Week 16: Closing & The Big Move!

Week 16: August 29 - September 4


It finally happened, and it still feels surreal! In true Fab fashion, it was not without drama. (sigh).


Our good friends had offered to take Munchie off our hands so we could close and move in peace. So I met them to hand her over Monday morning. Thank the Lord for friends. All of this madness would have been a lot harder with her underfoot!


Closing Day
Hubs, our realtor, and I met at the Ryan title company office on Monday, August 29 at 11 a.m. in Blue Bell, PA with our cashier's check, extra blank checks, and ID's in hand. We've been through two other closings and several re-finances and expected it to take an hour or so, max. Maybe shorter since Ryan, NVR/ Homeside, and the title company are ALL THE SAME DAMN COMPANY.
I was wrong.


Delay #1
We got through signing about half of our paperwork before we realized that the county was listed incorrectly (Berks, we're in Montgomery). Title company woman had to stop us and re-run that paperwork, then have us re-sign everything.


Delay #2
She explains a tax form that gives us the total of the additional tax bill we should expect in 8-12 weeks. Totaling almost $7,000. First we've heard of it. Hubs understandably flips out. I ask the woman to give us five minutes. She steps out. Realtor calls mortgage guy. Mortgage guy points to builder/ sales rep. Title company points to mortgage guy. We can't get ahold of our sales rep to see who she points to, but realize that it's just a waste of time. We completely understand and agree with owing the tax, but strenuously disagree with not being told until the middle of closing. In the end, we understand the reason why our estimated cash to close mysteriously dropped by $5,000 the week before closing....those were tax funds that for some fluke reason of tax schedule, we're paying in a few weeks instead. DEEP SIGH.


Title woman returns, signing continues. At this point, my hunger-induced pregnancy nausea is really kicking in. I ask how much longer we might be here. Woman laughs at me and offers to find me some crackers from someone's desk (I grudgingly decline).


Delays #3-5
We finish the neverending signing, but are immediately faced with more delays. Title woman explains that 1. We need "approval" from Homeside that they have everything they need. 2. She needs to run us our copies of the documents, and 3. Homeside (NVR) has not wired the money yet. We had an 11a.m. closing. Not 9 a.m. At this point, we've been in the office for over 2 hours. So throwing out the notion that the bank could have wired the funds the night before....they have had 4 hours during which to do so that morning, but did not. I don't know about you, but if I was 4+ hours late doing a key part of my job, I wouldn't last long.


I am barely holding it together. You just cannot mess with a miserable pregnant woman like this. Hubs and our realtor, being smart men, realize this and are desperately trying to hurry things along. We continue waiting for another half hour or so before the wire transfer is confirmed. Realtor busts out the sparkling apple juice, we chug, and we run the heck out of there. Entire process clocked in at 3 hours.


We have only appliance deliveries scheduled for the afternoon, and figure we have lots of time to get to the house, so we stop for a pizza lunch. I put the first delicious bite into my mouth, and Hub's cell rings. The Best Buy delivery truck is running 2 hours ahead of schedule, and is now sitting in front of the house. We are currently 45 minutes away, and still need to run back to our temp living house (15 minutes in the opposite direction) to grab my car. We tell them we'll be there as soon as we can, throw the slices in a to-go box and run out the door.


We finally get to the house and find Ryan installers replacing the kitchen appliances with the upgraded ones. There's obviously no where to sit, so I plop my nauseous self on the stairs. At that moment, my tush is glad we hadn't upgraded to the hard-woods! Best Buy comes with the washer and dryer and for a while it's like an appliance store exploded in the house. Of course, the fridge was on a DIFFERENT Best Buy delivery truck that we would now be waiting for.


Hubs runs out to do I have no-idea what errands, and in the meanwhile, I unload the Bed Bath & Beyond goodies (new bathroom décor, towels, etc.), the hand soap and TP into the house. Which is about all there is to do except wait.


When he gets back, we decide to run to our new post office to change our address and get the key to our community mailbox. We get within 1 minute of the post office when Best Buy driver confirms he will be at the house in 5 minutes; and so we turn around and fly back to the house to take fridge delivery.


As fridge delivery guy leaves, our friends arrive bearing hoagies, tomato pie (it's a Philly thing), and drinks. The husband is a pastor, so he walks us through the house offering a prayer and blessing for every room, and leaves us with a beautiful cross to hang over the front door. It was lovely.


As we're finishing up with them, the Budget Blinds woman arrives to show me samples, and give us a quote for whole house faux wood, cordless blinds. Once we choke down the number, she leaves, and we follow.


I know we did some other errands on the way back to our temp living, but I can't remember what they were for the life of me. We passed out unconscious and set alarms early to meet the movers.




Moving Day


Hubs awakens before dawn to pick up his boss's pickup truck, then meet the movers at the storage place at 7 a.m. I go directly to the house to await the Comcast installation guy by 8 a.m. By 9 or so, I get word that the movers are on their way to the house. Their crew boss is waiting for the truck in my living room and gets a call to tell him that they have been pulled off the road by state troopers for a Department of Transportation spot check. I think it's a joke for a while, and when I realize that it's truly happening, I text my state trooper friend to "please call off her friends and let my furniture go!"


They are delayed for about 45 minutes, but finally arrive and quickly begin unloading. I stand at the front door directing them where to bring everything. Hubs is off running mystery errands again.
My lovely and wonderful friend arrived around 11 to help in whatever way she could, and I kept her busy with small tasks as the movers finished up.


