Day 12 & 13

Not much happening this weekend. They worked on the drainage a bit. It looks like they will be finished up and ready to frame by Tuesday (Day 15).

Lesa and I went to Levin Furniture last night to see if we could find things we liked for the house. We currently have leather reclining sofa's. While they are nice I don't find them particularly comfortable. We will be putting the leather couches and chairs in the family room with a big screen tv and all of the game consoles for the kids. In the basement media room I wanted something extremely comfortable that had a fabric covering. We found a sofa that we could all agree upon, success! We also picked up the ottoman instead of a coffee table.

We paired the sofa with two of these end tables. Big enough for a lamp with handy cup holders!

We them moved on to picking our new kitchen table. We found a nice table, Lesa preferred a high table so the dog would be less of a problem while we eat. I thought it was cool because it has a lazy Susan in the middle with folding sides so it can be round or square. We also purchased 3 additional matching stools for the breakfast bar in the kitchen. This will give us plenty of seating for casual dining with guests!

Lesa is also trying to convince me that Brianna needs a new bed. With all of the other expenditures we have right now I think she can wait a while.

Day 11

The forms are off! Getting ready for the waterproofing and the drainage systems.

I went back later in the day. Sure enough even more done!

Day 10

Even with some strong storms moving through the area our PM managed to get our basement poured. I was pleasantly surprised when I stopped on my way home from work this afternoon. The project has had consistent progress in the first 10 days which has made Lesa and I very happy.

They dropped off the pvp pipe for our drainage system to boot!


 

Day 9

The forms have been installed and we are ready for concrete. Our PM Lou is humming along magnificently. Hopefully the weather holds off and the foundation is ready for framing by early next week.

Day 8

We went over to the house to see what was happening. To our disappointment it seemed nothing much had changed since yesterday. After gazing in to the hole for a few minutes we all piled back in to the car and got ready to leave. We took a slow cruise through the neighborhood looking at the progress of the homes being built ahead of ours. We saw our next door neighbors and stopped to chat for a moment.

As we prepared to pull out of the neighborhood low and behold the truck carrying the forms for our basement arrived. We swung around and snapped a few photos.

The good news is that the backlog of framing seems to be catching up. The house directly in front of ours should begin framing this week and hopefully we will start next week.

Days 5-7

Day 5: Removed the forms from the footer. (No Pictures)

Days 6: (Sunday) No work done.

Day 7: Drainage and Gravel.

My hope is that by weeks end the foundation will have been completed with the full drainage systems, back-filled, and ready for framing. Our wood still hasn't arrived so I'm not overly concerned. However, our neighbors a few houses away received their lumber about a week ago and have not started framing. Although I think they will start this week. It appears that the backlog of unframed homes is easing up, if the weather stays nice that is.

In other news we are busy packing our current home. It is going well, I never realized how much stuff we've accumulated as a family in the 10 years we've lived in our current home. I'm the antithesis of a pack rat and we still have mountains of crap that we've donated to Goodwill in our packing endeavors.

Purchase Con't.

Well, we went to Home Depot with our Lowe's 10% coupon in hand and we did indeed get the fridge and range we wanted. (After much haggling over the coupon. HD finally accepted it when I threatened to walk.) However, we also splurged and a got a dishwasher. We hadn't planned on the dishwasher but we took a look at the base model that will be installed in the house and found that we really didn't like it at all.

Since the rest of the appliances in the house are LG (fridge, range, washer, dryer) we opted to go with an LG dishwasher. I present our new dishwasher!

Model #LDF7551ST

All said and done Lesa and I were out of Home Depot $4300 lighter but we had purchased 3 high end appliances, delivery, and instillation (parts are included in the purchase price). We had budgeted close to $6000 for these purchases. All in all I'm a very happy camper!

First Purchases!

Lesa and I are getting ready to purchase two appliances for our home. We didn't upgrade the basic appliance package that came with the house, we felt we could get a better deal and get exactly what we wanted. With 4th of July sales in full swing I present our fridge and range!

Fridge:  LG Electronics 32.5 cu. ft. French Door Refrigerator in Stainless Steel 
Model # LFX33975ST

This fridge is huge! It's nearly 10 cu. ft. bigger than our current fridge.

Range: LG Electronics 6.1 cu. ft. Double Oven Gas Range
Model # LDG3036ST

The range is amazing. Double oven, 5 burner, 1 a 17K btu super boil burner. I can't wait to use this thing!

Lesa and I are planning to use the microwave and dishwasher that come with the house until they die. If they are anything like the appliances that came with our current house we won't have to wait to long...

Day 2 - 4

TGIF! At the end of the week we've got the footers poured and should have the basement poured next week! Its amazing how much rock they had to dig through to get the hole deep enough.

Here are the pictures!

Day 2: We didn't go to the house. I was super tired after a long day of work.

Day 3:  Deeper Hole!

Day 4: Footers Poured!

Day 1 - Digging!

Well, we have the start of a hole. The guys broke ground about a week late due to the storms that moved slowly through the area. I got an email from our SR this morning with shots of the excavator hard at work.

We stopped over after dinner tonight to gaze in to what will be our basement in the not to distant future. One of the things that amazed us what that our lot is nearly solid rock.

Lesa and Tommy in our shared driveway.

More to come later in the week when they should be pouring the footer!

Pre-Con Meeting Completed

We've finished our pre-construction meeting this morning with our Sales Reps and Project Manager. It took about an hour and we went over the whole house. All of our selections were accounted for and Lou (our PM) had answers to all of our questions. The only change we made that was not accounted for was the color of our grout, we went from #95 sable brown to #105 earth.

We did learn that because we have both a finished basement and a bonus room that we moved in to a two zone heating and cooling system. We will have two 95% efficient furnaces, one in the basement and one in the attic. We are automatically upgraded to pull down attic steps for access to the furnace up there. Additionally, we will have two 13 seer AC units next to each other outside of our home. Lesa and I are unsure how to feel about this. On one hand the 2-zone system gives us great control over the heating and cooling in the house. On the other our maintenance costs just doubled.

Lou was suppose to break ground on our house today but with the steady raid today and predicted for tomorrow he will be digging our lot next Wednesday (6/12). Our lumber is set to be delivered in roughly 2 weeks. Our estimated close date at this point is September, early October. I did let them all know that my rate lock expires October first so that is the date I'm going to be pushing hard to meet for closing, with September 30th being the absolute best possible date to close.

Let the roller coaster ride begin!

Moving along

Its been a few weeks since my last post and things are moving along well. Just like everyone else I've been struck with the sharp increase in interest rates the past few weeks. I've been talking with my SP, PM, and loan officer to coordinate my rate lock. Lesa and I have put in a 120 day rate lock at 4.25% with .5 credit at closing. It isn't the rate either of us wanted. However, it is still a lower rate than what we are paying on our current home and in 10 years its probably going to be a great rate.

To feel comfortable with the 120 day lock we verified that all of our building permits have been issued, builds in our neighborhood are taking between 60 and 90 days to complete, and that we will break ground 6/6 or 6/7 with an estimated completion date of early September. Our rate lock is good until the beginning of October so we have some built in buffers.

It was a stressful decision, the gambler in me wanted to play the float game and see if rates would dip back down. Prudence won out this time and I took the safe approach. Lesa and I have been burned in the past playing the float game and at this point we know what our monthly payment will be and can plan accordingly.

Lesa and I are getting ready for our precon meeting on Thursday. We have a list of question to go over with Lou, our PM. I will also be pressing Lou to maintain the construction schedule so we are good to go in early September.

More updates later this week!