Floored

They finished the brick last week. We wanted to make sure they had a number brick for the house.

We stopped over today to see the flooring.
Looked like they are pretty much done. The guys in the master bath said they will be finishing the grout tomorrow. I am happy with the tile and decorative tile that we picked.
Everything looks great. I think the handrail stain is a little darker than we originally picked. E is going to check with our PM tomorrow on that.
They also have the door for the master bath backwards. The door is suppose to swing in, but they have it set to swing out into the bathroom. Guess that is why they charged us $350 for this change; they knew they would have to do everything twice to get it correct.

We also noticed that the door to the master closet was not framed over where it was cut out.
And they added the air return vent in the basement. That was new and we weren't expecting to see this large monster. E will be cutting that when we move in.

Only 4 more weeks....
Not sure what is going to take 4 weeks.

Closing Costs

For those who have closed with NVR, how much different were the closing costs from the GFE you received around when you locked?

I know the escrow amounts will change based on appraisal, interest rate, close date, etc. But did the other amounts change drastically?

We are working through to see if it is worth our time and money to switch back to NVR from our outside lender. I don't want to be calculating all of our numbers off of amounts that they give us now, but then they add to them closer to closing.

Quick call from the PM

Our PM called me this afternoon with a weekly update.
A lot of good things are happening.

• The appraiser came out this morning. Because I never confirmed the time, I didn't think he was going to come out. But at least that is done. Now we will have to wait to see what number he comes back with. I think he mentioned he was going to call me after the meeting at the house was done to get some interior finish details.
• The PM ordered the new/correct cabinet and it will be delivered to his house. He also told them not to install the knobs.
• The brick finishers are finishing today. I forgot to ask him if they added our number brick. I will have to check this out next time we run over there.
• They are going to start the siding next week after they are done with the house up the street from us.
• The hardwood will be installed in the first floor Monday and Tuesday.
• The vinyl in the laundry room and the tile in both bathrooms on the second floor will be finished today.
• They also painted and trimmed the house this week.
• While talking to him, he was on his way back over to the house to meet the Granite company. They were coming out to size out their template.

They got a lot done since we were there Tuesday night!!!
I am excited to see everything. He said he needs to keep the house locked now as this is when people tend to steal things. He would keep it unlocked for us, but we wouldn't make it over tonight and I don't want it to sit unlocked tonight and during the day tomorrow until we got there.
I think we are going to go over after work one night next week, but it might not be until Thursday. E is traveling again. Hey I can always make a trip without him, right???

What a call and update!!!!

Brick and a garage of goodies!!!!

They were completing the finishing touches up early this week to start painting. We went over Tuesday evening to see how all the dry wall turned out.
We found a few other little surprises!!
They started the brick which they weren't to start until later this week and all of our doors and cabinets were in the garage.

On Sunday we decided that we no longer wanted the cabinet hardware installed. I wasn't a big fan of the knobs from the beginning, but we thought it would be hard to open the cabinets without them. I emailed our SR Monday morning and they can't adjust the sales price now, so we will have a box of $200 knobs as a house warming gift. Guess I will put these on eBay.

At the beginning of the process, we noticed on blogs that the cabinet above the microwave was raised higher than the other cabinets in the kitchen. For some reason this really bothers me. We made a point during our 2 week of changes that our SR knew that we wanted this cabinet to be flat along with the other cabinets. This was also mentioned to our PM during our Pre-construction meeting several times. He wrote it on his sheet and circled it a few times. When we did our pre-dry wall walk through, our PM reminded me that his notes had that our cabinets are to be flush.
Well....today I get a lovely voicemail that they are installing the cabinets and the cabinet above the microwave was to the ceiling and was pushed forward so it wasn't lined up with the other cabinets. He didn't think that's what I wanted. I called him back and of course got his VM. Hopefully this is an easy fix. This now gives me a reason to go over and check on things this weekend. I am excited to see our cabinets. As long as the one cabinet is flat!!!!!

