All moved in.....

Well Friday started out great. 2 of the 3 movers we had when we moved out of our home in August were part of the delivery team. These 2 guys were great and we were very happy to have them back.

And then they started to unload our items....
-One of the legs on our nightstands has a large slice of the wood taken off.
-One of the legs on the entertainment stand bent in half about an inch up from the bottom of the leg.
-A desk leg was cracked at the screw and if we put it back on it won't stand up.
-E's retro desk chair is all scratched.
-And the worst of all.....I had 7-10 Coach purses stolen. The one guy was bringing the crate in and I noticed there was only a few purses in the crate. I went out to the truck thinking that maybe they feel out. Nope, nothing on the truck. They started to name 6-7 guys that helped load the truck from our storage unit. They suggested that I file a police report. I stopped at the police station this morning. Since our items were in so many jurisdictions, I don't think they will be able to help much. They are going to write up the police report and share with the local police station of where our items were stored. I asked the movers and they do have security cameras in their warehouse. They just need to look at the videos and hopefully they will find something.

Of course they had so many people touch our items during the moves and storage, it is going to be difficult to point the finger at one or two people that damaged them. The one mover was mad and kept making the comment that he was suppose to be helping load the truck on Thursday to watch for this kind of stuff.

E called Visa on Friday to freeze the transaction for the balance due on the moving and storage. So far no one from the moving company has called us back about the stolen items and the damaged furniture. If we don't get anywhere with the moving company in the next few days, I am going to have E call back and dispute the original charge from back in August too. Hopefully they will work with us and reimburse us for this. Fingers crossed!

Just a few items from the first few days at the house:
-We are having a hard time getting the upstairs to heat. We have the first floor set at 68/69 and the bedrooms are only heating to 64/65. Hopefully once we get all the boxes moved out and the air can circulate better this will improve.
-Our lights on the garage are not working. We have tried every light switch and we can't get them to turn on. We tightened the bulbs and checked the breakers. I think I am going to have E just try another bulb that we know works to see if they maybe just put bad bulbs in.
-We still need our powder room toilet replaced. The plumber didn't call or stop by on Friday.
-The siding guy still needs to come back and repair the siding on the back of the house.

Other than all that, I am in love with our new home. We are having a hard time setting up the furniture in the Family Room. I have really deep furniture (which we both love), it is just hard to place it. I was worried the whole process about not having the morning room. We are very happy with the kitchen/dinette/family space without the morning room. We will have plenty of room for a larger kitchen table and our family room furniture. The hardwood floor throughout the entire space really helps not define an area and we can make the dinette as large or small as we need. We will also need to purchase new bedroom furniture. Our furniture looks so small in the room. We did find a nice bedroom set at Arhaus; it is $7K so we are going to look to see if we can find something we like that is cheaper.

I will post some pictures once we have a few more boxes out of the rooms. Hopefully this weekend we can make these rooms more livable.

Appliance Delivery

I hope the way things went yesterday are not setting the tone for tomorrow's move.

We received a call right before 9pm Tuesday night (their window for calling with the time was 6-9) that our delivery window was from 430-630; nothing like waiting until the last minute. That worked well so we knew we wouldn't have to rush back to the office after the delivery was over. Wednesday morning Sears called me at 615 AM and told me that they had cancellations and that they needed to push our delivery to 130-330. I asked if they could keep it at 430. I was told that he would have to sit around for 5 hours. Sorry, but that was my problem how??? Take that up with your department that schedules the deliveries. Anyway, we worked with them and said we would meet them at the house if they called us 30 minutes before they were to be there.

So E went over to meet them at 1 yesterday.
The dryer they brought was too long so the dryer is sticking out from against the wall. They wouldn't cut the hose to make it fit.
The water pan under the washer is too close to the wall that the wires are all bunched up. They also couldn't get the washer to plug in due to the safety feature on the outlet. Both E and the delivery guy tried and they ended up bending the outlet. The electrician is coming tomorrow to put a new outlet in for us. We will also need to get a larger water pan and move the washer so we can actually plug it in. I told E to ask the plumber if he would be able to get us one.
They didn't give us a water line for the fridge. He said it wasn't on the order. So we will have to go and buy a water line and move the fridge around to get the water hose attached.

