closing?

We met with our realtor Wednesday and asked him about the closing date. He said, "probably by the end of June." We reminded him that the contract says June 1 (although we know that won't happen) and we have a bunch of company showing up around the first of July. We hope we got his attention. "I'll get back to you".

---

We headed out for dinner tonight, just because, with a stop at the house, dinner at Junior's Italian, then a Costco stop.

Siding awaits Fred the installer in the other garage. We heard a few Fred stories. Don't ask him when the siding will be done, even in casual conversation. So advised.

 

 

 MBR windows

Living room windows and door to rear porch.

Stairs on site probably waiting for basement floor to be poured. That should be soon, but I thought that last week.










Lally columns in place.














Dakota dog leaves sticks around just in case someone is available to throw. Now that the windows are in, we hope there won't be much tossing of sticks from the inside.



 

color

Not our house, not our neighborhood, same builder, though. This is the siding we've selected.

On a drive-by today (returning from stuffing stuff in the storage locker), Craig and one other were working on our porch roof. He asked if we had heard of a closing date. I replied nothing new since we signed the contract in November saying "June 1 or earlier". He felt that was ~reasonable, as much as I could hear from him above on a roof.

So far, this house isn't on the market, but that may change soon. Maybe tomorrow. Our interest in closing date on the new revolves around the Mauldin 5 heading here (to one of these houses?) for a visit in early July. Would it be a child labor violation to have the grandkids move us in? Probably.

8 weeks +

Not much change to the front.









More action out back with roof and shingles on our porch.

 

Lots of blocking for kitchen cabinets.

The heat was still on in the basement. I thought they'd pour the floor this week, but I'm glad to see they're taking time (days) to assure the frost is out of the ground before the pour.

Rich, next door, came by, and we ended up talking with him for quite a while about the houses, builder, workmen, etc. He invited us into their home so we could see the finished product. Very nice. He stressed that the builder wants buyers to be happy and stressed that the minor wrinkles we've encountered will be tended to. He was very gracious and helpful.

yet another drive by

On the way home from my Thursday breakfast meeting, I stopped by.

Doors, windows, bath tubs were in the garages. Not sure they were in the correct houses, but the crew can sort that out.

The half-wall between kitchen and living room was framed, ... about a foot short .... We trust Paul B. and the crew will sort that out.

As framed, it is too short for the cabinets on order and messes up the flooring scheme. Mark, from Kitchen World, assured that Paul B. and the carpenters will make it right. Trust.











Heat is on in our basement to facilitate pouring the floor.

Our porch floor is complete with the crew working on the roof of the neighbor's porch.

Fireplace framing is roughed in.


We met again with Mary at Sherwin Williams to review wood flooring, floor tiles, fireplace surround tile, and shower tile color choices. We confirmed all except carpeting - still to be determined.

dump runs

On the way to the Essex dump (a.k.a. waste district station) with a truck full of recyclables, scrap metal, burnable wood (destined for a wood-fired power plant), I made a pass by the property. There was a large propane tank poised by the egress window to fuel heaters to thaw the basement. It appears they'll be pouring the floor this week.

The windows had arrived as well, stored in the garage.

A second dump run in the afternoon logged 500# of stuff dispatched to a commercial transfer station. We have avoided getting a dumpster here, rather making 2 runs (so far) in our truck with dumpster-bound stuff  - 1320# to date - 37 years in the making / collecting.

tweaks & choices

We had a chat with Paul B. (back from vacation) today regarding the closet wall location in the upstairs back bedroom. He agreed that the bedroom width would be as shown on his initial drawing to us, and the extra foot of house width would be added to the closet (a.k.a. sewing room) rather than already wide bedroom. The partition will be moved.

We picked the siding color "Seaport", a dark gray Norandex Woodsman Select offering.

7 weeks +

Scaffolding has been removed as the roofing is complete. Deck work has begun out back and on the front porch. Nothing seems to have changed inside.

We had a nice long chat with neighbors Dale and Jackie.

