Closing Day!

We did it!

We closed on our home today and we are exhausted.

Yep, that's right.  Exhausted.

Closing went super smooth.  We showed up about 20 minutes early and got started nearly right away.  It didn't take longer than 45 minutes and we had the keys in hand and were on our way back to the house.

We have movers scheduled for tomorrow, and they charge by the item, so we decided that we would take over as much as we could ourselves to help alleviate some of the costs.  Our town home is about 30 minutes away from our HOME, but we ended up making three trips out there with car fulls of stuff in my little VW bug and hubby's full size car.

Each time we had something "fun" happen.

We dropped my VW off at the house before we went to closing.  We went inside and checked out a few things that had been left on our "list" from our pre-settlement walk through yesterday.  A few things still haven't been done, but our PM is coming out to check on us tomorrow so I'll touch base with him on those.

After closing we came back to the house and officially unloaded our first set of belongings into the house.

Our very first item was the little box that holds the ashes of our sweet boy Chase.  He was with us when we started this whole process and we were ecstatic to build a home for him and his brother to run and play in and enjoy as a family.  And, if you've been following along with our adventures, you may remember that Chase got super sick right before we broke ground and we had to make the decision to put him to sleep.  I still miss that sweet boy every day, and to both me and Jason it made perfect sense that the first "thing" in our new home is Chase.

So, after we have our moment, we unload the rest of our stuff and get ready to go.  We backed each of our cars one at a time into the garage for easier moving.

Well.  Hubby goes to leave the garage and the garage door literally goes down on his car!  I look up from my rearview mirror because I am waiting on him, and see half the car sticking out of the garage and the door is down.

Oh. Em. Gee.

So, he's panicking because he literally did NOTHING except start to pull the car out of the garage.  I quickly see that the pull string from the garage door that makes the door come off of the chain of the opener is stuck in the door of the back seat of hubby's car.  So, I get it out of there, and we have our first adventure as homeowners:  Try to figure out how to latch the garage door back to the opener so that it'll all work properly.

We survived.  We figured it out, got the garage door working again and back to the town home we went.

Trip number two.  Two car fulls of stuff again.  We pull into the neighborhood, turn down our street, get ready to pull into the driveway, and notice that there's a van sitting in front of our driveway, and our garage door is open!!!

What. The. Heck. {not my actual choice of words}

There are three people sitting in our garage.  An older lady and two younger teenage looking kids.  They're the cleaners and they're there to do the final clean on the house.

Say what?!?!

We closed on our home at 11 AM and here it is, well after 2 PM and they're just now doing the final clean?!  The older lady was quick to reiterate several times that they only moved things to clean the house and then put them right back where they found them.  They had one house in the neighborhood they had to do a "first clean"on and then our home for the final clean.

I didn't like this at all, and neither did hubby.  These three people quickly gathered their things and left.  Kinda suspicious if you ask me.  We called our PM, very upset that people were IN our home, and had to leave him a message.

The older cleaning lady also said that while she was cleaning the toilet in the half bath, she flushed it and it's been running ever since.  We both think that she saw we had put TP in there and decided to use the bathroom.

I have several issues here.  Obviously the fact that we weren't told that our home still needed to be cleaned and here it was happening after we closed on the home.  But second, if you're the cleaning staff and you walk into a home that has people's BELONGINGS in it, wouldn't you think to ask questions or maybe even not enter the home?!?!!  Granted it wasn't a ton of stuff, but it was still our stuff and it was definitely noticeable that someone was now living in the home!!!

This older lady also said that someone else was in the home installing some wire in the kitchen.  More on that one in a second.

Our PM finally got back to us, and he had no clue that the cleaning staff hadn't done the final clean yet and had no idea they'd be out today.  He was going to talk to them.

The "wire" in the kitchen was for our ice maker.  Let me tell you about this.  We were told at our pre-construction meeting that the ice maker rough in was in the basement, and that you just had to run the line through the floor and voila!  ice.