They also got a little bit of mud on the carpet. I wasn't too upset about that; it was raining pretty hard yesterday. But the fact that they just grabbed a rag off the counter (without asking) to clean up the spot on the carpet is what annoyed us.

E was also unhappy with how they rushed through the delivery since we were their last one.

I guess things could have been worse. I am just hoping things go smoothly tomorrow. I was worried about the hardwood floors, but no scratches :-).

Then last night I was wiping the bathrooms down and noticed that our toilet in the powder room is cracked the whole way around!! Hopefully the plumber can bring us a new one tomorrow while we are there moving.

Closed!!!!

We closed this morning and the whole process was very quick and simple. Just a bunch of papers to sign/resign - most of which were already signed during the process.

We are taking a few things over to the house today and setting the RAM Board for the appliance deliveries tomorrow.

All of the items on our pre-settlement walk through form are being addressed today and tomorrow. Hopefully they will get them fixed before the big move on Friday.

Only a few more days

We had the home inspection yesterday and our pre-settlement walk through today.
The inspector only found a few minor things so our PM is fixing them up before our closing on Tuesday.
They still haven't fixed the bowing of the siding on the back of the house, so that is on the list to be completed by Tuesday morning.
We walked through the house and went through the home owner's manual with our PM for 2 hours today. In addition to the siding bowing, we found some areas on the walls that needed touched up, there is a scratch in the master shower that needs buffed or the piece of metal will need replaced, and a high spot on the hardwood floor in the Family Room.

I ran over during the inspection to take a peak at the completed house. Even though I knew I would be there at 10 today, I couldn't wait to see everything. And I am glad I went.

The landscaping, flower box, driveway, and painted door really makes a difference on the appearance of the home. They seeded the yard so our PM is going to keep the sprinkler on until we move in on Friday for us. Today it was raining so they might not need to run the sprinkler all day.

Our PM had also installed the lower cabinets and I think the kitchen looks so much better.

I can't wait to move in on Friday!!! But I am so nervous about the delivery guys and the movers. I hope they don't ruin any of the floors or walls. I will be buying some Ram Board for the floors.

Third Car Garage update

We drove out yesterday to check on the outside of the house.
I am so glad our PM was able to get the shingle siding on the 3rd car garage. It looks so much better.
We still have the large gap above the two car garage door. I am not sure how they are going to fix it. You can tell that it doesn't line up with the 3rd car garage. I just don't want snow and rain getting into my garage.

We were able to sneak into the house. The basement door has a broken lock. They have had a piece of wood in the track, but someone took the wood out and the lock hasn't been fixed.
They installed all the toilets, yes we sat on them to see how they felt.
They installed the toilet paper holders and towel bars. It really makes me shake my head that all home builders are installing the large towel bar in the powder room. We will definitely be switching this out as I don't plan on hanging two bath towels in my powder room.
The carpet is in and looks awesome. It also feels really soft.
The dishwasher was installed. I wanted to see the stove, but it was still in the box.

E and our PM were working to get the vents on the back of the house fixed. When they installed the siding around them, they chalked them so tight to the house that it caused the siding to bow in. Now it looks like they just put trim over the chalking. The siding is still bowing into the house. I think E was going to wait a day or two to call the PM to say that they still needed fixed. This will give him time to look at them and have them fixed before we ask him to.

As we were walking through the house yesterday. I couldn't believe that in 3 weeks we will be unpacking boxes and making it home. Hoping that these 3 weeks fly by.

Oh and E's sister had her baby today. Healthy 8lb baby boy. Can't wait to go and meet him on Thursday!!!

Third Car Garage Debacle

 

While we visited the hours on Sunday, we were happy with the way the siding looked. At that point, they didn't have the shake siding on the two car garage so we didn't have anything to compare the third car garage to.

