Sunday, May 29, 2016

Progress Report: Week 5- HVAC, Plumbing and Electric Complete!!!

Another week has come and gone with the home building and we are still loving our progress!  I seriously fall more and more in love with our house every time we go out to check things out!

This week, they finished up the HVAC and plumbing, and the electric and Guardian stuff was installed!   They also poured our garage, which was great!  Doors were installed as well as the basement window.

There seem to be a couple of issues, which we will bring up NEXT WEEK when we have our Pre-Drywall meeting!! It's scheduled for Thursday and we are thrilled to be this far along.  There is a leak in the roof where they have a plumbing pipe going out.  Gotta have that addressed.  There's also a leak by the roof where the kitchen and the morning room meet up.  Not sure what is causing this leak.  I'm a bit weary about this one as I read a blog this past week about a Ryan Homes home that has had a TON of issues with leaks in about this same spot.  Definitely wanna get that checked out.

It also appears like they haven't done the rough-in for the fan/light fixture in the morning room.  We added this on way late in the game, and had to pay a change order fee and such for it, so I wanna make sure this is getting done.  Not sure if it's just because of the slope of the roof there, and it'll be done later, or if it just got missed.

Also, with all the plumbing that's been installed, I don't see lines for the fridge for the ice maker and such.  Gotta check on that.

Other than that, the only other issue we have right now is something that we did ourselves with our Guardian picks and such.  We realize now after seeing the layout of the house and how we want to do our furniture in the family room once we get in that it's not going to be a good spot where we opted for the cable in that room.  Luckily {keep your fingers crossed for this} we were able to get in touch with Guardian and they're gonna send a tech out on Tuesday to either move the existing cable they installed, or just put a whole new cable in (and we pay for another line).  So, we just need to hope they get this done for us.  

We went out with Jason's parents and sister today to see the house and show them how amazing everything looks.  We got to see that all of our drywall has been delivered and is scattered throughout the house, ready to be hung.

Per our PM, the plan for next week-- Tuesday there will be framing inspections, Wednesday they've scheduled insulation installation, and then we have our pre-drywall meeting on Thursday morning!!

Here are some progress photos:  Stay tuned after the photos for a fun story!!

Garage with the beautiful floor!  So glad this has been poured

This bothered me for a few days, haha! Before this "note" was on there, I had gone through plans and was frustrated bc I couldn't remember where the door was for the powder room off of the family entry.  It seemed weird that it was RIGHT next to the toilet.  Well, this explains it!  They put this piece of framing on wrong.  It has since been fixed and all is right in the world of powder rooms.

Excited for plumbing!  Noticed that there are several spots where the hole is way bigger than the pipe that has been placed there.  Gonna just ask about these, but figure it won't even matter once flooring and all is in.

Washer hook-ups!

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful bathroom tub and shower! I love both of these so much!

Hall bathroom!  Part of me wishes we upgraded the tile around the shower instead of this surround, but I do like the spots where the shelves are and I know I can decorate this bathroom and be perfectly okay with it.

One of our ceiling fan rough-ins

Can lights!! Home of our future recessed lighting :-)

Electric stuff all throughout the house now <3

This piece of pipe goes out of the ROOF.  Not sure what it's for.  It caused a HUGE leak when we had storms roll through earlier in the week.  Gonna ask about this one.

These just amused me.  They looked like giant ole caterpillars or something.  And they were ALL over the house when we visited on Thursday.

Electric panel in the basement :-)

This is where it was leaking in the morning room/kitchen.  Not sure why, and it's not anywhere near the leak from the pipe upstairs in the master closet.  Gonna DEFINITELY make sure this is taken care of and looked into.  Hoping for more storms too so we can make sure everything is okay.

All of our doors were installed!! This is the door going from the morning room and will eventually take us to our deck.  Right now, it's a straight shot down to the ground.

They dug up a bunch of earth to put in some of these pipes and such.  Cables, electric, etc are running through there {I think}.

DRYWALL!!! This was the stack in the morning room, and it's stacked like this throughout the house, basement and garage!

Gorgeous walk out basement door. I love it so much

Last window to be installed, haha!! The itty bitty one in the basement {this is under the morning room}

Front view.  You can see drywall stacks in the garage!  Gorgeous blue skies too.  I just adore our future home.


And now story time!!

So, I am sure a lot of y'all know about the headache we have had with NVR.  We had a helluva time getting our information for all we needed for our mortgage, a less than stellar loan processor, and just an overall hard time with NVR in the beginning.  Need a refresher?  Catch it all in my NVR blog post.  

Caught up?  Okay.

Well, I get a call on Tuesday from our loan processor, Rebecca.  She was calling to inform me that she is stepping back from work for more time with her family.  We will be getting a new loan processor, who is all caught up on our loan and the information we still need to provide (bank statements each month), and will be contacting us within the next couple of days to introduce herself and to go over any questions we may have.  This was said to me both over the phone and in an email that was copied to this new loan processor.