Well, at our pre-settlement yesterday, I asked our PM to show us how we were supposed to put it through the floor.  Yeah.  No dice scooter.  He had to drill the hole for us, and then saw off a piece of the pipe in the basement and add a nozzle to it so it worked.  Now, at our pre-construction meeting, it didn't seem like it was that much work.  He made it sound like it was one, two and done.  I am so glad we asked though because if not, we would be getting this amazing refrigerator tomorrow and it wouldn't have ice.  But now all is right in the world of ice maker lines.

Whew.  Our last trip out to the house was the uneventful one.  We brought our step ladder out with us and changed the code on the garage door so no more random people can come into the house without us knowing {after leaving from the second trip we made sure everything was locked up}.

So now, we sit in our town home for the last evening.  I am exhausted but I really wanted to write this post so that hubby and I can one day laugh at our first day as home owners.  OH!! We also went out and did some adulting and bought a dehumidifier.  We did some research and went with the Frigidaire 70 Pint from Lowes.  I'll update more on that a little down the road.  I really know nothing about these things.

And now a few photos and then bed.  Tomorrow our movers come, we get out of this town home and officially start enjoying our new home!

{and sorry if there are typo's, grammatical errors or parts that make no sense.  I'm definitely not going back to proofread this thing, haha!!!!}

My little VW hanging out at the house before it officially became OURS!

Closing papers. Not as intimidating as I thought it would be.

First load of stuff in the house, and then we selfie with our keys in front of OUR front door!!!

Chase Tanner.  Officially our first "thing" in the house.

The line for the ice maker rough in.  No idea how we were supposed to DIY this, but I'm happy we asked and our PMs took care of it for us.

That gosh darn cord thingy that caused our first crisis.  I made it shorter so that thing never happens again.

Three loads of goodies hanging out in the morning room.  Unpacking begins tomorrow!

More stuff. We most definitely have A TON of it.

See? More stuff.

Our bunnies!  They are the first ones to spend the night in the house.  It was easier to take them over tonight rather than while the movers started moving all of our stuff.

Bed frame all ready to be put together!

The glass surround for our shower!  This was one of the last things to be done on the house!

I plan on filling this closet with my clothes.  I definitely have a good head start!

And, Crosley, our 5 month old pup.  He sat perched on the couch watching us as we loaded cars with stuff to take to his new house.  He goes out there tomorrow with his big brother dog, Cody!

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!!

Pre- Construction Meeting!

So we had our pre-construction meeting yesterday, April 11th.
We FINALLY got to meet our PM, Russ and discuss OUR home.  Our SR, Shelli, was supposed to be there but was out sick, so it was just us, Russ and a new guy named Greg.

I know I've been waiting SO SO SO long for this meeting.

Our meeting took about an hour and a half.. Two hours if you count going out to the lot in the pouring rain to check out our layout and how everything will look.
So worth it.

I had a TON of questions.  I waited until we were finished with the meeting to ask anything I had, just in case they were already answered along the way.  I scoured the internet for any question I could think possible to ask.  Experiences from my fellow bloggers, and photos I have found for things that I had questions for.

Russ was great during our meeting.  Went over lots of stuff, gave us some good news for some of the questions I had, and we are SO excited to start this building process {finally}!  We went over our plans for each floor of the home, made sure our selections were all "right", and then went over the plot plan showing how our home will sit on the lot, elevation stuff and size of the lot.

It was a ton of information, but I feel like I  learned a lot.

Gonna list out questions and answers so I can reference them later, and so this little corner of the world can check out potential questions for pre-construction meetings if ya want :-)


THINGS TO DOUBLE CHECK:
We asked these just to make sure we are getting them with the house.  These are things that came up looking at floor plans and such.

• Double vanity in the hall bathroom.-- YEP! It's on the plans!
• Door for morning room and walk out door. NOT sliding doors.-- YEP! No screen door on the door for the morning room and only one side opens, but it's an actual door for both.
• Grout colors for the master bath.-- I saw this on another blog and realized that we never chose our grout colors.  I forgot to ask this at our meeting and will ask our SR about it.

