Week 6-- Insulation, Drywall and RATE LOCK!

What a fun and exciting week for us!

Monday was Memorial Day, so nothing was done on the house.
Tuesday and Wednesday, insulation was installed.  We went out on Wednesday night to check it all out, and to go over the "issues" that we had so that we could address it all at our pre-drywall meeting the next day.  We were super happy because it was POURING down rain when we went out on Wednesday.  We were hoping it would rain because we wanted to be able to check out a couple of leak spots to see if they were still leaking, and to video it if needed to show our PM the next day.

On Thursday, we had our Pre-Drywall meeting.  Click it if you haven't read it.
I wasn't 100% sure what to expect, but the meeting went smoothly and quickly.  We went over all of our electrical, our selections, and were "officially" shown the house (lol).

We had two issues that we needed addressed, and both had been taken care of.  We wanted to move the cable that we had chosen for our family room to a different wall.  We were able to get in touch with Guardian, and they came out and did that.

The other issue was that we didn't see the fan in the morning room.  When we went out over the weekend, we saw it installed! Yay!

So, according to our PM, we had insulation inspections happening on Friday and as long as those passed, they would start drywall.  We drove by on Saturday after we took our pup to the vet for shots and we saw guys in the house working!  So we assumed inspections passed :-)

Then, Sunday, after our Reds game, we went out to check out the progress.  It's so crazy how much it is all coming together and appearing more and more like a house.

So far it looks like they've hung drywall in all of the upstairs rooms and areas, and the basement.  About half of the walls were hung on the first floor.

And now pictures!! We will probably head out a couple of times this week to see the progress! Hoping to see the taping and the mudding and all of it!!

Oh!!! And a couple of other exciting things-- we noticed that the garage door had been installed!  You can kinda tell in the photos, but it's all the way up so it's hard to see it.

And-- we locked our rate with NVR.  Our loan officer had said that he didn't think we were going to get the rate we were hoping for because of the way rates were trending... but on Friday, he called and talked to hubby because they had gone down!  So we went for it and locked! We are super excited and it totally works out for us in every aspect!

Okay.

Now for pictures:

Living room (front room of the house)-- insulation!!

Family Room!  I took this photo bc it has our NEW cable spot!

drywall everywhere!! {and nicely insulated walls}

Insulation in the basement (unfinshed parts of the basement)

"can lights"  aka recessed lighting

Garage insulation (and drywall on the ground)

Sunday visit-- new packages!! This is our siding!

rough-in in the morning room for our fan/light fixture :-)

The "half" drywall finish on the first floor.  It pretty much looked like they got all of the top halves of the walls hung downstairs. This angle is the kitchen, when standing in the morning room.

Recessed lights <3

Looking from the kitchen/morning room into the house.  The rooms in the hall will be the dining room and then the living room.

View from the living room looking towards the kitchen

View standing near the front door.  This is the hall closet in the foyer.

Another view from the front door looking down the foyer.

Upstairs!  Standing in the doorway of one of the bedrooms, looking towards the laundry room and hall bath.

Loft <3.  I love our elevation and the extra little nook and window we get with it!

Looking into bedroom 3

Master bedroom view from the doorway

Inside the master bedroom looking towards the door.  This is the approximate spot of our bed.

Master bath <3

Laundry room!  This is one of the rooms that seemed to grow by adding the walls.

My one gripe about this house {well, besides not getting the kitchen island I want....}
The small panty.  It looks like they haven't finished cutting the drywall on the right side.  haha!

Stairs heading down to the basement

Finished insulation in the unfinished parts of the basement

Finished basement <3

Our gorgeous home. If you look closely, you can see the garage door.  Barely.

I think the plan for this week is to continue on with the drywall.  I THINK our PM mentioned that they'd start siding this week too, and that would be done before they'd do stonework or anything like that.  He also mentioned that they'd be pouring the front porch too {yay}! I really wanna walk through the FRONT DOORS of the house and not crawl through the garage, lol.

And, if you haven't read the pre-drywall post, it sounds like our closing won't be until the end of July.  That's cutting it close for us getting out of our townhome and such-- but we will make it work!  Hopefully we hear more information this week about when we will actually close.  I really really wanna put up a countdown to closing!

Hope all of y'all had a great weekend and your homes are all coming along nicely :-)

Pre-Drywall Meeting

Well... our pre-drywall meeting has come and gone.  It took about 45 minutes to walk through the entire house.  The main purpose of this meeting seemed to be pointing out all of our electrical stuff and what controlled what.

Insulation has been installed in about 98% of the house.  There's a small part of the unfinished basement that our PM pointed out still needed to be done.  Insulation inspections will be tomorrow and they'll start drywalling either Saturday or Monday, pending a passing inspection.

Our PM also went through and answered any questions that we had, as well as making sure all of our Guardian stuff was in the right place, and add-on stuff like ceiling fan rough ins.