I also got a call that they wanted to do the appraisal tomorrow morning. I didn't hear back from my PM yet, so I don't have that scheduled.
I called my SR because I wasn't sure if I needed to go through him or our PM. While on the phone, he told me that NVR lowered their rate to match our rate we locked with an outside lender and it didn't have any points attached to it today. I explained we already locked and he told me that we should be able to get out of it if we didn't pay any money yet.
Has anyone locked and backed out with that lender? Any penalties? E was going to call our LO to see  how this was possible. But I think once we have the appraisal, we are locked in with that lender.


Oh and we also noticed there is a small dent in the corner of the garage door on the third car attachment. We will need to mention this to our PM so they can fix it. If they don't replace the door, hopefully they fix it enough that you won't notice it was dented.

Drywall Complete and Locked & Loaded

E went over to the house last night and saw that they finished up the drywall and applied one coat of mud. Everything looks good except the large gap over the garage door on the two car garage side. Not sure if he had a chance to call our PM about that yet or not today.

The brick was delivered last week, so I am excited to see that on the house.

Below are some pics of the drywall.

All week we have been going back and forth over our mortgage options. We were working with a local bank in addition to NVR. Our local bank's closing costs were a bit more, but they emailed us today and said they were able to lock us in at 4.625% instead of the current rate today as of 4.750%. After tons of spreadsheets, it is cheaper for us to go with the local bank starting after month 38. We are also planning to pay a little bit more each month to get our MI off the monthly payment sooner than 38 months. I found that I can work these amortization tables every which way after these past few days; what does it look like after 5 yrs, 7 yrs, 10 yrs, what if you pay MI up front vs monthly, etc. I think we worked through each combination and each situation only had about a $1K difference between each bank (our incentives were only $5K).  I think E was going to lock today and I think this was the scariest part of this whole process so far.

NVR called us on Tuesday to schedule our closing for Monday Oct 14th. I am hoping that our local bank is able to get us closed during that week as well. Our house is to be finished Friday Oct 11th. I want to ask if we can close at the last possible minute that day so that we have all weekend to move. If we close early in the week, I won't want to wait until the weekend to move.

We also purchased our washer/dryer this weekend during the labor day sale. I went into the store wanting a top load washer, but the salesman talked me out of it. He said the technology in the top load has not caught up with the front load yet and the front load is the better washer to purchase. I also wasn't excited about spending $250 for each pedestal and we wouldn't even be able to use the one under the washer due to the drain tray. I am also short and I can't reach over the front load when they are on a pedestal. Well....we didn't purchase what I originally went into the store to get. We bought a Kenmore Front load with the pedestals all on sale for $1.7K on sale from $3K. The pedestals were only $100/each instead of $250/each.

Kenmore 3.7 cu. ft. Accela-Wash™ Steam Front-Load Washer and 7.3 cu. ft. Dryer

$2359.98Starting at $1399.98

The Kenmore 3.7 cu. ft. steam front-load washer features the Accela-Wash™ option, which can make wash time 33% faster. This Kenmore washer has 3 unique wash motions, offering special care for fabrics. And with the power of steam, this front-load washer virtually eliminates the need to pre-treat stains.The Kenmore 7.3 cu. ft. dryer has an extra-large capacity for bulky items such as bedding. It automatically detects the moisture to determine the right drying temperature and time. The steam refresh option adds steams to reduce wrinkles, odors and static cling.Save floor space by mounting the dryer on the washer with the optional stacking kit. Or use the matching pedestals to raise your washer and dryer 13.7-inches to a more comfortable height for loading and unloading. The pedestal's large storage drawer holds and hides your laundry supplies, including large detergent bottles and boxes.

 

Love my garage doors:

 Family Room looking into living room:
I keep telling my PM they forgot to build the morning room. He just laughs at me.

 Kitchen looking into Family Room:

Large gap above garage door:

 

 

My ugly air vents:

We will have to keep the covers painted the same colors as the wall so they don't stick out as much.

I am just going to walk up the stairs with my eyes closed. 

