Recent Post
Monday, April 22, 2013
Put to good use!
Probably somewhere in a previous post I talked about all the goodies one could find in their dumpster at various points throughout the life cycle of home building. Anything from carpet, to tile, vinyl siding. Well, the vinyl siding was especially useful in my first dumpster project to date.Our dog Charlie has a dog house. Very well constructed, durable, etc. Only problem it was painted radio-active green. It was only a matter of time before before the HOA would be showing up with a nasty-gram or something, so I knew something had to be done. Fortunately, my frugal side came through, and I was able to create a mini-Rome for our dog Charlie, using nearly all recycled, scavenged products taken from our dumpster.
Here are some photos...
Friday, April 19, 2013
Post-closing Update
The Bad News
It's about 3+ weeks after closing, and the house is hanging in there, as is are we. The banister I paid $$$$ for was poorly crafted. Beams were not aligned with balusters, and running your hand down the rail might be great if you were trying to exfoliate your hand, or file your nails, but for smoothness of touch, it was not great. The wood was entirely lacquered and in some places, brush bristles were epoxied into the surface, as if being preserved for future generations. Fortunately, I was able to get some nice folks over to fix it. It still isn't on par with the $$$$ I paid for it, but it is better. There have been some other settling effects in the house, doors getting stuck, spider cracks in the drywall in a couple places, but I'm not too bothered by these, and expect them as normal for the break-in period of the home. Another feather-ruffling point was the fireplace. During our final walk-through, the fireplace was on, and by the end of the walk-through, we were smoked out of the house. The smoke smelled of burnt plastic, as if someone left a zip-loc bag on top before it was installed. To be assured, I was told a smoking fireplace is typical, that they require a good burn-in period (like 5 hours), but there could be other points to consider, such as the possibility the fireplace was designed for gas, rather than propane. Again, the fireplace company technician, nice fellow, came out within a couple days and looked it over to say again, the smell was normal for the initial burn-in period, and also to reassure me that the fireplace was fitted for propane correctly. In addition to the fireplace burn-in, because the burn-in period was so lengthy (more like 15 hours or more probably in total), this and other factors led to us running out of propane the third night in our home. What does that mean? Well, we weren't going to freeze to death, but we were going to have to live without hot water. How long? Well, in theory up to two weeks, while Suburban Propane, Inc. files my paperwork, verifies my credit, and performs a system leak test. In actuality, we were without hot water less than an hour! Read on to find out why...The Good News
OK, so all this crazy-bad stuff huh?!? Well, I'm writing about it because it happened, not because I am upset about it. Quite the opposite actually, in fact I am quite thankful for having probably the best Project Manager in the whole freaking country! Ascertaining the consequences of no hot water is not desirable, but it is manageable. Millions of people go without it everyday. Fortunately however, our PM called in an emergency service order, on the claim we had a potential leak. After all, we prematurely ran out of propane, didn't we? This caused one disgruntled, on-call, Suburban Propane employee to have to come out and service our tank, verify there wasn't a leak, and provide a temporary surplus of propane. I can imagine how much it sucked for him, and he definitely expressed his displeasure upon arrival, but with all said and done, I gave much thanks and appreciation, and a most notable kudos to our PM for a rock-star performance getting us hot water back.As for some other items, well I am less concerned. Not necessarily because there are minor problems here and there, but more so because they'll get addressed. There are a hundred reasons we are glad we picked a Ryan Home, if only you had the opportunity to come out and see for yourself, the place is actually quite stunning! So, to offer a moral to this story, expect there to be a few problems getting moved into your new home. Be happy it didn't burn down, fall down, get blown away, or drown, and be persistent in your intent to get the problems resolved. You may not get as awesome of a PM as I did, but RH does have a reputation to uphold, so leverage that!
Friday, March 29, 2013
Closed!
Almost exactly a month later, we are closed! Tonight we a busting out the tent & sleeping bags and camping in our new living room in from of a cozy propane fire. Life doesn't get any better :PMonday, March 4, 2013
Limbo
Closing was delayed.We were supposed to close February 28th. But that did not happen.
Three days before closing, NVR relayed to me that they didn't have a 2011 tax transcript. I swore I filed it, but it turns out I didn't. There aren't too many things I procrastinate about in life, but if there is one to take the cake, it would have to be anything to do with the I.R.S. While I had prepared my tax return back in September, on the counsel of NVR saying "it's probably a good idea to get your taxes filed..." I must have lost sight of actually sending in the 1040. Well it all came out just three days before closing (I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that).