KITCHEN ISLAND QUESTIONS:

So, I have fallen in love with a kitchen island that we can't get in our home.  Read all about it here and then the disappointing news that we can't build it here.  Silly silly rules that say it can't be done. *sigh*.  Anyways-- I asked a few questions about it to try and start making a game plan for a potential build after we move in...

• Design (layout) of island-- saw this on the floorplans when going over them.  We got the "smaller" kitchen island, not the gourmet.  The cabinets will face the stove. Outlet on the other side of the cabinet openings.
• Will there be flooring under the island?-- didn't ask this, basically because this is seeming like more and more of a feat that isn't going to happen with the island that I want.
• Can we get information for cabinet and granite companies to hopefully obtain the same materials to make the island that I "want"?-- this was a bit more difficult than I though.  The answer was "maybe".  I think because I originally asked about potentially getting a separate piece of granite cut that will match the rest- that threw this question off-- but essentially, we will get the information anyways for the cabinet and granite companies.  So if we want to work with them to build the island I want, then we can do it from that point.

BASEMENT QUESTIONS:
Pretty cut and dry here... just a few questions in this "category"

• Do we get balusters in the basement?- YES.  We upgraded the balusters in the main part of the house to the white spindles and stained rails, and they will be the same in the basement.
• Will there be a window in the exercise room?- YES!  This one was a surprise as I have seen different answers from different people on their blogs.  We do get a small window in the exercise room, even though that room is to be unfinished.
• What type of lighting do we have in the basement?-  recessed lighting.  In the exercise room you get a pull chain and in the media room it's a switched light (not recessed)
• Is there a concrete slab at the walkout?- yes.  a 3x3 concrete slab at the walk out door.  There will also be a 3x3 slab at the foot of the deck stairs.
• Is it possible to have the basement finished with the hallway at the exercise room for a future finishing of the exercise room?-- I know this sounds confusing.  And I didn't even bother asking in the meeting.  I was getting too many "that would have to be a change order" answers that this one just didn't seem relevant anymore.  But basically, I wanted to have the wall wrap around to a small hallway that went to the door of the exercise room so that it was all the same when we went to finish the exercise room.  I'm sure that'll all just happen once we decide to finish that part of the basement anyways.

PM QUESTIONS:

Researching brought up a few questions to ask the PM.  I'm glad we did this because it let us learn a little bit more about him and he liked these questions a lot.

• How long have you been doing this?-- Russ has been doing this about 19 years.  He started out with Drees, came over to Ryan Homes, left to start up his own business and has been back with Ryan Homes since November (I might be wrong on the coming back part. I don't remember for sure).   The part about his own business, he liked it, but he was basically doing twice as much work and making the same amount of money.  I totally get that.  He is local to our area, told us about his college and bragged on himself for a few minutes, which was fun.
• When can we visit?-- pretty much whenever we want, as long as we let him know we are coming so that he can be there with us.  No shenanigans of visiting when he's not there as it's a liability if we step on a nail or fall two floors to the basement floor if there's temporary railing and it's not secured right or something like that.  Who wants to start their new home with memories like that?  Agreed.
• What's the best way to get in touch with you?-- He gave us email, cell phone and said the best way is to call.  If it's a few words, just shoot an email or text but if it's paragraphs, phone calls are best. Easy enough.
• When/how will we get updates?-- as anything big happens, he will contact us to let us know. He said that it's a fun process and the more involved you are the more fun it is, but on that same note he's had folks that have come to the pre-construction meeting and then not see them again til the pre-drywall meeting and then the final walkthrough.  That's craziness.  And I told him that we would definitely be visiting as much as we could.  We are too excited about this to miss anything.
• Do you have any planned vacation during our building process??  -- He does.  The beginning of July.  But he was confident that Greg, the guy that was at the meeting with us, will help us if we have any questions or anything while he's away.

