Siding

Siding is on and I wasn't so sure about it.  I think the initial shock was seeing it against the white house wrap.  I'm convinced it was NOT the color I chose, but everyone that has seen it has me given me confidence that it will look good with the stone color we picked, so we're sticking with it.  Plus, we don't really have much of a choice this late in the game due to its expense to change.  Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the stone  or a good overall picture of the house.  We've been delayed about a week again and I'm hoping its our last.  Drywall was to begin today since it hasn't started as scheduled from last Saturday.  Our kitchen and bath cabinets were in the garage and I LOVE them.  Can't wait to see it all inside.  It seems the last two weeks that things have really slowed down, so I'm hoping they pick back up again.  Getting REALLY anxious to get out of our apartment and into the house and already started packing.

Has more of a yellow hue than I remember picking.

Looks better in this picture

Morning Room with the siding

Pre Drywall Meeting & Independent Inspection

We had our pre drywall meeting with the PM today and it went pretty smooth and was rather uneventful since we've seen the inside of the house quite a bit.  We had an independent inspection on Saturday and PM basically went through the report and looked at all the concerns we & the inspector had.  He anticipates things to be fixed this week & plumbing and county inspections to also take place.  Drywall set to start Saturday and siding in there sometime, whenever its not raining.  He's shooting for pre settlement meeting to be October 31st and settlement  November 4th... soooo close, yet so far away!  We also ordered our washer and dryer to be delivered after settlement.  Lowe's was having the set we wanted 28% off until today, so we couldn't pass it up!

Wiring & Plumbing

We went to the house to check progress today and the wiring and plumbing were installed.  It appears they are awaiting inspection.  Best of all my amazing jet bath tub was installed and I can't WAIT to use it after all the unpacking is done!  PM emailed this evening to schedule our predrywall meeting for Monday AM.  We're waiting to hear back from our private inspector to ensure he can meet us prior to the predrywall meeting.  You all weren't lying that time flies after framing begins!  We'll get our presettlement meeting time on Monday as well so we can schedule our moving weekend.

Roof, Guardian Meeting, HVAC

Wow! These guys are moving quick now and its hard to keep up with all the progress.  The framing finished up Wednesday and the roof is up with shingles as of Friday.  All the windows are in and the doors have their hardware. The HVAC was installed on Friday and my hubby was in all his glory checking it out throughout the whole house.  They did cut one hole in the incorrect place in the dining room that the PM said is on the list to be fixed.  We had our guardian meeting on Friday to place all our outlets and keypads, etc which lasted all of 15 minutes.  Kind of disappointing that we had to rearrange our schedules for such a short amount of time, but its something else that is checked off the list.  After the meeting since we were already at the house, we took a good look at all the rooms and stayed for about an hour. I think this is the point where I'm "officially" excited.  It so cool to see it all coming together and to get a real sense of where I want things to go in each room.  I've even started to imagine how I want to decorate the space once we get in.  

While we were at the Guardian meeting we ran into our PM.  He's saying we're on track to deliver at the end of October, but we will know more at the pre-drywall meeting next Monday/Tuesday.  He ended up adding more guys to the framing crew to get us back on track and we didn't even know.  He's starting to redeem himself :)  On the list this week is for plumbing and electrical to be installed. We'll have our private inspector come out before the pre-drywall meeting so we know everything to tell the PM to fix at the pre-drywall meeting. We've also started our washer/dryer research which has been a bit confusing.  I thought I knew what I wanted and would stay in our budget, but after checking out one store, the salesman told us not to get top loaders due to vibration.  So, we're on to looking at front loaders, which I never wanted.  It seemed as all were out of our price range, but I think we finally found a good set at another store that we will order this week and have delivered after we move in.

Working hard on the roof

1st floor furnace

Second floor furnace in the attic

In the morning room.  Kitchen is over the ledge and family room is through the pantry closet

Sliding glass door in morning room, may be my favorite room... right now anyhow

The reason we got the 4' extension on the family room... extra pantry!

Anyone else have this?! Oil rubbed bronze on the exterior and brushed nickel on the interior for the door hardware.  All doors that are installed are like this.

Powder room behind silver duct, entrance straight ahead and formal living room to right

Framing Progress

The weather finally cleared up around here Friday afternoon and it has been sunny and in the low 80's for the entire weekend.  The framing crew was out in full force all weekend and have made some incredible progress.  They are really nice and don't mind us staying and watching them work; which we did Saturday and Sunday for about an hour or so each day.  We even took them some Gatorade to make sure they would stay hydrated from all the work in the sun.  Good news with all the sun is that the puddles on the floor in the morning and family rooms dried up.  It appeared they swept some of it out to help with the drying process.  PM told us with OSB that we shouldn't be too worried about the water and they would get it taken care of, which they did.  We still need to ask him if this week affected our closing date or if this was part of the two week buffer they build in.  Its fun going over to the house so much and seeing the other house's progress in our community.  Soon enough we'll be locked out and only be able to make it over to the house on Saturday and Sunday, so the next week or so we're going over as much as we can.

Saturday's Progress.  First floor framing complete and starting on second floor.

Stairs to 2nd floor installed

What we found Sunday when we returned.  Amazing what they can do in one work day!

Morning room to the left, family room to the right

Garage

We do have more windows than are shown in the pictures, they just haven't cut them from the wrap yet.  Also, didn't realize that the morning room has three windows, in my mind I was thinking it only had two, so I'm glad we didn't add any additional ones to the left side.  I think we'll have plenty of natural light with the three in the back and the sliding glass door.

First Floor Framing

Our lumber was finally delivered and framing is underway.  The delivery truck was unable to get a permit issued from the shop due to loss of power from good ole hurricane Irene.  Hurricane Lee is not treating us nice this week either, and we have been delayed a bit more due to massive rainfalls.  I think we're getting used to delays and they don't disappoint us nearly as much, not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Anyone run into rain during framing?  Should we be worried about the lumber being wet?  There is one spot in the morning room that has standing water, but I hope its all okay! Below are some pictures of the first floor framing that is complete.  I'm hoping they will work this weekend when its a bit nicer to make up some time. 

Front of house, without garage

Back of house: Stairs to basement, morning room on left and family room on right

Closer shot of front: dining room on right, living room on left

Garage with man door in incorrect place, but we actually think we might like it better here than on the side.

In the kitchen looking into the family room

Morning Room

Front door <3  It was such a pleasant surprise to see! I think its just so cute with the windows on the top and sides!

All the windows and doors waiting for installation

Time To Be The Squeaky Wheel

VERY frustrated  right now with the progress, or lack there of, on our house.  NOTHING has been done since last Thursday and our neighbors who we were caught up to, has two stories completely framed.  We have a call in with the PM to see what is going on and why they have wasted three beautiful working days doing nothing.  We're also telling him that we need  weekly updates in order to "earn" that 10 on the survey they are so worried about.  Hopefully, we get some answers soon and keep him on his toes.  So that's the reason we haven't updated lately, there is no news to update!

On a better note, we heard from our landlord today that we can stay until November 30th now, and it looks like we're definitely going to need it.  Originally, we has discussed being out by October 31st for him to have time to show it before the weather got nasty, but with all the delays it looks like the house won't be done in time for us to move out and get the apartment cleaned up before then.