Hurry up and wait

A word of caution if you're using a VA loan--be prepared for a longer wait between the time your house is complete and the time you go to closing.  We were initially told that our final walkthrough would happen on January 30th, which means closing would happen around the first week of February--or so we thought.  We got the word on Friday that our closing is scheduled for February 22nd...almost three weeks later than we have thought all along!! 

Here's what happened...the VA appraiser can't come to the house until it is 95% complete.  For us, that day is January 24th.  After they come to the house, they have 10 business days to complete the appraisal report.  Doing the math, that would be February 7th.  So, there's a chance we could close sooner than the 22nd, but NVR is adding cushion in the event of a delay with the VA.  I guess they have gotten burned before. 

So, let that be a lesson to VA loan users.  Our total time from groundbreaking to this estimated, delayed closing date is 108 days!  It's going to be hard to watch our completed house sit empty for three weeks.

In good news, the first coat of real paint went on yesterday.  Apparently what I thought was paint before was actually primer. :-)

We have cabinets!

Things are coming along nicely at the house.  In the past two days, the trim, cabinets, bathroom vanities, and railings have been installed.  The porch columns are in and they are a huge improvement over the 2x4s or whatever was holding up the porch. :)

Somehow our garage door managed to get severely dented in the last couple of days.  It won't even close now.  I suppose it's nothing that can't be fixed or replaced.  Another slight disappointment was seeing that they went ahead and drilled the holes for the drawer pulls.  We had asked for them to do the knobs on the cabinet doors, but not the drawers.  We wanted to install our own cup pulls.  I think a cup pull would cover the existing single hole, but who wants that many holes in the drawer?  I think we'll just stick with the knobs for a while.  Overall, we are SUPER excited about the progress and can't wait to see more!

Here are some pics:

Rushmore Maple Butterscotch Glaze

Railings before stain

Owner's bath vanity

Hall bath

Fireplace with dry grout

Porch columns!

Paint!

We had a surprise when we went to visit our SR last week.  They are now offering the cottage elevations in the neighborhood.  On some models, they don't even offer Elevations A-C anymore.  I have to admit, I am a little jealous.  Although, I'm not sure how much these elevations will add to the already-increased base prices of the homes.  Oh well...you know what's great about our elevation C?  It's almost DONE! :)

We were happy to see that work was done on the house between Sunday and Christmas.  The walls got their first coat of paint and we may even get the cabinets installed before the week is over!  While inspecting the boxes of goodies that had been delivered, I saw this Broan range hood:

 

Hmmm...that is not the range hood that we ordered as part of our appliance package. This is the only appliance that is here, so maybe it belongs to someone else's house.  We ordered the GE Profile stainless appliance package.  In our community, it was called the Premier IV.  The range hood is supposed to be a GE Profile.  Hopefully this is a mistake or it's just being stored here temporarily.  

Stone Mountain Clay in daylight

No interior pics for now.  I'll add more when there is something exciting to look at like cabinets!

Happy Holidays :)

Drywall fixed and more!

The framers & drywallers made quick work of fixing "the wave."  I don't know what they did, but it looks great!  Hopefully we still have all of our rafters :)

In other good news, the stone fireplace was installed and the siding and shutters are finished.  They also poured the sidewalk and steps to the porch.  Now we just need porch pillars & railing and a piece of trim above the bonus room window and the exterior will basically be complete.

We got our letter from NVR today with the list of items that need to be udpated.  It says our settlement has been tentatively scheduled for January...here's hoping that is the case!

Some pics of our progress...

Camera's crooked, but the ceiling is level!

Can't wait to see this when the grout is dry.  Loving the Aspen Fieldstone :)

Stone Mountain Clay & Black Shutters

Drywall down and siding in progress

That's right...drywall down.  Normally at this point we are looking for drywall going up, right?  :-) We stopped by tonight to see what was up with the drywall "wave" caused by a warped rafter.  It looks like it will be addressed soon since all of the drywall in that area has been ripped out.  The framers are supposed to come back to fix it. 



Sunday, 12/16



Tuesday, 12/18

The rest of the house is coming right along.  We were pleasantly surprised to see that they have already started putting siding on!  I'm really glad we switched back to Stone Mountain Clay.  That was our original selection, but I was worried it would be too dark so we put in a change request for Silver Mist.  When we realized the house two doors down was also Silver Mist (along with several others) we decided to switch back to our original choice...and I LOVE it. I even like the white trim, but it all goes almond in this community unless you have a white house.