Other things I liked:  He said that he always wants our satisfaction to be at a 10.  If at any time he's not meeting that, to let him know.  If we see something while visiting that's bothering us, mention it then.  Don't brood on it and let it bother us.  In some instances, it might not get fixed right away, but he promises it'll all be fixed by the time we are ready to close.  He really seems like a great guy and we are excited to work with him.  The smart ass in me wanted to tell him then that he was only performing at a 9 1/2 because we were standing in the rain talking (we had just finished our lot walk through) and he didn't have an umbrella.  But who am I kidding? I was really happy we were out there talking about our lot and what everything is gonna look like.

MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS:
This is just a hodge podge of questions that I collected from internet research, curiosity and blog reading.  Some I ended up not asking and some really don't make sense, but I figured I should ask just in case it does come up later or make sense later on. haha! But rest assured- the majority of these are legit questions that I wanted to know the answer to!

• Hose bib placement-- we have one on the side of the house (non-garage side) and then one on the back of the house.  The back of the house makes me happy.  We do have a TON of yard to water and try to make grow.
• Light switch locations
• porch lights-- switch in the foyer hall.  I also like that our porch lights are recessed.  Fancy.
• garage lights--controlled by the switch in the family entry.  Kinda wanted this to be controlled by the same switch as the porch lights, but it's not a huge deal.
• Thermostat location-- in the dining room
• Can the thermostat be controlled by floor?-- forgot to ask about this, but figure our house probably isn't "big enough" to warrant this.  Would be cool, but that's okay
• Outside lighting- what's included?- Garage coach lights, recessed porch lights, light at the door of the walk out and light at the door to the morning room on the deck.  We might explore the option of a flood light later to light up the back yard, but we'll see. 
• Deck- do we have options for what type of deck?--no options on this.  You basically pick your deck size and you get the pretreated deck wood.  Was hoping this was an option and we could do a super bad ass looking deck.... but no such luck.  However, I am loving the size and layout of our deck.  It's gigantic.
• Layout and stair location?-- comes off the morning room.  The stairs will parallel the morning room and the ground will kinda slope to meet the stairs at a point.  There will also be a 3x3 concrete slab at the base of the stairs.  The walkout door is below the deck.
• Garage- is it pitched for drainage?-- didn't ask.  But I feel pretty confident that it'll all be good after talking about drainage and all they do for the  home as its being built either on the lot or the home itself.
• Painting- if we paint before our 10 month inspection, does it void the drywall warranty?-- nope. It pretty much works like this:  you paint when you want.  Just realize during the 10 month drywall inspection, they'll repair any part of the drywall that needs fixed which means you'll have to paint back over it after they repair it.  Still on the fence whether or not I want to wait or start painting as soon as we are in.
• Fixtures- are we getting brushed nickel?- brushed nickel fixtures and door handles.  Chrome for the bathroom faucets and kitchen sink faucets.
• Attic access location?-- it's in Bedroom #2.  This pretty much can't be changed.  It's decently out of sight, but I was hoping it could go somewhere more discreet.  It can't be done like that because you need to allow access if WE ever need it, but also if there's ever an emergency and firefighters or someone need to get up there.
• Are there sidewalks on our streets?- yes
• Termite treatment done during the build?-- didn't ask.  This question was at the bottom of my page and I just forgot.
• Locations of outlets?  If we need one where one isn't placed, or if we want one moved, how does that work?-- I'm pleased with the amount of outlets we get.  I don't THINK we will need to move or add any, and really- I don't know that it's an option without it being a change order.
• Are there outside outlets?-- yep.  We have one outside outlet on the front porch and one on the deck.
• Are dimmer switches an option?- negative Ghost Rider.  We can, however, "easily" install them ourselves once we move in.
• Is the garage dry-walled?-  didn't ask.  I personally HATE the way garages look that aren't finished.  I'll probably want to finish this once we move in just because I'm like that.
• Epoxy- is it okay to do right away?-- forgot to ask this one too.  We want to epoxy and figure it's best to do it once we first get in that way the garage is clean and we actually tackle this project.  
• Can we run a pipe under the driveway for a future lamp post?-- the location of our electric box kinda gave this one a "no".  It would be easier to just trench a hole and put it there yourself.  Are solar lights an option for this?  We might go that way.  And I really am not 100% sure that I want a lamp post, but figured I would ask anyways.