Master batch switched shower and tub so door swings into bathroom instead of bedroom:

 

Pre-Dry Wall Meeting

We had our pre-dry wall meeting today. All in all it went pretty good.
The framers were a little behind schedule, so the completion date of the home is now October 11th. Not too far off of our estimated close date at signing of October 4th.
I emailed our LO this morning and he said they typically close within 2 days of completion. Since we are now safe and within 60 days, we need to think about which bank we are locking with and lock the rate. And of course they are up to 4.625% with .625% points. That is $152 more a month than when we signed and priced everything at 3.625%.

We did want to change a few things we found during our walk thru:

• The hose bib on the back of the house was really high. So it wasn't so noticeable, we asked him to move it down a foot or so.
• He still needs to have the electrician move our thermostat wiring so it is not right in the middle of the wall above where we would put our buffet.
• The spacing of the two outlets in the master were not spaced the same below the windows/from the side wall. We asked him to move the one. But when he measured it out, it was more then 12 feet away from the other outlet. We compromised and he is going to move the one outlet and then ask the electrician come in and add another outlet to where we wanted to move the other one to. This way we have an outlet under each window on both sides of the bed for nightstands.
• They did fix the framing for the master bath. They just need to come back in and center the lights over the tub and shower.
• Our biggest item we saw where the air return vents. I guess they are doing something new now. All the air return vents are above the bedroom doors. So as you are walking up the stairs, all you can see are these vents. We both think it looks ugly. Not too happy about it. He was explaining why they are doing it this way and I wasn't paying attention too much. I was just looking at them thinking how much I hated them being there.  

E stayed back and took a bunch of pictures of all the walls so we knew where we could get a stud to hang items on the walls.
They had the garage doors on both garages, but when we left they were up so we couldn't get pictures of the doors yet. Guess I will just need to drive past again :-)
We saw that our flower box was still on the lot. Since they stopped putting them on the floor plans, we asked if he could just keep it at the house. He said he would put it up if we wanted him to.

They are going to fix some framing issues today, start the HVAC tomorrow, and insulation and dry wall next week. He said he thinks he will be locking the doors this weekend since all the HVAC equipment will be in the basement.

So excited that it is starting to look like a home!!!!

Third Car Garage Framing

We moved in with E's sister this weekend. The move went well except a few of my items that weren't suppose to go to the storage vault ended up there. The only box I am worried about is the box where I had perfume bottles and nail polish; these items were not packed for storage. Just hoping that they don't break!!!

We stopped by Friday for a quick look and a worker showed up while we were touring the house. We went back on Sunday to get pics and saw that they started to rough in the plumbing.

We also met our neighbors on the one side. They seem really nice and are close to our age. He is actually friends with one of the guys I went to high school with.

I was excited to see that they have the third car garage framed.

They did frame our master bath backwards. The floor plan is to have the shower and then the bath tub and the door would swing into the bedroom. We did a non-standard to flip it so the tub was behind the door and the door would swing into the bathroom instead. We want to put a sitting chair in the corner. We saw on Friday that they had already set the tub and of course it was backwards. We reached out to the PM on Monday and he said he was aware it was wrong and he was waiting for the frame guy to come back and fix it. Everyone knew this would be wrong and that is why they charged us $500 (I think that was the amount) for this non-standard.

We also asked our PM to move our thermostat location. It is currently smack dab in the middle of the small wall. We plan to put a buffet there and of course we won't be able to put a large picture/mirror above it with a thermostat right there. He is going to look at it, so hopefully they will move it for us. Thanks to the other bloggers for reminding me to look into this.
E went yesterday to see if they set any other switches that we would want moved before they wire them completely. There was a large crew there so he wasn't able to get in.

We have our pre-dry wall meeting bright and early tomorrow at 7am. Hopefully the bathroom will be fixed.
And a close date?????

Here are a few pictures. Our house looks huge from the side because of the walk-out basement. We also saw our neighborhood pets on Sunday. There is a large family of turkeys that live in the woods around the house.

 

 

We also went on Sunday to pick our granite for the countertops. Well "pick" turned out to be-"Here is the slab your countertops will be cut from; they are all very similiar".