Week 12: Floors, Appliances, Touch-Up Work

Week 12 - August 1 - 7, 2016

 

Days 78 - 84

• Hardwood floors & carpets installed - 8/1-8/3
• Appliances arrive - 8/4
• Drywall spackling/ touch ups (everything is pink!)
• Sprayed inside of main vents black (instead of shiny)
• Bathroom fixtures hung (TP holders, towel racks, etc.)
• Shower surround in master bath installed
• Shower curtain rods hung in hall & guest bath
• Faucets installed everywhere.

We asked our PM for a walk-through on Wednesday afternoon. It was GREAT to see the progress, and our floors in particular. I love them!! Wish we could have seen the appliances, but we were a day too early. We measured for blinds and took a few pics (see below).
Work definitely feels slower now that it's detail stuff and not drastic changes.
We caught a few new fixes:

• Cable outlet was faced into the loft, when it should have faced into bedroom #3.
• Long towel bar hung in powder room (had requested it be left off). I don't understand why they install a full towel bar in a powder room. It should be a ring or short bar. So silly.
• Move TP holder in master WC from next to toilet to on opposite wall.
• Carpet transitions between rooms obvious in a couple of places - you can see the cuts.
• Front living room window is being bowed up pretty severely by mortar globs on the stone.

And a few remain that PM added to/kept on his list:

• Banged up kitchen cabinets
• Still wrong vanities in hall and guest baths
• Door swings of laundry room and master bath need to be reversed
• Crooked ceiling drywall in pantry hallway (between kitchen & dining room)
• Horrendous drywall gap and blobs of spackle around front door light switch
• bowed drywall above loft windows
• white outlet cover on espresso island

Some general stuff I don't love, but can't do anything about:

• Front door has no trim, and a plain white kickplate. Snore.
• Strange undersized garage carriage lights
• We paid for upgraded padding in study. It does not feel upgraded in the least.
• Ugly/cheap-looking window in front door
• Meh about the stone selection

One happy note: PM demonstrated that electrician was able to accommodate my wiring request to control front porch and garage lights from the same place inside the front door. Yay PM!

Day 8: Dining Room and floors! Note the raised box molding to accommodate higher baseboards we'll install ourselves. Resolution to that ugly issue!

Day 80: Entry View with bonus shots of hubs and PM + So.many.boob lights.

Master Bath light fixture - not a big fan

Day 80: Master shower. BIG fan!

Day 80: The Glorious Tub!

Day 80: Study with "upgraded" carpet and pad

Week 9: Siding, Sidewalks, Trim, Cabinets, Paint

Week 9 - July 11 - July 17, 2016



7/11 - day 57 - ?

7/12 - day 58 - Siding & Sidewalks (surprise!)

7/13 - day 59 - Cabinets, doors & Big Move #1

7/14 - day 60 - Trimwork

7/15 - day 61 - Closing #1 & scheduled walkthrough

7/16 - day 62 - ?

7/17 - day 63 - ?




Aside from framing week, this was BY FAR the most exciting week to date. Ryan made so much progress on the house, it's really starting to feel (and look) like our house!


The week started out with me getting my hand smacked by our PM. It's my own fault because I texted him a pic from inside the house. Whoops. I apologized and told him it's not likely that we'll be (sneaking) in again, as our move happens this week, and we'll now be living about 45 minutes away. I did ask what the protocol is for weekend visits, since that's likely all we'll be able to swing!


PM confirmed that he expected the week to include trim installation, painting, and hopefully tile. The fun stuff is starting!

Tuesday was super exciting. We unexpectedly have siding and shutters! Thrilled with how it's looking so far, but I can't wait to see it with the stone and painted door to pull it all together. We had sidewalks and a driveway lip poured too, but with siding to gaze upon, it was barely noticed.




Our movers arrived at 7am sharp on Wednesday morning, and moved us into two storage units. We had a separate pile of suitcases, totes, bags, grocery bags, and coolers to move into our good friends' home for the long wait to completion. Of course, the weather decided to turn from "months-long-drought" to "torrential flooding", which meant our mattress was going to sit in the empty house until Thursday, and everything became more challenging. As painful as moving is, I will say that the movers did an outstanding job. Super fast, and super professional. If you're looking for movers in Montgomery County, PA - Crouse Moving & Delivery is highly recommended. After the movers left, Hubs made several of his own trips to our friends' house, and storage, and made a stop at the house at night where he saw that the kitchen cabinets had been installed! Yay yay yay! It was a very long day.

Thursday I took a half-day from work and spent the morning cleaning the old house, packing up random leftover stuff for storage, etc. The painful end work. Hubs snuck in again Thursday night and saw that the upgraded trim package had been installed, and looked lovely! He also spotted railings and the master bath vanity and countertop.



Friday morning at 10 was the closing on our current house. So bittersweet to be leaving our first home! We met the new owners at closing and loved them, which helped. After closing, we enjoyed a rare kid-free, weekday lunch date where we ran into neighbors from the new development. At one we headed to the house for a sanctioned walk-through with the PM in training. That poor kid has no clue about anything - and no power, so that was a little frustrating. He wasn't writing any notes on the issues we found, so we'll need to follow-up with our PM ASAP.


Overall- it's looking great. But there are definitely some issues.
1. Pass-through hallway between the dining room and kitchen is framed/drywalled crooked. Not sure which, but visible leaning is noticeable along the ceiling line.
2. Kitchen cabinets are looking a little beat up in a few spots.
3. Only one side of the wall section around the fridge cutout came from the factory and was installed. We did hear that this was a known issue, and that spacing did not allow for the second side wall...we indicated that we want it, so....hopefully they get that figured out.
4. Cabinets in the hall bath and guest room bath are wrong. They were both the basic oak, when we had selected the Fairfield Wheat. I strongly dislike basic oak, and would never in a million years would have chosen them.
5. Open hole in the cement wall at the bottom corner of garage, near door. I have no explanation as to how or why that happened...
6. Maybe more that I can't recall at the moment, and the "problem" pics are still on hubs' phone. I'll post them ASAP.


It was a crazy, insane week. One I don't wish to repeat in the near future, but (un)fortunately will again in 6 weeks or so!
Our little one summed it up one night last week. "Mommy and Daddy, I feel both happy and sad". Us too kiddo, us too.


Without further ado....(out of order) pics:

Day 58: siding, shutters, and a sidewalk!

Day 58: siding side view

Day 59: Kitchen Cabinets! Notice only 1 side of fridge surround. Sigh.
I am really happy with our custom double-oven move though!

Day 60: front door view

Day 60: Master bath vanity. The "Crema Marfil" granite appears more tan than what I pictured.
I may need to pick up the sample from the model to double-check the color...

Day 59: fireplace and study door

Day 60: dining room with raised trim to accommodate our installation of taller baseboards.
You can also see the crooked hallway ceiling/doorway. Sigh.