How can I describe the last week? Incredible….exhausting….thrilling…stressful…frustrating…surreal…and everything in between. I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to keep up with the blog during this last crucial week, the pace at which our lives were going did not allow for much of a break and I was lucky to take a few pictures here and there along the way. I’ll catch everyone up on our crazy life!
On Monday, Day 149, CDK Structures came back out and did a little more sculpting of our land before it started raining and then dumped and spread 40 ton of small size gravel to fill in and cover over the larger rocks that were used as a base for the construction drive. This also raised the turn around pad high enough at the house so you can drive into the garage as before there was still a 4 -6 inch height difference. It looks so nice now and is much better on my feet. I have had some plantar fasciitis symptoms in the past that resolved itself after I took it easy for a while, but the amount of physical work we had been doing compounded with walking on rocks that were anywhere from the size of a golf ball to the size of a soft ball has given me some severe heel pain. I’m hoping that as things settle down and now that I’m not walking on such huge rocks all the time that my feet will begin to heal again on their own without a trip to the doctor. I digress, here’s a few pics of the driveway.
Electrical and mechanical final inspections were also signed off on Monday. It rained much of the day so I was glad we went ahead and put the boards down for the appliance delivery the following day. So on Tuesday, we were set to have appliances delivered between noon and 3pm. We were also supposed to meet a landscaper in the afternoon, have the health department come out and test the water for bacteria at 1pm and Wayne Homes was having house cleaners in the house getting it all spruced up for us to move in.
Well first I got a call from the landscaper who cancelled and wanted to reschedule because it was raining yet again and he figured our land was pretty muddy (he wasn’t wrong). Then the appliance delivery ended up calling us close to an hour and a half early letting us know they were only 30 minutes out! We scrambled to get there in time to accept delivery and installation. We made it to the house right as they were pulling in, so I showed them into the house and let them get started. The cleaning crew had already been hard at work for several hours and were doing things like taking off the stickers on the windows as well as cleaning up the quarter inch of dust that seemed to settle on everything after the stonework was done. I snapped a photo of what they were using on our floors for future reference and a photo of Creative Kid in front of the great room windows now that they were all clear.
Richard later got this picture of the front of the house without all the window stickers. 😀
I talked to a nice guy from Wayne Homes who was finishing up taking pictures of the house and he asked me about the process and how all of it went for us. I talked about how we made our original decision to go with Wayne and showed him some pictures on my phone of the comparison of what we gave our New Home Consultant and just how close it ended up being to the real thing. Really it’s amazing to me how close to my vision the final product is and if you had went through the process we did to narrow down the most likely home builders for us, you would know what a big difference our consultant made for us. Evidently I gushed a lot about that portion, which was then repeated on a company email praising our consultant….which our Field Manager will never let me live down now. ?
So after he left, I went inside and watched as the appliance installers moved the appliances in the house and started prepping them to install. Since we run on propane, the stove had to be converted for LP from natural gas and the door and hinges had to be taken off my new upright freezer to get it down the stairs into the basement.
As they were getting it all installed though they discovered that my pot filler was a little too high for where the microwave went over the range. They took it off for the moment so that they could install the microwave and we contacted our field manager to let him know the issue. He came out later and looked at it and we figured it needed to be lowered by about 2 inches to give it plenty of clearance to swing under the microwave. You can see the base that is left where they removed the top of the fixture in this picture.
And now for the appliances:
I chose Kitchenaid appliances, primarily because they make very good dishwashers and they’re overall offerings are quality, where some manufacturers excel in one or two appliances but get horrible reviews on the others. The stove I chose has a main baking area, but the bottom is not a typical stove where it can keep stuff warm (or lets face it, most people store baking ware in), but it is a baking drawer with separate controls. I think this will be a very handy feature during holidays where you might need two things baking at different temperatures. It’s not a tall drawer but would be good for baking a cake or putting in casserole dishes.
I went for a counter depth fridge so it wouldn’t stick out as much into the walk way, but also a cabinet height fridge that uses all the space up to the upper cabinet so I didn’t lose space inside the refrigerator.
I feel Bosch and Kitchen Aid have the best dishwashers on the market and can do the most damage if they malfunction and let water out everywhere so a quality dishwasher was at the top of my appliance list and everything else fell from there. I chose KA over Bosch because Bosch does not do as well on some of the other appliances compared to KitchenAid.
While all of that was getting installed, a person from the health department came by and collected the sample of our water from the tank in the basement coming from the well. It takes 48 hours for the test to come back, so we were told we would get a call Thursday evening or, more likely, Friday morning.
Towards the end of Tuesday, the plumbing inspector showed up to sign off on final plumb. There was a few things they wanted done, so he was supposed to come in and sign off. However, he had a fit about an item that got passed during rough plumb stage. I won’t go into the details, but suffice it to say we were not happy and he refused to sign off until changes were made. We immediately called our field manager who came up with a solution for now and had talked to the building inspector and got it agreed upon that we could move in even if we didn’t have certificate of occupancy yet. It pays to have a field manager with a good rapport and reputation with the building inspector.
