She's a Brick....House

Its been about a week and a half since our last post and nothing has changed much. We are currently awaiting several inspections to occur before they can start hanging drywall. In the meantime, we now have most of our siding and the front porch is partially complete. Apparently, the brick we chose for the house is popular and is currently on back order, so that also delays things. There has been a window in the front of the house that was been missing for about a month, which means siding cant be added to that area until its installed.Notice our awesome shutters! There are other houses nearby that began the building process after us and it seems like they're catching us in terms of progress. However, our PM has assured us that we are still on track and will be complete on time. They also went through and fixed a few things that we pointed out during the pre-drywall walk through, mainly the leveling of the floor in a few locations. Also a good chunk of material (ie. doors, sinks, etc) is sitting in the garage and we can't wait for them to be installed. For now, all we can do is patiently wait....

Pre-Drywall Walk Through

This morning we met with the PM and completed our first (official) walk through of the house. Luckily, we made a visit to the house yesterday and made notes of the things in which we wanted to discuss with the PM, so the process went smoothly. We didnt want to be rushed so we took our time walking the house. We didn't locate anything major and everything we brought up was already scheduled to be double checked and inspected during the various inspections that will be conducted within the next two weeks. We saw a few areas that needed to be sealed better and some uneven flooring but nothing major that needed urgent attention. Our PM also informed us that the initial delivery of our framing wood was late so they're trying to make that time up. However, our front porch should be done today and the drywall should be completed sometime next week.

Not much has changed to the outside of the house, just the roof. Most of the changes have occurred inside of the home; plumbing and electrical. We were pleasantly surprised to know that all windows in the home are tinted to prevent UV rays. It looks nice and it provides some added privacy.

Lastly, the PM has informed us that many potential buyers of the Milan model have (nastily) complained to him, and the sales reps, about not having the morning room option, especially after discovering the morning room in our home. It must have been true when we were told that we would have the only Milan in the neighborhood with the morning room option. I guess the early worm gets the morning room.

We've Been Framed!!

This post was created with pure excitement. We have been complete nutcases as we watch our home transform into somewhere we can actually live one day! So far we have the basement poured and framed, main level framed and some of the top level framed without a roof. Yesterday was an adventure, hubby was the catalyst in coercing us to walk into the garage and even down to the basement. Then we began to panic about all the things we need to buy such as living room furniture, a washer and dryer, and paint. However, one of the best parts was meeting our neighbor who lives directly behind us. He is super nice and I have a feeling we will get along just fine.

During my encounter with our neighbor, we discussed the HOA guidelines on fencing as we both seemed to be concerned. The HOA guidelines state you cannot have a privacy fence because it goes against the "open feel" of the community. Instead we were hoping a semi-private fence wouldn't be an issue but it seems we may be wrong. We looked into the documents again and it specifies that the pickets cannot be any closer than 2.5 inches with a max of 5 feet high. Our concern is that 2.5 inches really doesn't create much privacy at all AND we have an 75lb dog that we plan to let roam the backyard. Although our Rosie is super friendly, we don't want her to have the ability to freely interact with others. I fear a child's hand can easily pass through the space to touch or feed her, leaving her susceptible to receiving unhealthy or even harmful food; like chocolate. Hopefully, some other people from the neighborhood see this blog and are just as concerned and want to bring this up for change. I simply want the fencing with boards that are staggered behind each other.

Here are the pictures you have been waiting for.

Front of house (without a roof)

Looking through the garage

Back of house

Nobody Light A Match

The lumber has arrived and they are almost ready for framing, but first they need to pour the concrete for the basement and the garage. Things are moving fast but I think this is regular pace. If you look behind the stack of wood you can see our neighbor's house which just started a few weeks ago. Their siding is already complete!

A bit of information about the lumbar. We were a little bit concerned about the lumbar just sitting outside to experience all the elements. Basically we were worried about rain which equals mold or mildew. Our PM was kind enough to explain the mechanics and treatment of the wood. The lumbar packages are not protected (covered) from the rain while outside but they are engineered in a way that it is mold and mildew resistant. He even went on to explain that they perform 4 separate mold inspections throughout construction process to ensure it is not an issue. What a relief. We feel like we got a really good PM and a great builder. Nothing like feeling protected while your house is being built.

July 22, 2015

 

 Pouring concrete

My mind is like concrete: thoroughly mixed up and permanently set.

Oh the joy to see progress. It has been such a long process already. After all, we purchased in February 2015 and ground breaking didn't occur until July. Drum roll here...... Ryan Homes has officially poured the concrete for our foundation!!! Now we can actually begin to visualize our house on the lot and the 35 foot backyard was a pleasant surprise. As a women, you can tell us something is 35 feet all day but that means nothing without a visual. While, if you tell a man (hubby specific) 35 feet, usually equates to trying to explain using football field lengths. Insert eye roll here. So there was a bit of walking through our neighbors un-fenced grass to get these pictures (oppsies) but I'm sure they would understand since they just went through this process.

