Grading, paint and more....

We stopped by the house yesterday as our PM had said that a lot of things will be happening simultaneously and we should check it out in all the hustle and bustle. But no one was there...probably because it was around lunch time, so we went over to the model to see if one of the SRs will let us in....but surprise!! nobody was there either, this never happened before. So we were just strolling around the house checking out the graded yard, when a couple of workmen came and opened the door. So we did check it out at last. So no electrical, interactive or plumbing trimming out but alot of things were done.... final grading on the yard, side walk poured, final coat of paint, trim on the walls, clean-up for floors etc...
Check it out in pics....

With final grade

Backyard

Drive way

The crooked lead walk

   Our PM had said that this was "per design" but I don't like a crooked lead way...Does this bother anybody else or is it just us???

Dinning with trim and rail complete with paint!

How do you like the color?

Study double doors

Study with final coat of paint

Master Bed

Tiled in shower

Tile surround for the tub

Living room...still needs a lot of work!

We stopped by the model again last night after work and met with our SR and PM. They apologized for the our morning trip, turns out they were all in a meeting. Our PM said that they were a little behind on electrical and plumbing trim outs but interactive was done. We went back of the house again and few people came in with lights and fixtures...they were getting ready to start working (around 5.30 in the evening!). My husband wanted to stay back and watch them work, but I was so tired and we had planned furniture shopping, so we left.

Yesterday was our first day shopping for furniture.... I just wanted to get a feel for "our" style. We went to a couple of stores, looks like we are gonna actually agree few things... :-) that's a good start! ;-)

After a week....

Somehow we haven't been to our house since last Wednesday! And I was one of those who stalked the construction site. I think I got over all the anxiety, excitement and restlessness.

We had a meeting with our PM today morning (we have fallen into this ritual of weekly walkthrus with our PM:-) ) and saw lot of changes....

• Trim (baseboards, columns, crown, door casings etc etc) almost done.
• We have tile in masterbath, guest bath and powder room floor (all covered up - I was itching to take a peek, but I was good)
• Metal balusters are installed and all covered up for paint.
• And lot of changes on the outside - we have drive way and lead walk poured.

Drive and lead walk poured

Columns are in!

Balusters installed and covered up!

Glass detailing over study door

Chair rail and trim in dinning

Tile in master bath

Tile in powder room

Chair rail in foyer

Hubby measuring to make sure the fridge will fit!

We walk around with our PM he answered some questions we had and told us about things that will be happening next:

• Side walked will be poured today
• They plan to start final coat of paint today, which may take about 3 days
• Monday they'll work on trimming out electrical, plumbing, etc...
• They plan to do the first clean-up to prepare for flooring after paint
• Hardwood may arrive next Tuesday (it may take 2 days)
• Carpet many come in on Wednesday
• Plumbers were working the bathroom, getting ready for tile in shower and tub
• Tile in shower and around tub in the master has been delayed a little bit, it may go in a day or two (I'm not sure)
• The missing kitchen cabinet has been ordered. Glass door cabinet has been order for butlers pantry (this is not a standard, but we were promised one so they decided to order one for us! )

  We also marked the deck and stairs placing today with our PM. So overall, there's a lot going on and I'm unable to keep up with it!:-) We are very happy that our PM is confident that we are in a good shape  for closing on September 6th! YAY!!!

NVR Update

When our PM confirmed the possible closing date as Sept 9th, we contacted our NVR LO to talk about the rate lock situation...After some back and forth, our LO confirmed that our rate lock will be
extended to Sept 9th without any charge (I don't know why would they even mention a charge??? It was they who changed PMs on us!!). Anyway, she sent us some paper work to sign.... a rate lock agreement from July, in which we found few things to be incorrect (like origination fee,  sales price etc) and then there was the August extension agreement in which the information was corrected. Also our LO had emailed my husband that even though our rate lock is extended by 3 days, She may have to pull up our credit again as the credit report expires on 6th too and if our scores went down, she would have to give us another rate (Can you hear my eyes rolling.....) Again there was a lot of back n forth between my husband and LO. Our credit scores did go down by a little bit as we shopped around for interest rates and 4 other banks pulled our credit in one month. So we decided that the best thing would be to discuss it in person. We scheduled a meeting for Tuesday 08/13 with our LO.

Meanwhile my husband called our PM just to check on the progress and see if there's any chance of closing on Sept 6th instead of 9th, so that we'll not have to worry about the NVR drama! Thankfully our PM felt confident that we may be able to close on 6th. My husband explained to our PM about how a weekend is going to affect us, and our PM seemed to understand our situation. He called our LO and confirmed that we are good to go on Sept 6th. So Tuesday we met with our LO, pointed the things which were needed to be changed, and signed few documents. I could not hold it, so I vented out to her about how disappointed I was with the whole experience we had with NVR and RH in general and she was sympathetic to us.

Remember during the whole master bath upgrade fiasco, how our sales manager said that we will have to pay for the master bath upgrade out of our pocket at closing as they cannot adjust the loan amount??? Well, we found out on Tuesday that it isn't true...because they did change our loan amount! We mentioned that to our LO and she was like "What?! I don't know why he said that?" Just a classic example of Ryan ways....

Oh well! It wouldn't be an "experience" without a little drama I guess. Best part is, now we are good to go, without any additional credit checks, rates changes etc on Sept 6th...thanks to our PM!

Refrigerator....done!