 

 

Drywall...and a problem

We were so excited to see the drywall going up yesterday.  When we went back today to get some pictures, we noticed what looks like a big problem.  It may be hard to tell without knowing what you're looking for, but the ceiling has a big wave in it.  The "wave" spans the entire hallway, front to back, stopping at the bathroom and laundry room where everything looks level.  Lovely.  Here's hoping this can be fixed within our current timeline.

 

Thankfully, the rest of the house looks great!  Fingers crossed this area will look good too very soon.

 



Pre-drywall!

We had our pre-drywall meeting on Monday where we were (officially) shown all the innards of the house, including items that were added to meet the Energy Star 3.0 requirements.  Overall, everything looked really good.  There were a couple of issues we found that were quickly corrected.  Other than that, we didn't see any major problems.

Taking Sgt. Rich's advice, we took the opportunity to ask for additional support under the laundry room floor to minimize shaking.  The PM explained the spacing of the joists under the laundry room is narrower to provide more support, but we figured it wouldn't hurt to add more.  He agreed and had the framers add some 2x4s between the joists.

The insulation was installed yesterday, including some additional that we installed in the garage (exterior wall).  Drywall was delivered today, so it looks like they'll get started any day now.  Prior to this point, I thought we would be contacting NVR to lock as soon as we got out of our pre-drywall meeting, but we were advised to wait until our PM update on Friday because that's when he'll have an estimated completion date.  I don't want to wait too long to lock, but I also don't want to sweat the 60-day rule!

Here are some pics of progress to date:

The drywall has arrived!

Extra support under the laundry room

Fireplace...and more drywall :)

Kitchen & Morning Room

Fridge water supply?

I went poking around the house last night and noticed the water line for the refrigerator was located on the left side of the fridge (vice the back wall).  Has anyone else seen/had it installed this way?

The inside jobs begin

We got our 3rd PM update on Friday and heard the good news that pre-drywall will probably be scheduled for the week of the 10th!  It looks like people were there working on the house all weekend.  When we went by today, the remaining windows had been installed, the stairs were in, and someone was there working on the HVAC.  The PM said this week will be HVAC, plumbing, and electrical.  Exciting stuff!  Here are some updated pics...

 

 

Looking from kitchen into family room



Basement...and yes, that's water on the floor.

Morning room and escape route

Owner's bedroom

Future home of our soaking tub

 

Bonus room (aka FROG)

Wrapped up

It looks like they made a lot of progress today.  The roof is on (minus shingles) and the house is wrapped.  I wonder what surprises we'll find tomorrow!  Here are some pics of today's progress:

Standing a little taller today

The second floor is on with the exception of the front of the bonus room.  It looks like the roof is next.  We are looking forward to walking through the house next week!

Here are some pictures of the progress.  In the time it took to snap pictures around the perimeter of the house, they put the second window in to the left of the front door.  Talk about speedy!

Ravenna Rising

 

We went by today and finally got to see some walls going up!  What a glorious sight.  We are soaking it in today because tomorrow the place will probably be soaked.  They're calling for rain/snow all day tomorrow, so I'm pretty sure this is all we're going to get until Wednesday.  That's okay...this was enough to keep me happy for a few days.  In other good news, Guardian called to schedule our pre-wire meeting for next week.  :-)

Pics of the progress at about 10:15 this morning...

 

Back of the house (morning room on the right)

 

...and progress when we went back this evening around 4:30! 

 

 

No framing today

As I suspected would be the case, there was no work going on at our lot today. So, I guess framing is delayed until tomorrow or, more likely, Monday. Oh well, I guess it's better for them to start when they're well-rested and not wishing they were at home.

We did get some pics of the basement floor when we visited a couple of nights ago. Here's hoping that my next post will have pictures of wood that is vertical.

Slabs

The slabs were poured today.  That's the last step before framing begins on Friday (fingers crossed)!  We couldn't get close enough to see inside the basement, but we got some pics of the garage floor in progress.

House Wrap

Depending on where you live, you may get house wrap that looks like one of those emergency space blankets.  I got to see the package up close tonight, so here's more info if you are wondering what it is:  http://www.low-e.com/products/products_view.php?Product=Low-E%20Housewrap.



ESP Low-E House Wrap.
"Reduces your carbon footprint."