 

Well....last night we meant our PM to walk through the house. And the first thing we noticed when we walked up the driveway was the difference b/w the garages. The two car garage has the shake siding, while the third car garage has the flat siding. Seriously?!?!?! His comment was that he built the third car "per plan". Their phrase which I am now believing is embedded into their minds. We argued with him that it looks really bad. We also pointed out that at the time we signed, the third car garage was not a standard option so we were never shown the plan of what it would look like. He acknowledged that and said he would reach out to Management today. As we questioned a few other things, his response was always "per plan".

After we left the house, E and I went home and compared our picture to other Venice Elevation Ls that we came across. Rachael-I hope you don't mind that I pulled your blog into our blog as reference (I hope the link works). Rachael's Venice

Differences:

We don't have the trim board above the brick.

The brick is also a little higher than it should be.

The shake siding at the top of the house does not have as many levels

They also used white trim (I think they are called J channels) to finish off the trim siding instead of the color of the siding.

They still need to install the column on the porch and the flower box. They are in the garage.

 

Fast forward to today....E received a call from our PM and he was able to come through and get approval to put the shake siding on the 3rd car garage. We are VERY happy about that. E then brought up the differences we noticed and the PM asked if E ever saw the plans. WRONG QUESTION!!! E got off the phone and drove over to the house and walked through each item that was NOT "PER PLAN". Some of the items weren't a big deal, he was just making his point. Don't tell us things are done "per plan" and then deviate from the plan when it benefits you and not us.

They are going to put the trim board above the brick, but since the brick is higher than it should be it will not line up correctly. E told him if it doesn't look good they will be taking it down and fixing the brick. I guess they started using a larger brick than the "per plan" brick.

 

All in all, I am very happy with our PM and the things he was able to get fixed for us during the process. That is what makes me feel bad that him and E got into a huge argument today. But then I look at the price of the house and think no we should want it 100% correct and not just 98 or 99%.

 

At this point, I don't think our PM is going to let us walk through the house until our pre-settlement walk through on 10/11. At that point, E is going to have a very large punch list.

I always thought it was going to be really good or bad that E has a background in construction. Well, it turns out very good for us and very bad for our PM.

 

 

Now to the inside:
I am very happy with the way things are going in here. They are installing carpet today and need to finish the electrical and plumbing fixtures. Our smaller cabinet for above the microwave still needs to be delivered to our PMs house.

Love the New Caledonia granite!!!

I am hoping once they fix the stain on the banister it won't look so dark. The pole is a lot darker than the hand railings.

I am very pleased with the way the tile trim turned out. I like it a lot more now that it is installed.

Our beautiful floors!

So far we are very happy with our build process even though we hit a few bumps here at the end.
For those building the third car garage - make sure to ask how it will be trimmed out. Most likely it is not the same as the other garage.

Closing is scheduled!!!!!!

Tuesday October 15th is our closing date!!

We were originally scheduled for the 14th, but everyone realized today that the 14th is Columbus Day and the banks are not open.
I am going to schedule out the cable and delivery of appliances before the big move on Friday the 18th. I can't believe it's almost here.

We locked our rate with NVR yesterday. They were offering a 0.500% credit for 4.500% interest rate and a .500% charge for 4.3750% interest rate. We went with 4.500%.
They also sent us our appraisal report. The appraisal came in $8K over our sales price, so that's good news.
We still had an appraisal done with the other lender, so E wants to compare these reports.

We are going over tonight and meeting our PM to walk through where they are with everything. We stopped on Sunday to look at the siding and saw on he back of the house, they caulked around a vent too tight that it was making the siding bow in. Our PM was aware and they were coming to fix it.

I am also concerned with the stain on our banisters. We picked Chestnut because it matched our flooring almost exactly. Now the stain looks about 5 shades darker. Our PM confirmed that the stain is chestnut. I may need to make a call to Rusmur Floors to see what they can do about this.

I wanted to ask everyone who has closed. How clean are the houses when you are ready to move in? We are debating if we should hire a cleaning company to do a new house clean for us, but I would rather not pay anymore money than I have to right now. But I also don't want to spend all my time cleaning the house.

Only 3 weeks to go....