We were so caught up in the construction process, worrying about timeline, rain, delays, rates and payments that I was unable to look beyond closing. But this weekend, with encouragement from some good friends, we went appliance shopping! Just to get an idea of what's out there, what we'd like style wise and all that. After looking in just 3 stores and we ended up purchasing a refrigerator! That doesn't happen a lot of times with us..... Usually we look in-store, online and then look and then look around some more, before we read reviews, argue, debate to get on the same page regarding a budget or style or model.

Its a Samsung 30 Cu.Ft. side-by-side, with water and ice dispenser. We bought it from Sears, Samsung was running a price cut on this model and Sears had a family and friends 15% off sale on top of that. So I think we got a good deal . The sales guy was pretty cool and they offered price match for next 30 days if we find a better deal during the long weekend or from another store.
Here are a couple of pics I found online.





Of course it was quiet unsettling that we made such a big purchase in a day, so we went home and did some research and read few reviews online, and I'm not second guessing it yet, which is again very very rare!

Next on the list - washer and dryer! We'll see how that goes....
Let me know if you find any good deals! :-)

Cabinets

We met with our PM today morning and discussed few things around the house. He is happy with where they are and so are we.
As the title of this post suggests, we have cabinets!!! We also got first coat of paint (primer) done. They plan to start putting in ceramic tile today- we are talking about master bath, powder room, guest bath, and laundry. So it may take a couple of days and then we will get to the trim. We may also have gas lines laid out by Friday (if it stops raining! Grrrr)

Picture time!
We went for the slightly upgraded basic cabinets, Andover Maple Spice.

Kitchen

Island

Some hardware still waiting to go in

Butlers pantry cabinet

Butlers pantry floor cabinet

Master bath Vanity with counter top

Vanity in 2nd bath waiting to go in

Cabinet in 2nd bath - this doesn't look right for the big counter top!

Trim waiting in garage to get in

So are the doors....

 Of course we found few things here and there, but nothing major...everything fixable.
1) Missing wall cabinet by the ovens in the kitchen
2) Cabinet in the 2nd bath doesn't look right, maybe it has to be switched.
3) Missing power outlet on the kitchen island
4) Missing power outlet on the great room wall by the TV connection

Lot more to do....but we are getting there!

Lincolnshire - Decorated Model

 The decorated Lincolnshire model in the new Hidden Creek Sub-Division in Nashville, TN has been  completed and opened (I think a week ago). We visited it yesterday to get a feel for the finished space.  I obviously took a ton of pictures, so here we go....

I realized last night that I forgot to take a picture of the elevation, which was really pretty. So I browsed for it online, I got this first picture on Ryan Homes Website which is almost similar elevation but with 2 car option (hence the smaller dormer). And the second picture was taken when this model was being built, so its a little unfinished, but you get the idea....

Elevation with 2 car garage

Current elevation with 3 car garage during construction....

This particular model has 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths (3 full and a powder room), study option, a bonus room and an open loft. Yes, they have a 3rd floor loft area, which I really liked.

Here is the entry way, and as you notice the foyer isn't 2 story. This was an option to get the 3rd full bath upstairs, which we skipped.

Entrance - no double story foyer

There is a line of sight to the master suite thru that little arched entry way, this is the one thing I was hesitant about. Solution - Master bed door is gonna be closed at all times! ;-)
As you walk in from the foyer, there's the dinning room to the right and a study on left side.

Formal Dinning

Study

Powder room right by the stairs. It looked very spacious than what I see in our home. Its the same dimension, maybe I'll feel differently when our floors are done.

Powder room

I loved the living room with 4ft extension, coffered ceiling and floors were gorgeous!

Living room - from kitchen end

The fireplaces offered in our area are pretty standard, no stone option, which I would have loved!

Other side of the living room

The kitchen was gorgeous of course with the upgraded appliances, cabinets, gourmet island and what not. This particular granite was not offered in our sub-division.

Kitchen

I think we'll make it!

That's a positive title, isn't it? :-)

We had a meeting with our PM today. My husband was caught up at work so I went by myself to check on the progress and get some dates outta him. Well, that I did! Currently we are looking at Quality Inspection on September 4th, Pre-settlement walk through on September 6th and Closing on September 9th or 10th. We have to vacate the apartment by September 13th, so it's gonna be tight but we may not be homeless after all. Phew!

Our rate lock is still expiring on September 6th. What bothers me is the fact that we had sent an email to our SR and LO regarding this, on the very day when our new PM first suggested that closing may be pushed to 2nd week of September. Neither of them even acknowledged our email. We did not stress too much about it then because we wanted to wait and get the final dates from our PM first. And one of my neighbors was told by our SR that they'll manage the rate lock situation, because of the whole PM change but we weren't promised anything like that. I guess we have to start making some noise.
I'm also contemplating the idea of pushing them to close on the day of pre-settlement walk through, I know its possible because I know one of our fellow bloggers did that. So they (NVR/RH) have a choice, either they extend our rate lock for 4-5 days or we close on September 6th. We'll see how that goes. I should say I'm surprisingly calm about this whole thing :-)

Now comes the good part- Progress!
Changes in the master bath are done. YAY!! They framed in for our new tub and shower, centered the window, centered the lighting and hung the drywall.
Right now they are pasting and taping all over the place and it's DIRTY, but I'm loving it. :-)
And and and.... We have lots of goodies in our garage. Our doors, cabinets, trim, tile etc etc etc has been delivered Woohoooooo!!!  So we can expect the first coat of paint, hopefully next Wednesday, then ceramic tile in the bathrooms, mud room and laundry. By end of next week we'll be talking trim and cabinets. Overall we are 2.5 or 3 weeks away from hardwoods and carpet. Can't wait to get there. :-)

It was very dark today for pictures as its been raining all day long and with the drywall people working it was very messy. But the pictures will follow soon....