Granite

Again, sorry for the terrible quality pictures. Was just a quick visit during lunch and only had my Blackberry to use for pics. Company is switching everyone over to the iPhone slowly but surely; can't happen fast enough, lol! The roofer and painters were also on hand changing out that metal roof to a thicker gauge material, painting the front door black, and painting all the trim, walls, etc...



 

12 Days

The title says it all. In 12 days we will officially own and be moving in our new home. The time really does fly by once you break ground and get the ball rolling. For all of you out there just beginning this journey, I know it takes (what feels like) an eternity to get started. Once you do, it will soar by! One thing I can't stress enough is visit often, and take loads and loads of photos. We had a couple instances where the photos helped bail us out of situations or prove a point when needed. I'm telling you, you cannot take enough photos of your house in various stages. Nike has told you, now I'm telling you...Just do it. I took a photo of a section of framing, and then the wall got sheet rocked and something was covered that shouldn't have been. The photo helped pinpoint where and what needed to be uncovered. Today was spent dealing with NVR and tying up any loose ends. Email after email was traded back in forth in what felt like a ping pong match providing documents and signing others. I think we are in the clear with them now, but it's never easy to tell with them.

Tomorrow we will be getting our granite installed, with the plumbers returning Monday. They will be installing our kitchen faucet and the other shower head/knob in the Roman shower. Also the powder room sink and any other last minute installations. Painters will be back to finish up a couple more times, and the house will have it's final inspection to obtain the C.O. by end of next week. I walked around in the house today during my lunch hour and it looks so amazing. It's going to be a real treat to stop home for lunch if I choose. Something I haven't been able to do in many years. Hard to believe this journey is coming to and end...Very thankful for the opportunity to be able to build this home and provide a great place for my family to grow. Happy building everyone, enjoy it!

Landscaping

 

 

 

 



Flooring

After work I visited the house to see what progress has been made. What a difference a week makes! Our yard is completely landscaped with sod, shrubs, mulch, and hydro seed in the rear. Our house numbers were put on the garage, mailbox out front, and our column installed on the front porch. The outside of the house seems to be, for the most part, complete. It was too dark for a picture of the yard, so I will take pictures in the daylight and include them in tomorrow's post. Inside I spoke with the guys installing our flooring. They were finished with the all the laminate and had moved on to putting down the tack strips for the carpeting. I asked if they were coming back tomorrow and they said no, they were staying until they were done tonight. Apparently they're running behind schedule and have 2 more houses to do tomorrow, so they were staying until the job is complete. Awesome, tomorrow should be an exciting visit too. Guardian looks to be completely done with the exception of a speaker placement in the basement I'm not fond of, so I will be asking for it to be rotated and centered on the wall. In the kitchen all of our appliances are in as well, just waiting for the granite to show up. I'm sure I'm forgetting things, but lets get to the meat and potatoes of this post; the pictures.

Kitchen :)

Dishwasher

Laminate - Autumn Mahogany

Mailbox

Powder Room

Master Bath - Roman Shower

Master Vanity

Office :)

Laundry Room

Linen Closet

Gaurdian Panel - Basement

Basement with in wall speakers. The center channel should be horizontal and centered...

Further Back

Media Closet

Pantry

264! 

Our carpet in the back of the flooring co. van

Column in place!

More pics of the outside tomorrow; weather permitting. Snow in the forecast here, so we'll see.

Appliances

Yesterday we took advantage of the Black Friday sale Lowe's was having. We purchased our Refrigerator, Washer, and Dryer. We were able to get all three for right under $3000.00 with a 10% off coupon code I found online. Not too shabby considering Tuesday the fridge will go back up to $3199.99! After visiting the Lowe's closet to us at the moment to make our selections, we went home and ordered them online. Since we live an hour from the house for the time being, the Lowe's we went to will not be our "home store" and we couldn't pay there. Hence shopping online and choosing the store closest to our new home! After scouring the Internet for a bit, I was able to compile a list of coupon codes and was lucky enough to get one to work. Saved us $300+ bucks!

Samsung 28 cu ft French Door Refrigerator (Stainless Steel) ENERGY STAR

Model #: RF4287HARS

Samsung 3.6 cu ft Front-Load Washer (Blue) ENERGY STAR

Model #: WF363BTBEUF

Samsung 7.3 cu ft Stackable Electric Dryer (Blue)

Model #: DV363EWBEUF

Cabinets!

We have electricity and our new (correct) cabinets are installed! Most of the electrical work is completed as well. The flooring company should be installing our laminate any day now. It's awesome to see everything come together and complete our home. Gutters also were installed as well as the lights flanking the garage.

 

Tile/Vinyl

This past week our house received several updates including flooring, paint, trim, and Guardian products. The tile work was completed in the hall bath, and basement bath. The master bath was about 70% complete to be finished up today. Guardian was out and installed speakers, volume controls, and cable/data jacks on the walls and media closet. This week they should be installing our laminate and finishing the tile with our cabinets arriving on Wednesday. Still no electricity at this point and no time frame given as to when we can expect the power company to install our meter. This may very well delay our closing quite a bit, but we are hopeful for a positive outcome soon.

Pantry (left) French door to basement (right) 

Volume Control for Kitchen Audio 

 Great Room Speakers

Media Closet in mudroom 

The infamous capped wall with railing 

Master Bath Tile - floor 

Master Shower Tile 

Master Bath Vanity 

 Laundry Room Vinyl

 Basement Audio & Data

Basement Bath

Capped Wall

This post is for Tech Mama! Here are the pictures of the capped wall. It's not what we thought we were getting, but we'll make do. It's not nearly as "grand", but Ryan homes says it wall have nice molding and trim. We shall see...

 



 

 



Two'fer Tuedsay

Today's picture update includes a new driveway and 100% more sidewalk! Sorry for the bad quality, the only camera I had was my work Blackberry; it's not so great for taking pics.



Media Closet

Some of you (no names, Nadase) may have noticed the media closet pictures in the post below, so I thought I would explain it a bit more. Basically the closet will house the cable box, DVD player, audio receiver, Apple TV, etc...I had Guardian run all the wires (Cat5, HDMI, Coax, Component) from the TV to this closet in order to keep the look of the living room neat and clean while keeping all the electronics out of sight. Also I had the audio ran from the living room and kitchen ceiling speakers to this closet. The problem this presents is your remotes are limited to line-of-sight  operation and usually a short range. To get around this situation you will have to get a remote control extender of sorts!

I chose the Next Generation Remote Control Extender I found on Amazon due to the loads of positive reviews, and the price. At the bottom of this post I'll include a video review of this baby in action!

Also for this setup to work smoothly I'm going to use the Logitech Harmony Advanced Universal Remote to control all of my devices. Since the remote extender comes with a special emitter battery that you place in your remote, using one universal "learning" remote is the way to go. There is a newer version of the remote I want available, but it costs quite a bit more. 

So this is the basic overview of the media closets purpose and how it's going to function. I hope I wasn't to vague on how everything works together, feel free to ask any questions. As you can tell, I'm a bit of a gadget freak.  0_o

Video review of Remote Extender.