We stopped by the house Sunday to see what’s up. Looks like the major progress has been the rough wiring and plumbing stage. I’m not sure if they are done, but if they aren’t they are pretty darn close. Here’s a couple of examples of what we saw:
We stopped by the house again today to see the progress. Looking good.
We went by the house again today to see the progress. Wow are those guys quick. They’ve started framing the second floor. Here it is:
We had our builder’s meeting this morning. It went well. We had a nice surprise too. Take a look.
I’m working on a place to put this (look at the New House Stuff link on the right nav bar), but we’ve got progress on the house — we have a slab! Actually, we saw (and I don’t know the correct nomenclature for this) the wood framework started last weekend in preparation for pouring the foundation, but I just hadn’t posted anything. Well, they worked quick. We couldn’t wait to see if there was any progress and went down again on Wednesday and Friday this week to see what changes my have happened and on Wednesday they were digging around and had pipes sticking out of the ground. On Friday they had the slab poured, and on Sunday it looks to be more cured (much lighter surface color). I don’t know what the cure time is supposed to be before they start working on the main construction. Here’s a pic:
As a part of getting a new house one has to have the major appliances that go along with it. We’ve started the research into what to get. It’s not coming along quickly as there are a lot of choices and (naturally) few unified opinions. To start with, we went and bought a new vacuum cleaner on Saturday. I have read some postings from some homeowners that have bought houses from our builder stating that the final product we close on can be a real mess. That’s to say that the construction crews supposedly don’t clean up when they are done. I’m hoping this isn’t the case, but a good vacuum will be in order even if they do clean up.
We currently have an old hand-me-down Hoover that works, but sometimes leaves something to be desired. So, after lots and lots and lots (and lots) of reading we picked out a Kenmore. No, it’s not the fancy Dyson, but from what we’ve found, Dysons aren’t well suited to carpet and bagless vacuums aren’t for everyone anyway. 3 of the Kenmore Progressive canisters top Consumer Report’s list of ratings. Sears had them on sale, so we splurged and got the top of the line model. Well, we ordered it anyway. It’s supposed to be available for pickup on Thursday. It’s got some gadgets that probably won’t mean much, but some others that I think will be convenient. Vacuums sure seem cheap and plasticy now, though. They are nothing like the vacuums of days gone by, but there are certainly some advantages. No, you can’t throw them down the stairs anymore, but they won’t break your back lifting them, and the noise levels are dramatically lower. We’ll get to test this thing out getting the apartment ready for us to move out. Let’s see if it removes pet hair like it says it does.
Well, nothing to update about on the house. We went to see the progress again this weekend and there was nothing. The sales broker said a couple weeks ago that they were going to be doing our foundation “at the end of the month”, but there was nothing. I think their *might* have been a bit of work on the lot in the form of leveling it, but I can’t say for sure. If there was, it was so minor I’m not certain. Oh well, maybe we’ll hear something this week.
We had our Design Center appointment today. It lasted about 4 hours as we went through every single little detail. I think we came away with everything picked fairly well. The proof will be in the pudding. It was certainly a chore to stay within our means. Maxed out on upgrades could have easily gone up to maybe even $40k, but we tried to stay reasonable. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. The only real disappointment is the lack of networking in our choices. They wanted outrageous rates for single jacks and even their package deal had my mouth drop. No way am I paying $2020 for 4 network jacks (well, maybe 8 if they run 2 to a plate). I don’t know if I’d pay half that for network jacks in every room.
So, back to figuring out what refrigerator, washer, dryer, freezer (maybe), garage floor sealer, fence, blinds/shades,
Well we had a big week. Our house contract was ratified. I got a call to setup our appointment for the Design Center to choose our options and upgrades. Shinta was overly busy with a big project at work this week, so I ran over there to get a quick run through and pictures of everything. That gave us a big help in starting to think about exactly what we want before going in and choosing. We spent most of the week reading up on various things trying to get up to speed on everything (appliances, flooring, lighting, shades, etc). We’re certainly far from being experts, but we are a lot farther down the road now.
This weekend we got our taxes done. Luckily, it looks like we’ll be getting a refund. It’s not a ton, but every bit helps. We went back down the the edition we’ll be in and took a look at a couple of the inventory homes (and the model home) to see how the mostly standard options look compared to the upgrades. The standard kit isn’t bad. It’ll be fine, but we’ll see what kinds of upgrades we might be able to afford up front to make things a little nicer and not need upgrading later (the idea being why pay twice). Some things (like the balcony railing) look like necessary upgrades, but it’s going to be up to how much they numbers come out to be. The railing upgrade in the model home was nearly $9000, and that’s way out of our budget for ALL the upgrades we do combined. We’ve made a list of priorities and we’ll go through it at the design center with real numbers to see how it works out. One thing we’re fairly certain about is not going with the option to have some of the major appliances be supplied from the builder. We’re fairly sure they won’t have a very wide array of options and we’re still sorting through exactly what we want. We’ll have six months to get that worked out and find what deals we can. The two appliances included (the dish washer and range) we’re hoping we can do some changes on too. I’m wanting a gas range, but it’s electric by default. Also, we don’t know if the color/finish is selectable (it better be). There’s so much to keep track of…
We started the paperwork to build a house. This is not a duplicate post. The following Tuesday I got a call from the broker and she said our paperwork didn’t go through. It wasn’t a loan issue, it was a floor plan issue. Basically, the lot that we picked (and even put a deposit on to hold while we were deciding) didn’t fit the floor plan we chose. This was one of the larger lots left in the development, but a combination of easements and setbacks made the floor plan too long to fit. In fact, they checked (as this had already happened once before on the same lot with a different floor plan) and there is only one floor plan that they offer that would fit. Well, that they offered. The quarterly price adjustments (increases) came this week and the floor plan that fit is no longer being offered. We didn’t want that floor plan as it was too small, but who knows what they can do with that lot now, because buyers can’t choose a floor plan that will fit. I suspect it will become an inventory home.
It was rather disappointing to lose that lot. We’d already gone from “decide on a floor plan” mode to “decide on options (ie counter tops, colors, etc)” mode. To top it off, Shinta was out of town for training this week. So, after a bunch of back and forth with the broker (and her with the architect), we got some mini plans showing our chosen floor plan on some of the other lots. It was so disappointing to lose the larger lot, but maybe it will turn out for the best. The good thing is that this lot is certainly more level. It’s also a slightly higher elevation. If, for whatever reason, we get a huge rainstorm, water shouldn’t be standing on our property.
So, it’s back to interior decorating decisions…
