Week 13- Pre Settlement Walk Through

We have been blue taped!!!

We had our pre-settlement walk through this morning.  It went really well and was really easy.  We don't have many things that need to be done, so that's a plus.  I had my dad and granny with us that way they could be an extra set of eyes to check out everything.  That worked well because they did see a couple of things.

I think the walk through lasted about 2 and a half hours.  The first bit was just going over warranty stuff and all of that mumbo-jumbo.  So that part was pretty easy.  After that we walked through the house and we were shown how everything works.

We didn't use too much blue tape, but there were a couple of spots that need touch ups.  A few spots on the cabinets were the main thing.  We have the cabinet company coming out for touch ups later this week.  A couple of spots need paint that look like they were fixed but never painted.

They need to drill a hole in the floor where the fridge will be so we can run our ice maker line down to the basement to connect it for ice.

They need to touch up some of the stone work outside, and install the shutters over the porch window still.

And then there was a list of things to "get".

We were told to seal our driveway before the winter.

The deck needs to be sealed as soon as possible.

Water the yard a lot and often.

Seal the grout.

Get new hoses for the washing machine.

So we headed to the hardware store after the meeting was over.  We got some hoses, sprinklers, grout sealer, washing machine hoses.

We talked with the paint guy at Lowe's and he told us that we need to wait for the wood to "dry"-- about 6 to 8 weeks.  Stains and sealers are oil based and won't stick with the wood being "wet" still {because they're pressure washed}.  So yay to that.  We want to do this stuff once it's a bit cooler out.

Tomorrow at 11 we close and get the keys!

And then we pack up our stuff and FINALLY move in!!!!!!

So, back to packing so we can get outta this town home and into our DREAM HOME!

Furniture and Appliance Shopping!

Okay.... so it's window shopping for now. Or more specifically, online shopping.

We have known for a while now that we will need a refrigerator.  Most definitely did not want to pay what Ryan Homes wanted to charge for a fridge, or consider the fact that we would be paying a 30 year mortgage on a fridge if we bought one from them.

So, we started browsing refrigerators.

We had our eyes on an LG one that was super neat, but reading reviews kind of backed us away from it.

Here's the LG we were looking at.  We just kinda fell in love with the little "door within door" feature.  Pretty stinkin' snazzy.  Well, reviews say that this design makes you slam your fridge door a lot to make sure it's closed, and the alarm constantly goes off because that door within door isn't always shut.  Still. It's neat.  But the design just made me see that it wasn't gonna be something that made us happy.

You can check out this fridge here if you want to.  It's from the Lowe's website since I am pretty sure this is where we are going to end up buying our fridge from.

So back to the drawing boards we went.  It didn't take us long to find something similar, with better reviews and to me, an overall better design.

Check it out.  It's a Samsung Food ShowCase.

It's sleek, pretty, and has that nifty "food showcase" door.  The latch to close this one is much better and not as hard to use as the LG one is.

Check out the product here.

Here's our dilemma.... Do we buy this one, which is 24.7 cubic feet, or do we spend MORE money and get the 21.5 cubic feet one that is "counter width"??

The counter width difference from the "regular" one is only 5 inches.  Not a huge difference.  And, our kitchen is open and full of space so it wouldn't bother that aspect of it.

I was originally leaning towards the counter depth version, but after looking at them, I think the larger fridge is better.

There are some AWESOME 4th of July sales that are happening that would allow us to save a ton of money if we get the counter depth one now.  Same goes for the 24.7 cubic foot one, just not "as good" of a deal.

But we are also on the fence as to whether or not we actually want to spend that much money before we close.  It's nice having a big ole fat bank account right now and we kind of want to wait til we close to make sure everything goes smoothly. [insert skeptical laughter here]

So.Many.Decisions.

Luckily, we have a washer and dryer that we LOVE that we have only had for a couple of years.  So we don't have to worry about that on the appliance end.

And, then there's the TV unit we want.

IKEA is literally five minutes from where we live right now.  We go there pretty often and just walk around and admire everything, and occasionally find a thing or two that we like.  Well, on one such occasion we found a super amazing and awesome set up for a TV stand and we fell in love with it.

Check this bad boy out:

It's massive.  And we love it.

We decided a few weeks ago that we were going to go ahead and purchase a few pieces at a time until we move, just to have everything and to lessen the blow of spending THAT much money on something all at once.

And after we decided this, we also decided to modify a few things on it.

The cabinets across the top will all have glass doors.

The side cabinets will have glass doors on the top two and the bottom one will be solid, like it is in the photo.

Here are a few stock photos from IKEA.  Obviously not with our modifications to it, but you get the idea.

We love this because it's that brown/black color that a lot of our stuff in the house is, or will be.  So it's nice to keep that consistency.

So the funny story about this.  We stopped one of the IKEA workers to ask about modifying some things and he gave us our very own shopping sheet complete with diagrams.  Well, halfway through him  helping us, I have a revelation.  I keep quiet til he's done, but immediately look at hubby and say:

"I don't think this is going to fit in between the two windows in the family room where we want it to go"

Cue the sad violin music.

We love this thing.  We have dreamt about one day having it, even before we started building a house.

So, I sit down at one of the set up living rooms in IKEA. I sketch things out.  I devise a plan that will make things work.  It means that we have to put it back on the solid wall in the family room, and that the couch will sit in a way that we will block off the kitchen, so the room is going to seem smaller... but we are gonna make it work.

Keep in mind- we scrambled to get Guardian to come out to the house and move one of our cable locations because we decided we wanted the TV between the tables and not on the empty wall.  And here we are moving it back to where we originally had it (luckily Guardian kept that cable there and just added another where we asked them to).

Yes, that's how much we love this thing.

We head out to the house, and I am pleasantly surprised and think that maybe, just maybe.... this big ole thing will actually fit in between the windows like we originally planned.

Well- we picked up a tape measure this past weekend because mine has gone MIA.

We measured for the frige.  Yay.

Then, we measured between the windows.

Drumroll, please..........

The distance between the windows is 121 inches.

The length of this TV unit, end to end:  118.5 inches.

Hurrah.
Yay!
Jump for Joy!

We are super pumped.

We also are thinking that these may be the tables we end up purchasing from IKEA for our family room..  We don't currently have a coffee or end tables because our town home is just WAY too small for them....

Wanna check em out on your own?

Here's the link for the coffee table  and end table.

And, just for fun.... if y'all do the whole Pinterest thing... Here's my Pinterest board for furniture.  I love to browse online sites when I'm not busy, haha!  I have soooooo many ideas in mind for when we get into this house.  Even if I hate the vinyl in the bathroom and the stain is wrong on our rails {haha}.

Hoping for good news in the next day or so about our dilemma with the floors.  And the mistake with the stain on the rails!