Take note:  This happened Tuesday.  Today is Sunday.  We still haven't heard from this new loan processor.  If you can't gather it- I am not too happy about this.  I know it's the weekend, and a holiday weekend at that, and I don't expect to hear anything now until next week.... but when someone tells me and sends an email saying that we would hear from her... and we haven't yet?? Yeah. I'm not happy. Not at all.  I've sent an email already letting them know this and hope that we hear from them within a day or two after the holiday and get back on track with the better communication we were having.

All in all, we are thrilled with where we are at this point, minus a hiccup or two.  And hopefully after our pre-drywall, we are even more happy with everything.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! And for some of you-- I hope you're enjoying your new homes since you've closed on your homes!!


Sunday, May 22, 2016

Progress Report: Week 4- Shingles, HVAC and Plumbing

My oh my has it been a great week of progress at the house!!

I really thought that things would slow down now that framing has come and gone... but it hasn't!
There has been a bit more framing that has happened since last week..

Starting the week off....

They put the stairs in from the basement last week and we had ventured into the basement and "looked up"....

Well, we got more adventurous (and curious) and took those stairs up to check out the inside of the house.... I seriously think that each time we visit I fall more and more in love with this house.



We waited until Tuesday to go out to see how things were going, as we were told shingles were to be delivered and put on this week as well.

Well, the shingles were delivered on Monday.  I did a quick drive-by Monday to check them out...



I wasn't expecting to see the shingles ON the roof in piles, haha! I figured they'd be hanging out on the side of our house waiting.  But nope! There they are, in all their glory!

Our next trip out to the house was on Thursday.  I knew the shingles had been completely put on because I drove the highway home and could see them from the road.  So, we decided to head on out to see everything.  According to our PM, once the shingles had been put on, they would be starting HVAC, plumbing and electric.

And that they did!  HVAC had been started.  All sorts of stuff had been installed in the ceiling! Vents were on the floors and some other air-type hardware had been installed between the first and second floors, as well as the basement!

THEN! We went out today after the Reds game.  We weren't expecting a TON of progress, but there most definitely was!

Lots more HVAC stuff.  Equipment was installed in the basement.  Plumbing had also been started!!!!  Bathtubs were installed!  It's all so so so so so so so amazing!

Check out the photos:

5/22 view from the driveway!  Shingles are on, and our trash bin has been moved from one side of the house to the other, haha!!

Standing next to the front porch.

Water spigot!!! This one is on the right side of the house (porch side)

Morning room/exercise room (basement)

Inside the basement!  All of our hardware for HVAC stuffs.

more hardware in the basement

This is actually looking UP.  We are on the first floor, so this is plumbing for the second floor

Plumbing stuffs for the kitchen and bathroom off of the family entry way.

Morning Room  <3

This part really makes me mad.  These are our blue prints.  They were crumbled up like this in the garage last week.  This week, they're in the family room.  All crumbled and just a mess.  If you watch the video I posted later on... you'll hear me say some bad words regarding these plans.

We're calling this weird thing our banana phone.  It appears like its for electrical somethings, but for us- its the banana phone.

HVAC stuff.  This one is in the second bedroom

More HVAC stuffs


This is in the master bedroom

We loved seeing that our bathrooms had the bath tubs installed today!  This is the hall bath

<3 master bath

Master bath!  Tub, shower, and seat!

stairs going to the second floor

another view of the stairs going to the second floor

in the hall from the family room/front of the stairs, looking towards the garage

hall view.  You can see the front door

standing in the family room looking towards the dining room/living room

morning room <3

Jason standing on the stairs the lead down to the basement

basement stairs, with HVAC stuff to the right


can you see that gorgeous SOLD sign in the window!

And do y'all want a laugh for a second?? All the stuff with the center island, and the island I can't have... and we noticed that on the floor, they've marked where the island is that we are getting.....  Sigh.


And!  As an added bonus.....

We bought a Go Pro not that long ago so that we could video us during Opening Night Ceremonies for the Reds, because we got to hold a big giant flag on the field during the National Anthem.

Anyways- we decided to take the Go Pro to the house with us today and we took video of the house as we walked through it!



Fair warning! I do drop an F-bomb a few minutes into the video.  So if you don't like that kind of thing or get offended, it's probably best to watch the video with your sound off, or just not watch it.

But- you really should watch it.  It's fun, the commentary has me cracking up, and it's OUR house.  It's amazing!

The email from our PM at the end of this week told us that they'd continue HVAC, electric and plumbing this week and next, and then we would have our pre-drywall the following week!!!!!!!

So much excitement!  And we are seriously loving this home and can't wait for the next things to be done!!!