Honey I'm Home

A week ago the builder told a mortgage lender that he was planning on completing our home by the end of this week.  Well it is the end of the week and they have finished one thing.  The honey bucket and thus the saying "Honey I'm Home!"  And on that note may I say that I think we are still about 3 weeks away from completing the project.  It is looking like we will be moving at the end of June. 

In the last week nothing was completed but a long of tasks have been started.  As of today the molding, the interior has been primed and the molding, doors and walls have been painted.  On the exterior we are starting to also see work progressing.  The contractor has been preparing for the rock, stucco and hardy board.  We also put in a couple of 3 inch pipe across the drive way area.  These will be used to get sprinkles in on the west side of the property.  

We also have locked our interest rate at 4.5 percent.  This is fantastic.  We were originally expecting to have a rate of right around 5 percent.  We cannot complaint about this rate and it will save us thousands of dollars over the life of the loan.

Is there any Progress being make at 6742 Temecula Drive?

You may be asking why I haven't posted a blog update on the progress of our house in a why?  Well the answer to that question is that I have been very business at work and there is very little change to the appearance of the exterior of the house (as you can see in the picture, looks just like it did a week ago).  That said, progress is being made, but it has slowed down a bit.  This past week they that installed all the insulation in the walls, including the garage, the sheet rock is on the walls and the perf-a-tape has been completed on main part of the house, so there is a bit left in the house and all the garage left to be done.

The best part of this week was the fact that we are now within 30 days of the scheduled completion date.  By contract the work is to be completed on or before June 20th.  There is a lot of work left to be done, but we have started shopping for a mortgage lender.  Thus far we have three lenders competing for our business and the interest rates are definitely looking good.  4.5% is the current rate and we are hoping that they may fall a little more.  In order to obtain a 30 day lock on the rate that will still be good at the time of closing we need the rates to hold for another 5 or 6 days.

So here is the entertainment of the week.  One of the mortgage lenders call the builder to get the contract so they could start putting the documentation together and the real estate agent told the lender that the home would be completed this next week.  I just have to ask if the general contractor is aware of this change to the schedule.  I am thinking that they will not make this new schedule considering all that must still be done, which includes all the exterior finishes (stucco, rock, hardy board), all the concrete flat work, the final grading of the lot, and garage doors and openers.  On the interior they have to call the framer and dry waller back out to frame a wall in the kitchen that they totally missed, all the painting (3 tone), build the master bath shower, install all the cabinets, shelves and closet rods, all the doors, floor coverings, the water heater and run the sewer line to the street.  Plus all the fixtures, electrical outlets, TV and phone jacks, and all the appliances.

As they say on Pinky and the Brain, "are you thinking what I'm thinking?"  I am thinking they are more than a week from completing.  I will post more photo's when there is a noticeable change.

6742 Temecula Lane - Its looking more and more like home everyday

This has been a busy two weeks.  Two Saturday's ago David started installing the heating and air conditioning in our new home.  This was no small project.  He worked for about five hours.   Thomas and Michael and Drew were out helping much of the time too in the following days. We wanted to get in and start before the plumber.  David has found that most plumbers pay little attention to the fact that the HVAC system installation must be coordinated with the plumbing.  At this point we had not had the best of luck with the plumber.  He apparently can't read a tape measure or floor plans or both as he had to re-plumb two of the drain pipes because they were not in the proper place, so we were not about to let him run his pipes before we had installed most of the heating ducts.  As it turns out, even with David on site this guy, still managed to ignore the request to coordinate the layout for the two systems and we had to put some strange twists into the heat runs to get around his plumbing.  I don't mean to be rude, but this guy needs some serious people skills and a little less attitude.

In the end we did not finish the HVAC until this past Saturday because the plumber missed the original schedule by at least two days.  Thus the electrician was delayed until this past Monday.  The general contractor had scheduled a four way inspection for Monday at noon and we had been asked to be there for the inspection.  As it turned out the general contractor, builder and ourselves met to review the progress and the four way was postponed until Tuesday and it was a good thing.  This gave us a chance to point out that there were things that were not right.  First off, the framers had not contacted us to discuss the placement of plant ledges as had been promised.  Thus there we were with no plant ledges.  The very day the frames had put in the walls without the plant ledges we contacted our realtor who notified the builder.  Our efforts were for not.  We never heard on thing from the builder.   Second, we were told that we could work with the electrical contractor to determine the placement of the outlets.  When we arrive on Monday the boxes were all installed and cabled.  Then to top it off there were only half as many outlets as we were told that there would be.  Third on the list of errors was that $250 extra drain that I had asked for was plumbed straight to the main level kitchen sink.  We had paid for this extra drain to provide the option of putting a kitchenette in the basement in the future, but how that "plumber" had it done, there was no way to tie into the pipes!

With all this the general contractor was very pleasant but you could tell that he was getting a little irritated with the builder, he hadn't been told all that had been agreed upon.  It appears that the builder's communications with the general contractor was as good as his communications with us.  The general contractor was rightfully concerned with having to bring the sub contractors back to rework things and that was going to cost money and time.  In the end we worked everything out to our satisfaction, and the general contractor and the builder had and intense discussion about how this process was suppose to work.  I refer to this meeting as the boxing match which I paid a large sum of money to watch.  If it were not for the fact that things worked out to our satisfaction I would believe that I had way over paid for the right to see the match.

On Tuesday the four way inspection went pretty well, but the inspector found things in all four subcontractors work that had to be addressed and we were left with just two days to pull all the low voltage cables through the house.  We put in 1500 feet of Cat 6 and 500 feet of coaxial cable so now we're wired to our teeth! We finish it Tuesday evening with the help of all the family. Dan and Katie even brought us dinner Monday night, and when David and Shannon and the kids came Tuesday night so David could finish up his work, Ella helped Ginny feeding wires thru the gang boxes. Her little fingers were just right for the job! Coleman was the foreman--he wore the David's hardhat, and when asked to do something he explained that he couldn't because "I have breath in my tummy, and I'm growing, Grandma!"

Wednesday the insulation contractor installed  insulation in the upstairs of the house. We also have the windows and exterior doors installed.

Yes! everyday we are one day closer to being able to move in.

Moving right along - I better get moving.

It has been just over a week since the framing work was started on our home and the end of this phase is approaching quickly.  The contractor feels all the basic framing will have been completed by Monday evening.

While there is still much to be done before the house is complete we are pretty excited to see things moving so fast.  If all goes as planned we will be moving in less than two months.  Then all the work will really begin.  We will have to get a fence in pretty quickly or our dog will be hating live because she will need to be put on a chain when she goes outside (The deer that frequent the property will has be hating life because the dog is going to go crazy.)  Then there is the landscaping.  Yes, a big task all in its self.  This yard is much larger than our current yard and we have a lot of opportunities as we lay thing out.

In any case we will have to have the basic landscaping in before winter sets in.  The builder has negotiated with the city to give us six months after we close on the house to have the front side yards landscaped.  (I know where my time is going to be spent for most of the summer.)  In the top left photo you can see that the back yard is large ( For this picture I am standing on the back corner of the property.)  We will most likely have to get some fill dirt hauled in to raise the back corner up. Other than that the back yard has a very gentle slope to it as seem in the photo on the bottom left.