So, the issues that we had were all addressed and easily answered, which made me happy!

We were "lucky" enough that we went out to the house last night and it was POURING down rain.  I really really hoped it would rain so we could see leaks in action and make sure they were addressed.

• The"leak" from the roof in the master closet because of what looked like a plumbing pipe-- that is most definitely a pipe connected to plumbing, and if I remember correctly, its basically a vent to make sure the plumbing pipes don't get backed up with pressure bc of toilets and such (use your imagination here-- and think gassy things, lol).  This was most definitely still leaking with the downpour last night.  Our PM says that they put a "boot" over it to prevent that from leaking.  We also noticed on EVERY house in the neighborhood, that they all have this pipe and all have the boot looking thing over it.  So I fully trust our PM saying this.

• The "leak" from the kitchen/morning room.... with the downpour, this wasn't leaking at all.  I'm not sure if this is because of the insulation being put in, but it all looked good even this morning.  Our PM mentioned that it could have been from the leak above where the eventual "boot" will be.  It's also frustrating me to no end that I can't find the darn blog where the people had the leak in this spot that they've dealt with over and over again.  I really wanted to show it to hubby.  My fault for not bookmarking it.  So, if you happen to read this and that blog belongs to you, or you know which blog I'm talking about-- PLEASE let me know, haha!!! It's seriously driving me nuts.

• Rough-in for the fan/light fixture in the morning room- Our PM knows this hasn't been done and will be making sure it's installed.  Because it was a late change order for us is why it's not there but he's fully aware it needs to be.

• Plumbing lines for the ice maker:  They run this through the basement.  That way the line isn't coming up through the floor.  Essentially, there will be a hole in the wall going from the fridge down to the basement and you just connect the line to the plumbing pipe and VOILA! Ice maker should work.

• Our Guardian cable dilemma:  It's been fixed!! They came out and installed another cable line for us where we wanted it between the two windows!  I thought they just moved the cable to that location, but our PM pointed out that the original spot we picked still had cable lines there, so yay!

And- with our NVR stuff-- I had sent an email out over the weekend to the new point of contact that we have as our loan processor.  She replied on Tuesday and set up a time to talk to me.  The reasoning for NOT getting in contact with me was because our loan was back with the underwriter and she was waiting to hear back from the underwriter before she contacted us, so that she could go over things with us.  Legit excuse, I guess... but why not email me and let me know that's what you're waiting on???

Oh well.  Things are good with our loan, we've been discussing locking our rate but will still be waiting a little bit it sounds like.  Depends on those rates. LOL.

And, the not so great news... and not that it's bad news-- after our pre-drywall meeting, we talked about closing dates.  Our PM has us scheduled to close the very last week of July.  

Sigh.

I was secretly hoping it would be sooner, so this was a bit of a bummer.  It works out, and as long as we don't have to extend our lease with the apartment we are in, I'll be happy... but I was secretly hoping for a sooner date than that.  This isn't the "official" word on closing though, and he'll update us on that once the drywall goes up.  But I'm just telling myself now it'll be the end of July like he says.

PM says that up next will obviously be the drywall, and then they'll start siding.  They'll do the siding before the stone.  They'll also be pouring our front porch soon (yay!).  The front porch is currently a series of like, 3 holes filled with dirt.  I can't wait to actually be able to walk in the front door!!!

Now for a few questions for anyone that reads our blog:

Appliances and other things that need to be bought before or right at move in:  When were you all told you could purchase them?? We will definitely need a fridge when we move in.  

I asked our new loan processor about this, as the 4th of July should bring some good sales for buying stuff.  She told me that we should be "ok" to buy and/or open a credit card (like with Home Depot or someone, for example) as long as we have the money saved (and are able to show we have it) for our closing costs and such.

HOWEVER--

Our loan officer and my hubby had a chat and he told hubby that we should, under no circumstances, do this.

These stores normally do "same as cash" for so many months if you get a card from them, and that was our initial thought, but we don't want to do ANYTHING that's going to mess up closing and getting into our home.  But we don't wanna miss a good sale either.

So what were you told?

Also- we are taking recommendations on refrigerators.  Stainless steel and side-by-side are our requirements at this point.  We *think* we prefer the ice maker to be inside the door and not taking up shelf space.  

We are debating this one:

I love the little door that you can open up to grab stuff from the door shelves.  I've read some reviews that don't make me too happy-- about the door not closing properly and having to slam it shut, etc.  Not sure if I wanna deal with that just to have a fridge that looks cool. No pun intended.

Here's the link to the fridge if you're curious about it.  I pulled it from the Home Depot website, but it can be bought at almost any retailer that sells refrigerators.

Thoughts?  Ideas?  Any help given is appreciated, haha!!

More updates on the house progress on Sunday! Hoping to have drywall to show y'all!!!