February 25th, upon learning that the underwriter required the transcript in order to close, I raced down to the local Federal building to submit my paperwork. The plan at the time was in hopes a stamped submission would be adequate. I am now 4 days past closing, and here to tell you it's not adequate. Also, at the time, we were working on a backup plan to arrange another local lender to service the loan. Sadly that didn't work out since it would mean a new rate lock at a substantially higher rate with a a bank unwilling to honor my deal with NVR.
So here I sit, in a veritable limbo, waiting to hear from NVR as to what the game plan might be. In speculation, I am to guess it's not in their interest to delay a solution, but if some plan isn't formulated, then it could be up to 8 more weeks before the I.R.S. registers my transcript.
Discussing this with NVR, to their credit, they did acknowledge in this worst case scenario, that they would extend my rate lock period. Now that is A++ service!
Hoping to hear something soon!
ISZ
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Eye-candy
I've gt some more eye-candy to show off. The sod is down now, they laid it around the entire house... very nice!!! I meet with the PM next week, after things settle down for him to look over some more improvements and completed punch-out items.
Enjoy!
Thursday, January 24, 2013
So close!
We are getting much closer now. My PM and I have set up weekly meetings to cover defect resolution and give updates. We are set to have our "reveal" or "final walk-through" Feb 18th. Settlement is set for Feb. 27th. Not too far out now!
I get Elevation N is a little undocumented, which is something I feel a sense of leadership about, but certainly can't take any credit for. I'm hoping the pics I've posted will be of great help for someone considering this design (I already know there's at least one other who loves it and should be building just up the road).
Just a few more touches and she'll be complete!
Enjoy!
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Furniture shopping
Today we went out furniture shopping. So many rooms to fill up with stuff that the ol' apartment caliber stuff just won't do.It's true, Elevation N has captured our hearts. I've become very infatuated with it so much I love taking tons of pictures with every visit. The cottage style, with hip roof, thick pilasters, country porch, tin roof, double gable is charming and will be a treat to roll home to any day of the week.
With my previous render stage, I feel I've really come to understand the transitional cottage style, and hope to capture it even more so as we get into the interior decorating stage.
Morning Room
While I can't afford to just drop cash on a just-add-water approach to filling up the Rome with furniture, I have been able to triage whats most important, namely the high traffic areas. In our home, in our lifestyle, the Morning Room will be heavily used. So we are starting there first.Out & about, today we stopped by Virginia Wayside Furniture. We've toured a number of other places, like Ashley, Haynes, Rooms-to-Go, and others, and yes those places occasionally have some nice stuff, but today was a refreshing sight for soar eyes. This place was chock-full of quality furniture, with a plethora of options, custom order capabilities, and raw inspiration. Also, I'm normally turned off by sales people, and would rather shop alone. But today, we were met by Barbara, and we all had a ton of fun working with her as she helped us relate to what we were looking for.
We've come to accept that the morning room, being a center piece to our lifestyle, should deserve something durable, beefy, fun, lasting, and yet still fit within our country-cottage idea. With that, the distressed pedestal table felt like a perfect fit.
We've scoured the internet for pedestal tables, and while there were some good ones, they either seemed too spendy, or too cheap. One of the biggest concerns was getting a table we could really use, beat up over time, and know it would only look better with age.
Well today we found that table... a Nickols & Stone Antiguan 50" round, with 20" leaf.
Originally, when we assessed this table, we weren't thrilled how the base took up a large amount of floor space. But we loved the cherry-stained wood top, and thick, black, distressed, pedestal base, and chunky apron.
I honestly don't know one furniture manufacture from another, but I can tell a quality made product when I see it. Apparently Nickols & Stone has a great reputation, so I expect we are in for a life-long addition, good for many omelets, hash-browns, waffles, or whatever!
As for chairs? Well we didn't get any. Yes, the ones in the picture above are amazing. And for being solid wood, they were extremely contouring and comfortable. Sadly, they were over $400 a piece... currently too rich for my blood. Maybe later I'll splurge, or find something more reasonable.
Porch
Perhaps strange to some, but the porch is next on our list for high traffic areas. In fact this was the primary reason we went with Elevation N and perhaps top of the list for house requirements. To that we are looking at this porch swing.
The red in the image above is nice, but fortunately PorchSwings.Com sells a variety of colors. I think the Sage Green color will tie perfectly to the black door, and green siding of our home.
Everywhere Else
Yes, we still need practical stuff, like the refrigerator, and washer dryer, but that stuff isn't as fun to shop around for as the fun we had today.Until next time...
Enjoy!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)