changes so they really didn't want to say what they were. I can kind of understand that, not wanting some change to come along and someone being ticked off that they didn't get it. Now we're thinking this might be one of the changes, we'll be asking our PM if he knows.

In the meantime, i'd like my fellow Florence bloggers to look at these pics and see what they think. Is it steeper? Is it an illusion? Am I nuts? Let me know what you think.

End panel being lifted.