Wednesday was closing day. Yay! Richard took a half day off and I spent the morning packing more boxes and putting our hang up clothes in tote bags that we took with us to the closing. We got there early and took the clothes, still on hangers, and hung them straight up from the tote bags into our closets. I did the same thing when we moved into the apartment and it saved so much time! During the closing we talked about a couple of outstanding items that were put on the equivalent of an IOU and our field manager walked us through the house discussing all the major systems, some maintenance tips and how our warranties work. In the end, we signed all the paperwork and walked away with these! ?
Also on Wednesday, the plumber came buy and cut out the drywall around the pot filler and lowered it by a couple of inches until we knew there would be plenty of clearance for the pot filler to swing and not hit the microwave. Our field manager actually got his start in the industry in drywall, so he is going to do all the work to patch the wall back up. He definitely has not lost his skills in this area as he was quick and efficient cutting a patch for it and mudding it up. He said we would need a couple more coats of mud on it before he sands it down, repaints and has the plumber reinstall the fixture.
We went home and worked until 1am to get as much stuff packed and prepped for the movers that were set to arrive the next morning between 8 and 9am. On Thursday morning we got going pretty early, packed up the last of our stuff like sheets, pillows, toiletries and other things we couldn’t pack until the morning of the move. In the end the crew took about 2 hours loading, a half an hour travel and then 2 hours unloading. It was not the hardest part of our move, but it was nice to see it go smoothly. Also on Thursday the plumbing inspector came back and signed off one the main building card, but a new card they need signed that was sitting right beside it was not signed. ?♀️
We decided that because we had to be up so early to get down to our storage units in time to meet the movers, that we would instead go down the night before and stay in a hotel. I would have loved to stay in the new house that first night, but logistically it was a smarter choice to grab a hotel. We also got to relax in the swimming pool and watch the sunset after a busy, long first day.
Moving day 2, was a very long day. It took a while for them to pack and stack what ended up being about 2 1/2 storage units. We knew there was a possibility they would not be able to fit everything into the one truck, but they got most of it. If we had it to do all over again, we would have used 2 trucks, started with both of them at the storage units, loaded all of that up, then came to the apartment and loaded all that up and then went to the house and done it all in one day. It would have made for a REALLY long day…but at least that would have only been just 1 day because in the end the moving lasted about 4 days. Some good news we heard on Friday though was that our water test was cleared by the health department and as soon as they could get the other card signed off by the plumbing inspector on Monday (he was out on Friday), we would have everything we need for CO.
Saturday, moving day 3 mostly consisted of cleaning our apartment and handing over the keys, but we did have 2 big SUV loads of stuff that either we hadn’t had completely packed before the movers got there, were items we didn’t want to risk the movers moving (TVs primarily) or were cleaning stuff we left to clean the apartment. It was a long day of taking down curtains, patching holes, deep cleaning all the rooms and then handing over our keys. We called on Friday (at least 48 hours in advance of our move out date) to request a walk through and got quite a bit of attitude that they didn’t have time to do a walk through with us because it was the end of the month and they were busy. This made us uncomfortable so I took lots and lots of pictures of the way we left the apartment, but decided if we weren’t going to get a walk through that we would just go ahead and turn our keys in a day early. I will definitely be reviewing this place on review sites in the future but will wait to do so until we settle with our deposit/move out. We took this picture outside our door as we left.
Finally on Sunday we did moving day 4, which consisted of renting a Uhaul truck and going back to our storage units to get the last of the items. We would be charged for another month’s rent if we didn’t get it out by the 4th, so we decided to bite the bullet and just get it done. We did get to have lunch with family while we were there, but by the time we got back home and unloaded, it made for another very, very long day.
Monday morning we got quite the fright as the smoke detectors went off at 1am. These new alarms not only make an audible tone but they also actually say, “Fire, fire, fire!” Talk about a fright! We all woke up and jumped out of bed, but it didn’t last but about 15 seconds. We thoroughly checked the house, but nothing was wrong. However that made for along night as I just couldn’t get back to sleep for quite a while, even after a lot of praying and trying to calm myself down…just too much adrenaline. I brought it up to our field manager and he found it odd, especially since none of them were tripped as the one that started the alarming. He put another coat of mud on the pot filler wall while he was here and gathered all of our inspection paperwork and went to meet the building inspector who signed off on the CO now that all the other inspections had passed. We were finally complete and legal! I spent most of the day trying to unearth all of the main kitchen items we needed to start cooking and eating meals at home again as we’re tired of eating out…it’s not good for our health or our wallet.
Tuesday brought with it a busy morning as we got our first proposal from a landscaper and had furniture delivered around lunch time. The proposal is a doozy and even in phases it will knock your socks off. I love the plan, but the cost is way more than I want to spend right now, even for the first phase. Some of the things we can do ourselves as well. We plan to get multiple quotes and plans and decide what is best from there. The furniture delivery went off pretty well and I’m liking the look of it. We’re still waiting on one chair that had to be special ordered, but I am hopeful it will all fit in our new great room which was in doubt for a little while. Oh and our field manager stopped by yet again to throw some mud on my pot filler area. He said after this he will sand and paint and will have the plumber back out to reinstall the pot filler and do another final thing next Monday.
So that brings everyone up to date. Tomorrow we have the contractor who will cut to fit and install our glass shower door coming in the morning. Friday we will have an electrician coming out to do a final few things and as I said, next Monday is the plumber. At that point I think everything will be done….except the boxes…that’s going to take a while.
Thanks for reading!
