First Coat of Paint

The first coat of paint has gone down in the house. Unfortunately, it's an off white. You need to wonder what exactly people are thinking when they do crap like this. Now, if we paint the walls, say yellow.... we'll have yellow walls, off white ceilings and white trim. Not sure that will look ok? So, there may be a lot more work now to paint the ceilings.... great.

The cabinets were also delivered. I didn't see the cabinet for the double oven, hopefully I just missed it?

The countertops are in.... boy are they ugly... but hopefully we'll be replacing them with granite in due time.

It looks like the sinks for the bathrooms were delivered as well.

2nd Floor Doors

The rest of the doors have been installed. Other than that, not much progress around the holidays.... I was dissapointed that they didn't take advantage of the warm weather to start the exterior stone work.

The store we bought the appliances from called today, wanted to make sure we knew the dishwasher we bought needed a receptacle. I read the user manual though, and the back panel of the dishwasher can be opened and the cord can be removed so the dishwasher can be hardwired like normal... so no big deal. We also made arrangements to have the dw, fridge, and double ovens delivered friday the 27th.

Base moulding in and first floor doors

The base moulding has all been installed.

They put the doors in on the first floor.

They poured concrete where the beams were resting on the foundation... I wonder what happens when the shrink/extend with the cold/heat? Guess we'll see....

Also, our final walkthrough has been scheduled for 20 January 06!

Stone Delivered

The stone has been delivered for the house. Hopefully, that means they'll start putting it up shortly. We saw the house down the street had the stone put up literally two days before the people moved into it. So we may have a while yet.

Garage Doors

The thermostat is hanging in the dining room, reading 63'.

















The mudding on the walls has been completed.













The HVAC is all hooked up and piped.













The gas line that will connect to the cooktop on the center island is run.













The garage floor is poured.













The insulated garage doors are installed.

It's Getting Hot In Here....

The HVAC system was up and running last night. They also put another coat of mud on the walls.

Also, the 2nd mortgage was turned down, so we're stuck going with the single 90% mortgage with PMI..... bummer.

Still no pictures... sorry.

Garage Poured and Mud on the Walls

Stopped by the house last night.

The garage floor has been poured and the mud and tape is up on the walls. They did a very good job with the mud/tape, I was impressed. It came out quite a bit nicer than the one I saw across the street, must have been a different crew.

I have pics, but didn't get a chance to upload them last night.

The HVAC guys were back yesterday and the control panel to the furnace was open. Hopefully, that's normal and they're just hooking up power to it, as opposed to there being a problem.

Drywall Finished

Stopped by the house today and the drywallers and HVAC people were working. We came back much later and checked things out after they left. The drywall is complete. The house was nice and warm due to the propane heater they left running in the family room... let's just pray the sucker doesn't tip over!


They also poured the basement floor at some point? It must have been yesterday or today, but they already had the furnace down there and the HVAC run. I finally realized just how low the HVAC ductwork is down there.... will have to keep that in mind when finishing the basement.

Drywall Started

Got to the house last night around 5pm to find a good 5 people working on putting up the drywall. I had an appointment to get my hair cut at 5:30, so we left and had that done. Got back to the house around 6:30 and they were still working. I figured they'd plan to work late so as to not have to come today during the snow storm.

They had the dining room, master bedroom and one spare bedroom done. But we couldn't really see much more than that.

Insulation Finished

Stopped by the house last night, but forgot the camera. They had installed a good portion of the insulation. They first put in pink R13 insulation, then a layer of R13 yellow insulation with paper barrier. Around the windows and in small spots, they squeezed in as much of the pink insulation as possible.

Stopped by the house tonight and they had the insulation done and the drywall stacked up, ready to install tomorrow. They put black tarp over the garage to keep the wind/rain etc out. I'm not sure why they don't just put the garage doors on?

Other good news is that the house down the road just got its exterior stone, so they must be able to do that during the cold ... which means ours shouldn't be a problem and we shouldn't have to move in without it being done.... phew!