• Morning room-- does it come with the light in the ceiling?- nope. It does not.  This was a huge deal for us.  I just assumed it did.  I THINK we will probably make the morning room the room where we do most of our dining.  I don't want to dine with just a table lamp or something of that sort.  So, Russ told us that this would have to be a change order.  I told him we absolutely HAD to have this one.  He added it onto our plans so the electrician would see it, and made a note to talk to our SR, Shelli about it.  I was able to chat with Shelli and we got it taken care of so that we can add it on.  Change order complete and ceiling fan rough-in added.  We went with the ceiling fan rough-in because if we want to hang a chandelier, it'll need the added support.  Yay for getting this taken care of and added!!  And props to our SR for being on top of it after being out sick.
• Ceilings- are the smooth or textured?-- didn't ask.  Being observant, my guess is textured.  This is one of those questions I saw on EVERY blog I read.  I don't really understand the purpose of it, so I'm not concerned that I didn't ask.. And besides, if it is textured, can they change it?  Probably has to be a change order {haha}
• Is there lighting over the shower?-- There is!  and it's recessed lighting.  There is one in the hall bath over the shower and then in the master, there's a recessed light over the shower and over the tub.  I like this a lot and glad it's not an added extra we have to purchase.
• Is there tile above the showerhead?--  Yep.  I've seen Ryan Homes where the tile stops before the showerhead, and I've seen Ryan Homes where the tile goes above the showerhead.  I prefer the latter.  And I was prepared to argue to get that my way so it looks nicer.
• Dryer vent hookup- can it be placed higher or flush with the wall so the dryer backs all the way up to the wall?-- Nope.  There's a 4 inch "pipe" for your vent to go.  In the future we can do one of those magic box things or whatever if we want it flush with the wall.  Interesting though, our PM mentioned that when we move in we may have to buy a 4-prong plug for the dryer and that we should also buy new hoses for the washer.  Wrote those notes down so we can remember that months from now.
• Are there screens on all the windows?- There are.  Glad for this as I've noticed in the model homes we've visited, there are NOT.  I love to open the windows when it is cooler outside.   There will not be a screen on the morning room door or front door.  I might explore the option of a screen contraption for the morning room door at some point.  Maybe.
• Vent fan in the master bath-- location, and can it be moved?- nope.  The vent fan in the master bath is in the water closet.  I get this, but I really wish we could add one inside the bathroom itself.  Not an option.  Well. Wait.  Yes it is.  With a change order.
• Can we keep all the leftover materials?-- Yes.  There won't be "tons", but any leftover hardwood, tile, paint, etc, they'll leave for us.
• Sump pump- do we have one?-- We do not have a sump pump.  I like this.  Know why?? Because I have no flippin' idea what a sump pump is.  This girl is born and raised from Florida.  We don't have basements.  Our lot will have a gravity drain that will take water from the home to the slope of the back yard.  I am pretty sure this also has to do with the fact that we have a walkout.  But yay.  We don't have to spend several hundred dollars on a sump pump backup battery. 
• Is there a weight limit on the driveway when its first poured?-- they say not to park anything over XXX pounds or tons or something like that for 28 days.  We asked this just because we heard about the whole don't park the moving truck on the driveway.  Our PM also mentioned that we would want to seal our driveway as well.  He also said that we would go over all this again at our final walkthrough stuff.  But, I had no idea you should seal a driveway.
• Granite "lip"-- is it possible to not have this installed?-- yes and no.  I don't want the "lip" of the granite there so that there's a smooth transition for backsplash later on down the line.  Apparently, it's removable if we don't want it there.  He advised to keep that "lip" because there's a chance that if we remove it that there might be a gap in between the wall and the counter and it won't look right.  It makes sense, and we'll probably just leave it there.. I just hope it looks good with backsplash.
• Polar bear and/or cheetah enclosure- what's your experience with building one of these along with the house?-- I ended my questions on this.  It was a total joke and after they realized I wasn't serious, I got some laughs.  Let me explain.....  The Columbus Zoo currently has a sweet little polar bear:
  

• And then the Cincinnati Zoo has this sweet little set of Cheetah cubs:

I frequently joke that I "need" these cute little furry things.  And of course, they'll just always stay this small.  So I figured I'd let our PM know that we are easy going and hopefully easy to deal with by making a cute little joke at the end of our meeting...  The new guy that was with our PM, Greg.. he laughed and said we might not be able to get the right permits for them.