The weather was great.
 

The deck is quite close to the woods.







I jumped down into the basement through the 'egress window'. No snow was evident, although I couldn't judge whether the frost was out. The floor was crushed stone, and didn't give much.

This view is to the front of the house. The stairs will be on the left.

Last week there was some snow in the left front corner.

This view is to the left (longer dimension), front

left, rear

Thursday, nephew Steve was in town on business and toured the project with us after work. He noted the size of the basement and told us we didn't have to get rid of anymore stuff as there was plenty of room.
Not helpful, Steve.

I had seen Dakota, the dog, jump down into the basement and back out. I wasn't as agile, but I did to escape. After all, it is called an egress window. It worked once, at least.

The vertical wood supports seen here will be replaced by steel lally columns when the floor is poured.

6 weeks +*

*(6 weeks +2 [work] days since framing started)





This week's inspection finds the roof complete on our half, nearly done on the rest.

Piers have been poured for the porches, and crushed stone covers ground under the porches, we hope to keep critters from digging dens there.

There is still some snow in the basement, but less.

I ventured up the ladder to the 2nd floor and found that some framing hasn't been done quite as expected. The walk-in closet was supposed to be about a foot wider, being the beneficiary of the additional foot of house width. It's not a show-stopper, but we'll have a chat with Paul B. about that. The same holds true in 'his' house (the model home) so there may be an adjustment to them both.

snow removal

Today's drive-by after breakfast encountered the crew pulling snow off the front roof. We had about 2" of snow overnight.

roofing

Today's drive-by ... the roof construction is complete. The back of our house is shingled, and they were starting on the back of the garage.

Very sandy.

paying attention

When I kidded Paul B. about changing the roof layout on us, he replied it was in the plan elevations he sent. Yup, they were there although the original scanned and emailed sketches were quite faint, and we totally missed that detail. Using Photoshop to perk up the drawing a bit, it becomes clearer:

The rear elevation has changed some since this drawing, by our request. The left window of the 3 upstairs will be a transom in the walk-in closet. We are also adding shutters to the front.













Chatting with the neighbors yesterday, they admitted to not seeing the difference in roof orientation either. While the basic houses are all the same, small changes will reduce the cookie cutter effect.

roof!

The crew has been busy. Trusses went up Thursday morning, and the roof sheathing was done before the weekend. We were glad to see that since it snowed overnight although there is enough dripping through gaps to have the first floor iced.

Now that things have gotten taller, I had to switch cameras to better capture the scene. Bonus: blue skies today.

The 2nd floor bathroom window hasn't been reframed yet (the window is supposed to be a foot shorter, the sill higher), but the crew was focused on getting a roof on. Tweaks can come later.

We saw JoAnne next door, walked over, introduced ourselves, and gabbed for quite a while. Then Dale (next door to JoAnne) and Ike (Jack Russell terrior) came out for a walk. Rich (JoAnne's husband) popped out, and we all enjoyed the sunshine and the conversation. There went the afternoon, but it was good.

With a different camera with wider lens, panoramas get a little funny looking. Imagine the house as being straight across the back.











The snow in the basement is slowly disappearing. Things will thaw some day.

Paul B. called Thursday afternoon to ask if we decided on shingle colors. Of the two choices, we went for black, understanding that they needed to order them soon. Soon, like delivered the next day.

He also asked if we wanted shutters. Yeah, that might be nice. Poof, we will have shutters. The house next door is his (model for the development), so we and he need to agree on things.I think he wants shutters.

trusses and a big crane

Last week stacks of roof trusses showed up. The houses needed to have scaffolding put up before they started the high wire act, and they did some work on the trusses on the ground adding sheathing, overhangs, etc., so actual crane work waited until today.

OK, what's different? I watched for a while, took some pictures, threw a few sticks for Dakota (the job-site black lab) before it dawned on me that the roof orientation is rotated 90 degrees from the other houses! Paul B. had said something one time when we were in his office about trying a design with this rotation, but I didn't realize we were it.