Also, they insulated over the wires I installed, YAY! I was afraid they'd rip them out. So now, once we move in, I'll just have to cut a hole in the wall where the box will go and grab the wires!

I kinda wish I had ran some wires for the front speakers in the family room, oh well.

You can see in the garage they placed insulation with no paper covering. Code requires that the garage be "fire proofed" from the rest of the house. They door to the house has to be fire rates, as does the insulation. I guess in case your car explodes?

Hey, where'd everyone go?

Well, it's been a few days now without any work on the house. The two houses across the street got their insulation and drywall. I thought they would do ours at the same time, but it doesn't appear to be so. Hopefully, once they finish the drywall in those two houses, they'll start on ours. My only thought is that they want to do the model and our house at the same time, and the model has been put behind because the roof is covered with snow/ice making it impossible for them to put the shingles on.

I guess we'll see....

Ice Ice Baby!

Well the ketchup kinda backfired. There was an ice storm overnight last night. The ketchup is now frozen to the roof :) It doesn't look like it worked anyways, there are two reasons it might not have worked.... either it wasn't strong enough to cut through the clearcoat we put on, or more likely the fingerprints and marks on the roof are grease and it won't take grease off. Once everything thaws a bit, we'll have to try lighter fluid to get the grease off and then reapply the ketchup.

Here are a couple of pics of the first snow.

Ketchup!

Stopped by the house tonight to work on cleaning the copper roofs. Did a few quick searches online and found out that Ketchup is a good way to clean copper. The vinegar and salt combination makes a good cleaner.... perhaps the red color will add a deeper tone too hehe. We spread that on, we'll stop by tomorrow morning to wash it off.

Garage Baracaded

Stopped by the house yesterday, the garages have been baracaded with plywood. They did this for the two houses across the street also. Best I can tell, they do this just before they start the insulating, to keep the insulation in the garage from getting wet/blown around. The two houses across the street got their insulation put in.... not us yet.

Stopped by the house today and no work has been done :( I did notice two things though...

The first is that when they installed the copper roofs, they must have had dirty/greasey hands because they're marked all over. We'll have to clean them with lighter fluid and then respray them with clear coat.

The other problem is, I noticed today that they never installed the 220v line for the double ovens. What we had thought was for the doulbe ovens is actually a power outlet for the office behind the kitchen. I put a note on the checklist they had (where they had a blue dot next to the task of installing the outlet.... hopefully that doesn't mean they thought they had done it.) They haven't installed the power for the kitchen island, so maybe they plan on installing it then?

I also purchased the double ovens today. Frigidaire convection... pretty nice looking ovens.

Copper Roofs Installed

Is the plural of roof.... Roofs or Rooves?

Either way, we stopped by the house late last night to find they had installed both copper roofs over each bay window. We took some pictures, but I was too tired last night to upload them... maybe tonight.

We knew we'd have to spray the roofs with a clearcoat ASAP if we wanted to keep the "shiny penny" look. For that reason, we had been keeping a can of clearcoat in the car. So we got out last night and went to spray it. Well, it was wayyyy too high to reach. After searching around the house for a while, we couldn't find anything suitable to climb up on. So off to Walmart we went. It took forever to get someone to unlock the ladders and ring us up, but we got a 4' and went back to the house. Well, I guess I should have paid the extra $10 and got the 6'. With Theresa holding the ladder and me stepping on the top run... yes the one that says do not stand here.... I was just able to reach the top area of the roof to spray it. Now unfortunately, it was below the recommended 50 degrees and dark as hell.... so I'm not sure if I got a complete coating. I figured I'd stop by today a bit earlier (depending on work) or even this weekend to respray ... and maybe i'll even bring a bigger ladder with me.

They also installed the soffit around the roof line. The off white soffits actually look pretty sharp with the gray roof... so hopefully it will be a good thing that the roof is the wrong color. It will certainitly make our house different than the one down the street (something we were worried about).

Also, for the second time, we've found a dead bird in the house by the wall of windows. They must fly into the house through the garage (since this is the only opening now) looking for food/shelter and then try to fly out the big windows.... kinda sad.