July 14, 2015 - Prepping and preparing footings for foundation walls

July 15, 2015 - Basement foundation poured

Front of Milan. Garage will be on the left

Side

Back of the House. Everything within the black plastic fence is out lot. We have to figure out the weird pipe thingie to the left. We were told it wasn't in our lot. Also you see those blue lines of spray paint. We believe this is the level in which they will be pouring the ground back up too. Also, we have walkout basement, which of course we already knew. On the left side of the house is where the stairwell will be.

There's A Hole In Our Yard!

Finally, they break ground and begin building our home. We texted the PM to get an update because we were told they would break ground on July 6th, but they didn't. Coincidentally, the PM was at the site breaking ground at the time of the text and was nice enough to send pictures of his progress as well as provide us information of the next steps. He informed us that they should be prepping and pouring footings for the foundation walls today and pouring basement foundation walls next week. Then they'll install the underground plumbing, run and tie-in water/sewer, and the next step would be pouring the basement and garage slabs. Its all very exciting!!

We were able to talk with PS and convince them to throw in the wet bar rough-in without us providing any documentation because it was already promised to us by the manager. The manager confirmed the conversation he had with us and we signed the change order form which added the rough-in for FREE!

Pre-Construction Meeting

The pre-construction meeting finally happened and we couldn't have been more excited as we realized we're finally making progress. The Project Manager (PM) seemed above competent and assured us that him and his crew were the best at Potomac Shores. We sat down and discussed the our land and elevation and realized that we have a minimal amount of land on the side of the house (if 6 ft is considered minimal) but our backyard should make up for it (est. 35 ft.). We combed through all our options, one-by-one, to assure that we were on the same page, and everything seemed to be in order. We came prepared with a list of questions, some we came up with and some we gathered from other sources, for the PM to ensure we covered all the bases. We walked away feeling really good about that meeting knowing that we had a PM who seemed like he knew what he was doing and seemed to take pride in his work. He has even won several awards as the top PM for some areas that us normal people wouldn't be able to remember the name of.

Unfortunately, later that day, we realized something was wrong. We never discussed the wet bar rough-in, in the basement in which we were promised...free of charge. We informed PS of the discrepancy and they wanted to us to find the paperwork that stated this. However, a day after the meeting we left for a 5 day cruise so we couldn't do a proper search. Upon our return we began looking for the document and we're still working with PS to resolve this issue.

Here are some of the questions and answers we asked during the meeting:

Interior

Will there be an outlet at least one of the master closets? (The wife wanted a vanity area in her closet)

o   No

Is there an outlet on the kitchen island?

o   1

Installed shower rod or removable? Can we provide an installable shower rod?

o   This is important if you wanted an installed shower rod because you would need to drill through the ceramic tiles on the shower wall.

o   No….for now

Recessed light over shower?

o   There will be a recessed light over the shower, over the tub, in the closed in toilet area and a light fixture installed over the top of vanity.

Can we remove granite back splash lip (kitchen)?

o   They do not believe TAC provides one but will double check and let them know we do not want the lip. Back splash should be from counter to the bottom of the upper cabinets.

Can we have a board/piece-of-wood mounted behind the drywall above the fireplace for TV? This will help secure the TV mount so the TV isn’t held up by the wall studs only. We plan on having at least a 60 inch TV in the Family Room.

o   Yes, just let the PM know the exact size of the TV.

Is there crown or chair rail?

o   Yes, in the foyer, study and dining room.

Towel bars in all the bathrooms?

o   Yes body towels only and only one bar. (We will personally try to find a better solution for this)

Can we provide you the 2 fans and morning room light to install when the rough-ins are made?

o   Can be addressed at a later time.

Where is attic access?

o   In the ceiling of the 2^nd guest bedroom.

Dining room wainscoting?

o   Nope but chair railing will be there

Exterior

What outdoor lights are standard – any in the front of house, back of the house? Porch lights?

o   There will be standard lights in the front of the house and backdoor. Also there will be two motion censored lights in front of the garage.

Sealed garage floor?

o   The garage floor will be bare. Sealing the floor will be completed by the owners if they desire.

How many steps will we likely have leading up to our front door? Are we guaranteed to have the full front porch railing?

o   We should have about 2 steps up to our porch based on the relatively smooth elevation of our lot; 17 inches from the ground. The front porch railing is usually reserved for houses with more than a 32inch drop from the top of the porch to the ground.

Glass in the door?

o   No, it will be a solid steel door without a peephole. He did offer to put in the peephole if we purchased it.