Closing plus two weeks.

It's now been two weeks since we've had our closing, and a lot has happened. I'm sure i'll forget stuff, but just wanted to post an update. As was planned, we got work on cabinet hardware and hanging curtains. Movers came on Saturday, and only mildly skanked up our walls, only marks and we're planning on painting soon anyway so I guess it doesn't matter too much. Spending our first night in the new house was a bit strange, almost like staying in a hotel. It just didn't feel like it was our home. It has gotten better in the past week or so though. We've slowly been working on things like getting the garage free of boxes, and getting things in their place. Trying to find where my wife put plates, glasses, and utensils took a couple of days, but is better now. The last of our family room furniture is scheduled to come tomorrow. After that i'll take a few pics and get them posted. We also have our fence install coming in two weeks. The company is actually busy enough to have a two week lead time. I was kind of surprised to hear that they were that busy this time of year. I'm building storage racks for the unfinished portion of the basement. I could of bought them, but just wanted to diy them. I'm gonna get the area where my shed will go prepped soon too, hopefully when it stops raining. Once that's in we should be able to get our cars back in the garage.

I now understand why so many bloggers disappear after they close. There is so much going on you feel very overloaded, and blogging is the last thing you want to do. All for now, hope to post pics soon.

Closed!!!

We had our settlement this morning at 10am.  The office is about 45 minutes from my mother in-laws, and traffic getting down there can be pretty bad sometimes, so we left early. We decided to leave around 8am, and hit one of the diners down there for breakfast. Get to the title agency, go in, sign a crap load of papers, and walked out homeowners.

I had to go to work not long after closing, so I only got to do a quick walk through. We dropped a couple of things off, and I was off to work. I've been getting updates from my wife all day. She unrolled her new area rug, which is not exactly flat right now, but i'm sure it will be after a while. She also picked up her drawer and cabinet pulls, and when I leave work i'm going to head over and start installing them. Curtain rods were supposed to be delivered today, so that might be a project for us in the morning while we wait for Guardian and bedroom furniture delivery. Movers are scheduled for Saturday, and when I get a chance i'll update with pics.

Pre-settlement done...

And the wait begins.

Had our pre-settlement meeting this morning. We showed up, and our PM greeted us at the door, with his dirty boots sitting on the front porch. I thought that was nice of him, not tracking in a bunch of dirt. We walked through each room, checking the condition of everything, and learning what switch operates what. Overall we were very impressed with the way everything turned out. There were a few minor issues that our PM assured us he would take care of. It was so great to actually walk through the house and see everything.

Now for some pics.

Start with the house on the outside. If you see the foundation below the siding on the garage. You can see the seams from the foundation pour. Our PM said he would get the guys to parge that so it looks nicer.

Family room, looking into the kitchen and morning room.

Kitchen, only got the laminate countertops for now, maybe granite later.

Morning room. Love all the light.

Family room, from the kitchen.

Family room, looking out towards the living room, and the stairs.

Front door, and foyer. Should of probably put this in earlier.

The loft, and wifey's future office.

Hallway leading to the master bedroom.

Master bedroom.

Part of the master bathroom. Need a wider lens to get the whole thing.

Walk in closet. I really like how they staggered shelves. You can actually get more clothes in there this way. We had planned on taking this stuff out, but might hold off on that for a while.

Finally one of the finished basement.

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.