Happy Birthday to Me!

One of the best birthday presents, CARPET! They installed it today, granite yesterday. Everything has come together beautifully. One week from Monday and we'll have the key. Still haven't started packing, but who wants to work on their birthday? Not me! We did get boxes, tape and packing paper, so the fun shall commence tomorrow after a trip to IKEA.

Anyways, as always, here are some pics :) You stay classy fellow bloggers!

  The lighting has been making it difficult to really capture the true colors.

 

 L- Richard seeing how he fits in the garden tub. M-Family room  R-trying to capture the color of the carpet. It's a little lighter in person. Overall, everything blends well together.

Laminate flooring

The past two days have yielded a lot of changes! Drywall has been touched up and all the walls repainted. Laminate flooring was installed, cleaning has started, dishwasher in place, and rails stained. It's all coming together so fast. It seems like yesterday that we were reviewing floor plans and upgrade choices and now we're 10 days out.

We got our official settlement date and time along with all the information needed to change over/establish utilities in our name. Looks like it's officially time to start packing this weekend :)

The lighting was difficult today. Was trying to get a better representation of our wall color and flooring. This does it the best justice out of all the pictures taken.

The extension and flow in to the morning room makes the space feel so big! Now I just need to make a trip to IKEA for an area rug under the dining room table.

Stain looks a little uneven, but they should fix that tomorrow. We went with a darker color to pick up the contrast on the laminate, be consistent with the cabinets, and it looks great against the lighter carpet and walls.

We'll be going back out tomorrow. The rest of the initial cleaning should be finished and granite installed. I'm curious as to when they'll be installing the carpet and appliances. Guess I'll find that out tomorrow too, as our PM likes to give weekly updates on Friday. Til next time!

Let There Be Light

While we were away at a wedding for the weekend, the guys finished up all the trim work and installed the lights! This week will be dry wall touch ups, second coat of paint, and laminate flooring.

Wiring and holes where in-ceiling speakers will be.

Love the stairway light

Would just like to say how great everyone's houses are looking! Everyone is really making progress, and I want to say thanks for posting pictures and sharing!

Cabinets and...

 Our fireplace! We have a mantel!

 Rolling drawers...have never had these, and really looking forward to it. Overall, I was happy to see everything hung and in place-it literally made my day as work was a little rough. Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday!

Can I Just Say?!

How much I love our deck! It's huge! The second picture is a better representation as seen from the fourth bedroom window. Oh, they start unpacking our cabinets too. The gentleman working on it said they should all be done hung and done this time tomorrow. Will definitely be going back out-until then!

Paint and Vinyl Flooring

If you're debating on the paint package, it's definitely worth every penny! We love our color and are glad to not have to paint the whole house after moving in. It'll get a little deeper in color after the put the second coats on, but I really think it makes the space inviting. They installed our vinyl flooring today too. Tomorrow they should start our trim work and hopefully by the end of the week, cabinets and such.

 L- Love, love, love our garage windows!    R- Vinyl flooring in the bathrooms and laundry.

 L- Kitchen and morning room    R-Another shot of the family room

 L- It's Christmas! All our cabinets, trim, doors, hardware, etc. waiting for install over the next couple of days.  R- Basement

Venice, Venice, and More Venice

PM called yesterday for our weekly update. The guys finished up the dry wall, and will be moving on to applying the first coat of paint, sanding the floors, installing the finishes and vinyl next week.

 L-Entry way from front as part of the formal living/dining room    R-View of kitchen from family room

 L-Morning room with sliding patio door    R-Master bedroom

We decided to go out and see the finished dry wall product. While there, we stopped by the model-they've sold the two lots next to us and found out the changed the portfolio of floorplans available on our side of the community (again). I'm sure this was a corporate decision to try to sell the lots faster, but I'm not happy about it because they've eliminated several of floorplans and are allowing two of the smaller homes to be built on the larger lots (of course there's a bit of a premium built in to the base price) but this doesn't help increase our property value.

Regardless, the two homes going up between ours and the home that's already finished near the front of the community are both Venices. So, that's 4 Venices in a row on our side of the street-UGH. Yes, they'll have "different colors" and "different elevations" but I was really hoping for some variety. Only thing I can hope for is we have more upgrades than those do for eventual resale value.