All joking aside-- our meeting went well.  We went over our plot plans after I asked all of my questions.  Our PM made copies of everything we signed from the plans and gave them to us.  Is it weird that I really love the electrical plans?  I'm not into any of that stuff, but it's so neat seeing all the squiggly lines and know where your lights are going to be, where your light switches are and what they control and where your outlets are going to be. And just having all those plans and know they're for YOUR house.  It's kinda cool.

Our plot plans were pretty easy to go over.  We were shown where our house would sit on the lot, how much yard we have on each side, where the deck sits, and where things like water and gas will come in.

Then, we braved the weather and went out in the chilly-ness and pouring down rain to see our lot.  It was muddy and pouring, but it was really nice.  To know where everything sits, the elevation our house will be on.... it's getting real.

OHHH!!! And one more exciting thing that we found out.. because of our elevation and where the porch is, we will be getting porch railing!  I had never thought about it, kinda wanted it, but knew it wasn't gonna happen if I asked.  But- because we will have a "drop off", essentially, from where the front porch is to the yard (it's like 30 inches or so) we will have porch railing!  It makes the porch look so nice and I am soooo excited for it!

And, if you've made it to the end of this post, you get a bit more fun news.  The plan is to break ground next week.  I know the dates could change, and things will probably happen... BUT-- one of the first things that our PM mentioned, was that on paper, and based on our start date and timeline, our house should be finished by mid-July!!!!!  Yes!! MID JULY!  I wanted to get up and hug him right then and there!  I've been so stressed about our rent with our apartment complex and how things are going to work out when we are nearly finished with the house and with everything else that will be going on during that time.  But just the possibility that we could be finished and closed before the end of July-- I'm ecstatic!

And finally, a photo of our lot all staked out!  We actually visited it on Saturday evening after our Reds game.  We also stopped by the model that day just to get a refresher on things and to help out with any questions I potentially wanted to ask.  I gotta tell you... seeing OUR lot with stakes on it- it was such a great feeling.  Like, brought tears to my eyes.   And then, after we officially figured out what our stakes were on the day of our pre-construction meeting, we went to Logan's Roadhouse and had us a steak "lunch" to celebrate our stakes.  

Steak dinner.  Just a side note-- I'm not much of a steak eater.  But, this was delicious and a great way to celebrate our stakes!!

So there ya have it!  Our pre-construction meeting is done and it was good.  Everything is so real and exciting and we are anxious to get a hole in the ground!!!

Finally Some Good News!

Oh my gosh, you guys!
Finally!
Finally!
FINALLY!!!!

Our SR text me yesterday and asked me to call her.  I immediately did, and she was all sorts of excited when she answered!! Our PM has finally gotten our stuff and is ready to schedule our pre-construction meeting!
We are scheduled for this next Monday, April 11.

So-- for those of you that have any pre-construction advice, let's hear it!
Or, any questions that you asked, let's hear those too!!

I have a pretty good list going of things I want to ask when we meet, but holy moly, we are FINALLY having our pre-construction meeting!!

I have literally felt like this guy has been teasing me for months now while we {im}patiently wait for the news that our home would be built.

So for the rest of the day I will be researching questions to ask just so I ask as much as possible.  And hopefully feel informed as possible.  I hope our PM isn't already terrified of me.  haha!

But wait.  I really will only be "researching" til about  5.  At 5 I will be hoping that it doesn't rain because Jason and I are headed to the ball park for Opening Night baseball-- AND holding the American Flag on the field during the National Anthem!!

Talk to you guys after our pre-construction meeting!!!!

It's FINALLY here!!!

Happy dancing my way outta here,