It's a House

O.K. we have structure. It’s been a while, so let’s go back a bit. I’ve been stalking the house for the last two weeks as progress has been fast and steady. It only took about two days to get the entire house framed and then on the third day we had a shingles. This was awesome, because we have had such a wet summer this year we were lucky enough to be able to avoid having the house rained in so mold concerns are minimized.

In only two weeks we have had the house framed, HVAC, plumbing and windows installed. It’s been very interesting to see the house go up and everyday something new has been done. The garage is still one of my favorite things about the house. Its huge on the inside with a ceiling height of about 13 feet. I did have one concern though, there was water shut off valve that was installed which stuck out of the wall nearly a foot. The bad part about this was where it was located. It was on the left side of the garage right where the driver’s side was would open up. Seeing as how we actually intend to use the garage, this would have meant that every time I got out of my wife’s car I would either smack the pipe with the car door or my face. I spoke with the PM about this and he stated it would be moved. I went out two days later and it was taken care of. I’m glad this worked out so well for obvious reasons, but also because it was the first real issue I had ran into and it gave me a good idea as to the kind of service I can expect from out PM in the future. (I will say that I’m not real pleased with the method that Ryan home uses to allow you to speak with your PM. I had to call a corporate number and leave a message for him to contact me. Although this is not a preferred method for me I guess I understand, and it all worked out so I can deal with it for now.)

I’m not sure who the plumber was for our home, but he obviously did not use any real common sense. When deciding where to place things. Aside from the issue mentioned above, he also placed the one of the hose bibs in a rather useless place. It’s on the left side of the house right behind the porch, pretty sure it will never get any use over there, but we will see. The other hose bib is right next to the back deck so at least that one isn’t horrible.
On the subject of HVAC, I was pleasantly surprised that Ryan has updated their HVAC systems. They have started to use a method that I learned about in the MI Homes. This update involves adding additional vents outside of the bedrooms that allow for better air flow. In our last home we had to leave doors open to the rooms or else they would be freezing in the winter, so I’m hoping this will help.
Guardian came out and met with me a earlier this week about the placement of all of our low voltage electrical outlets. It only took about 15 minutes and he pretty much knew where everything would go before I got there. Today when I went by it was all installed. The best thing about all of this was the hose they installed for me to go from the outlet box where the surround sound will go to the outlet behind the T.V. I requested this because the way technology changes so quickly now, I didn’t want to have an HDMI cable ran know and then when they become obsolete have to right back to running a cable along the wall again. The hose should make fishing the next cable through with no issues. We are supposed to have our pre-drywall meeting next week so I’m looking forward to continuing the process from here. I will try to keep things updated.

Sorry the pictures don't show this all that great, but the orange hose is what I'm talking about here.

Buying Stuff

We made our first purchase for our new home today.  We bought the refrigerator. We are lucky enough to have a Sears outlet here and I highly recommend you give them a look if you have one in your area as well.  The outlet here sells appliances that have damage (mostly cosmetic) for prices far below retail value.  We were able to get a Whirlpool that retails for more than $2,500 for only $1,400.  It has some scratches on the sides, but I don't think we will even be able to see most of them.  There is one that we will likely be able to see, but its like I told my wife; we could pay full retail price for one and then when our kids smack it with a toy the next day, we would have a damaged fridge that we paid full retail price for.  I think that made her feel better about the purchase.  Its a great fridge that is very large and has pretty much everything that she required, so it made cense to make the purchase.  Its pictured below (we are getting it in black.)

Breaking Ground

Well its been a couple of weeks since anything interesting has happened really, but things are moving right along now.  We broke ground two weeks ago, and by this past Friday we had our full foundation completed.  We were a little concerned about the grade of our lot, but now that we have a foundation we can tell a little more about the elevation of the yard and we are much more pleased with it.  We are both very happy with our brick choice and honestly it makes us wish we had a partial brick front so that we could see more of it.  The thing I am most happy about right now though, is that due to the grade of our yard and the crawl space, we are going to have a rather tall garage.  I'm hoping this will not only give me more head room, but also give me noticeably more space over the garage doors for storage. 

 

 





Aside from that we also stopped in today to speak with our sales rep, and were surprised to met our future neighbors.  They seem very nice and we look forward to getting to know them better.  We were able to put in a request to have our island turned perpendicular to what it is on the floor plan.  We figure this makes the island more usable when working at the stove/oven, and also opens up the path from the living room to the back door, and garage door/mud room area. 

 

Pre-Construction

We had our pre-construction meeting two weeks ago with our PM.  He basically went over all of the specifics of the home as far as our floor plan and all of the changes that had been made to it.  We also went over the flooring choices, and low voltage wiring options.  Its wise to keep track of the changes you've made up to this point in order to ensure that they are all documented during this meeting. 

I was able to address several concerns that I have about the floor plan and my involvement in the process.  for starters I had walked through a Milan that is being framed now and noticed that there was dead space underneath the stairs, behind the closet.  I requested to have this entire space finished so that we could make full use of it,  he stated that we couldn't do that because of corporate policy regarding following the blue print for the home.  We were able to come to a compromise that I think I will be very happy with, but if you mention this earlier in your process you shouldn't have any problem.  I also requested that I be kept aware of what contractors are coming in and when so that if I chose to, I can speak with them about some specific requests.  one example I gave him was that I'm interested in having a switch placed in my master bedroom for the flood lights in the back yard.  It doesn't make much cense to have flood lights for security if I have to go all the way downstairs to turn them on.  We discussed the third car parking pad, but we will have to come back to it when the time comes to have the concrete guys in.

Our lot had been cleared the day before our meeting, so after the meeting we were able to walk the lot.  It had not been graded yet, so it was hard to tell exactly how our yard was going to be.  I did explain to him that I did not mind a grade to the yard but I did not want a ditch running through the middle of the yard.  I had went out several days prior to the meeting and marked several trees that I wanted saved, luckily all the ones I marked were saved, but I'm going to have some real work ahead of me when its time to clear the rest of them. 

All in all I think we are very pleased with this process so far and look forward to moving ahead.