Once they left, she and I went to work, and mostly focused on the kitchen, as most of the boxes were destined for that room! We had been too nervous to let the movers place all the boxes on the hardwoods, so we were forced to make trips into the garage for everything. Burning calories(?) My friend took on the designated shelf-liner cutter role and became an expert quickly.
Another wonderful friend stopped by around 1 with Wendy's for us. Have I mentioned how awesome all of our friends are?
Our work continued until an afternoon Raymour and Flannigan furniture delivery.  Our master bedroom mattress, dresser, and nightstands all arrived in good condition. Munchie arrived with the friends who had kept her, and we gave her a tour of the house and her newly arranged playroom! She was thrilled, but didn't stay long. Hubs took her back to our temp living house to sleep; and my friend and I resumed work and didn't stop until after 10 p.m. I tossed and turned on the new mattress all night. The next morning I took my first shower at the house, and despite only having a sample packet of conditioner and bottle of hand-soap to work with, it felt amazing!


Wednesday, crazy Hubs went to work, Munchie stayed with our niece, and my friend and I continued our mission; unpacking and organizing, and managing a second furniture delivery. Mealey's delivered two new family room sofas, a morning room table, chairs, and sideboard, and new "big girl" furniture for Munchie's room. The garage door replacement panel arrived and was quickly replaced, and a random local window guy came to take measurements of the glass in our front door for potential switch out. We made major kitchen progress, and welcomed a visit from another friend bearing dinner for us in the afternoon. Hubs picked up Munchie on his way home from work, which meant the whole family would finally sleep in our new house!


My amazing friend left early Thursday morning, and while Hubs installed our new FrontPoint security system, I threw clothes and swimsuits in bags and packed the car for our Labor Day vacation to LBI. We finally left the house around 2 p.m., and Munchie and I promptly passed out for the ride to relaxation.


The rest of the madness at the house would be waiting for our return.

Week 10: Tile, Granite, Lighting Fixtures, Driveway, Grading

Week 10 - July 18 - July 24, 2016

 

Days 64 - 70

• Received closing date of 8/29! 
• Tile
• Granite
• Vinyl flooring
• lighting fixtures
• driveway
• grading
• Visited on 7/24 to see progress

So, now that we're 45 minutes away, it's getting harder to swing by the house to check things out. I have no idea what happened which day, but a fair amount was finished this week.


#1 The bathrooms are tiled (floor & shower in master, showers only in guest & hall baths). I'm loving how the master bath looks. We picked a pretty high level upgrade (mostly because I didn't love anything else), and I'm feeling like it was worth it. The only disappointment was that because they tile after the baseboards are installed, the baseboards now appear really short. I get why Ryan organizes their sub schedule like they do, but I really think flooring BEFORE trim, (which would do away with the need for quarter-round), and is the CORRECT order of construction would be smart, and look so much better.


#2 The hall and guest bathrooms + laundry room had their vinyl floors installed. I don't hate them, and actually bent down to make sure they were vinyl because they looked like tile at first!


#3 Power was turned on and light fixtures were installed! I definitely don't love the dining room chandelier or the infamous "boob" lights in the front entry hallway, but they're not horrible. Not 100% sold on the master bath lighting fixture over the vanity in oil-rubbed bronze. I hadn't realized the glass itself would be a beigey/brown streak look rather than white or clear. Not the biggest fan, but it's not horrible, and hopefully we can change those out. I like the black garage door and porch lamps, but they all seem undersized somehow?  Hubs hates having the porch lamp at all, and thinks the 2 lights in the overhang will be more than enough light. Still to be seen, I guess.


#4 Grading is coming along, although I don't think it's quite finished yet. Blacktop driveway was poured.


All-in-all, not as much progress as I expected? Everything seemed to slow down a little bit after last week's massive progress.


Open issues our PM is working on -
1. ordering new, 36" cabinet with fridge side panels + filler to replace the 1-paneled 39" cabinet currently installed.
2. Replacing the incorrect vanities in the hall and guest bath with Fairfield Wheat. We're told they're already on order.
3. Correcting the (special request) door swings of the master bath into the bedroom and the laundry room into the loft.
4. Not sure if he knows this yet, but we saw that the quarter-round had been delivered in a really dark espresso. Two problems with that: they don't match our floor color (too dark). We paid extra to have white quarter round to match the baseboards rather than the floor. So definitely not correct either way. LOL


Last thought: Closing is scheduled! Our final walk through has been booked with our PM for August 22 for quite a while.  Last week we got the confirmed closing date of August 29! (We asked for 8/26, but were rejected). 8/29 is a Monday, which leaves us 8/30 and 8/31 for us to move in before we go away Labor Day weekend. Shouldn't be too crazy at all, right? (sarcasm).






Pics!

Day 67:  Exterior Lights installed. Why does the garage lamp look so undersized?

Day 70: Basement - Finished portion

Day 70: Bedroom 2

Day 70: Dining Room

Day 70: Family Room with study door to the back right

Day 70: Vinyl floor in hall bath (notice WRONG cabinet and now that I look closely, the vinyl doesn't look so good/even running to the baseboard on the right. Anyone else see the gap?)

Day 70: Granite! Bonus pic of Munchie & Me.

Day 70: Kitchen with wrong cabinets over and around fridge cutout



Day 70: First - Tilt your head completely to the right.
This crappy pic is a sideways view of master shower and wrong door swing. Isn't the tile gorgeous? It looks like a hotel, and I'm in love. Still annoyed about the plastic shower pan.