On a happier note, I'm excited to report and congratulate my mom on taking home the reserve championship with Express! Hope she does just as well when she shows back with Bucky in his division championship tonight! Anyone interested can check out her pictures at: Bridlespur MHSA Kickoff Show proofs for class 71A-Park Championship Amateur and Junior riders. She's on the chestnut horse with the white blaze and 3 white socks (first frame is 5055)

A Blank Canvas

They are almost done dry walling the house! It's weird walking in to all the white, but exciting that it's all coming together and each room is separate. The guys were busy working when we stopped by today, so I didn't get any pictures-will take some over the weekend.

We did get our appointment booked with Home Depot to have the blind measurements taken. They'll be coming out next Tuesday afternoon. Once they have those, we can choose our blinds and make the installation appointment the week after we close! I'm extremely relieved to know we'll have privacy in the house when we move in, as it was one of my biggest concerns.

Anyways, short blog today, though I do want to give a shout out to my mom. She's in St. Louis competing at her first horse show this season. So far she's really giving the bigger barns a run for their money. Mom, if you're reading this, just remember to check and recheck your canter leads! If Dynamite taught us anything, that would be it. Do that and you should have that championship ribbon hanging from your bridle! Love you!

Closing Date Confirmed

After much dialogue between myself and our PM, our close date has been confirmed for 7 May, with Pre-Settlement happening on 4 May! Everything is aligning perfectly right now. We'll have two days to move all our small items, movers will come on the 10th to move the big things, cable set up on the 11th, and my parents will be here the 12th.

For those building a Venice: when we did our walk through, the other PM noted an additional area in the basement that may be converted for utilization of space. Behind the wall next to the bottom of the stairs, you can knock out a stud that isn't load bearing to install a door. It isn't the most cost effective storage solution approach. However, if you have a home theater system, this is a great place to hide your subwoofer and free up floor space in your living area.

Since my parents are coming in a week early for the wedding, my dad and Richard are getting tasked with this! I'll be sure to post pictures of the before and after for everyone!

The storage will be behind this wall. Richard will build a base for the sub underneath the stairwell platform.

We've Been Stoned

The guys were just finishing up as we did our drive by. I love the look from a distance, but only like it up close. There's more gap between the stone than I thought there would be. BUT, I do think it pulls the cottage look together. If only my shutters looked more blue! I'm hoping the door will be more noticeable. They look black to me-Richard says I'm just color blind.

Pre-Drywall Meeting

I can't believe we finally made it to pre-drywall, but we did! Since our PM is out of town this week, the other PM in the community graciously stepped in so no time would be lost. Most everything looked great. They did miss my outlet placement located above the kitchen cabinets, but he said it would be taken care of. Normally, they provide you with your closing date at this point, but we'll find out when our PM gets back on Monday. I suppose hanging tight for a few more days won't kill me, though I am very anxious to find out when the special day will be!

He also shared with us the timeline of events for the next few weeks. Pending we passed all our inspections today (energy star, city, and one more), they'll start drywall tomorrow. It'll take a week for everything to be completed. The two weeks after that will be spent installing all our finishes, painting and touch ups. Our stone was delivered today, and will hopefully be installed by Monday-maybe even over the weekend.

It seems like yesterday that we were just starting this process, and in a short month, we'll be homeowners mortgage payers!!!

Siding, Shakes and Shutters, Oh My!

Made another drive by tonight to check on the progress and see if Guardian had made it out to install the outlet that was missed. To our surprise, all the siding, shakes and second floor shutters were up! Oh, and the outlet has been taken care of, yay! Since we got our Pre-dry wall meeting scheduled for tomorrow, we wanted to double check everything else so we can get done as quickly as possible since the only time the PM could do it was on our lunch. We'll see how it goes :)

The shutters look black but they're navy. I'm a little disappointed how dark they turned out. I was hoping you would really be able to tell they were blue.

What the family room currently looks like (as seen from the kitchen).

Locked In!

We locked in our rate the other day at 3.875 with a credit towards closing! Rates had been hovering around 4.00, so I was delighted when the loan officer shot back with this.

In other news, Guardian finished up their work yesterday. I'm so glad we decided to stop by because they completely missed a CAT 5 outlet in the basement. Rep called today after receiving my email. Someone should be out to fix it this week. Other than that, just waiting to hear from the other PM on site to set up our Pre-Dry Wall meeting. Before ours left on vacation, he said we should be scheduling it by Thursday. Not so sure what's going on right now.

Oh, and as we were leaving the neighborhood yesterday, we ran in to neighbors who just moved in that Richard knew from work. They built a Springbrook and have invited us over next time we're out that way to do a walk through inside-looking forward to it!