What a difference a few days make! (day 22)

Steve stopped by, and was able to catch the guys in action today. So much has happened over the past couple of days, the second floor and roofing! A lot of pictures:

Love the bay window!

Study

The county required an additional window in the family room

Dining room

Glad to see they moved the morning room door like they said they would!

Bedroom #4

Bedroom #3

Loft

Owner's bath, closet area

Owner's bedroom/sitting area

Garage entrance to the mudroom

They had the basement blocked off so he wasn't able to get down to that area. Tommorow the begin rough heating and air conditioning, and rough plumbing over the next few days. It's becoming so real!

Framing, framing, framing!

The SR emailed us on Wednesday with a pic:

Framing has begun! Steve stopped by later in the evening for additional photos, and even saw something that was out of the ordinary.

Entryway

View of mudroom and pending stairwell down to the basement

Dining Room

Our friend Jay standing in the pantry area

Hole for the stairs down to the basement

In the hallway facing the morning room (Jay is trying to point out where the family room will be...DUH!)

Family Room

Third window area in family room

Steve says this is where the bay window in the living room will be, but shouldn't there be a cutout for it?

Above the porch

Morning room

Steve looked outside where the sliding door would go, and found this:

Yep, the pending sliding door is ABOVE the welled exit!

Seriously?

We both knew immediately that this was a no-go, so I called the PM to let him know. He stated that the guys put the sliding door wood up on the wrong side of the morning room (no $**t) and it would be replaced and moved to the correct side. Steve is making a trip down there today to ensure that it has been fixed. 

This has been a great week building wise, I never knew framing could be so exciting!

We have wood!

Our sales rep took a drive through the neighborhood Sunday and found this:

Hello wood! It wasn't supposed to be delivered until today, and I definitely wasn't expecting anyone to work on Father's Day (hope all of you great fathers out in the bloggersphere enjoyed your day). Hopefully this means they will start framing a day earlier than planned...if not I won't be mad.

A few more pictures of the basement:

So far everything is running smoothly. If this keeps up we may be well on our way for a final walk-though slated right now for the 20th of August!

Draintile/plumbing ground work phase

Steve stopped by the lot today to see what has been going on the past few days, since this is the time frame where they would input the drain system around the foundation and connected to the sump pump. They also installed the pipes that will be under the basement floor as well as for the three piece plumbing we got for a future bathroom.

More random pictures...there are a lot more but I didn't want to bore anyone:

He realized (finally! I've been telling him this for days) that the morning room door will be on the side of the house and not how it shows on the virtual tour where it lies behind the family room and in the backyard. We don't remember seeing this during the pre-con meeting and all of the plans were laid out in front of us. I guess since the welled exit is on the side of the house, the morning room exit door would have to be the same on the opposite side. We will have to figure out how we will have the deck now since we had another idea in mind.

The side where the door will be

In the meantime I am on countless websites trying to figure out how I want to decorate the family room, dining and living rooms. Fun and stressful at the same time!

A little foundation goes a long way...

So Steve was able to sneak off of work early today and drive to Waldorf to see what was happening

 on the lot, and look what he found:

We have foundation folks! Our PM stated that they are will work on the electrical and plumbing rough-ins, and plan to pour the concrete on the 18th. The pre-drywall meeting will be held soon as well.

The single welled exit. I like the fact that its on the side and not directly in the backyard. I saw a few homes in the community with the exit leading out to the backyard, but I felt that it would interfere with what we planned to do as far as the patio.

Since we do not have the Rome model in our neighborhood, we never got the chance to actually experience the space for ourselves. The PM was nice enough to allow Steve to look inside a Rome that is being built two lots down from ours. Steve was impressed with the amount of space we would have; we knew it was over 3060 square feet without the finished basement but we couldn't actually see how big it was. I'm sure I'll find a way to fill it up with furniture!

In other news that had me excited yet sad at the same time, he stated that he wants to have the house completed and have the final walk-through done on August 20th--my birthday. I'm excited to know that it will be completed in a timely manner, but I hate that I won't have the opportunity to experience the walk-through myself since I will still be here in Korea. I'll just re-create the walk-through three days later :)

Loan decision

I received in my email this morning that our loan was approved! HUGE relief! There was a few weeks where it sat in underwriting so I was a little nervous. I do have a concern that I noticed that I will ask the loan officer; the sales price on the document states the amount BEFORE the change orders were made, which increases the amount by 8K. I wonder would that affect the loan overall? I'm hoping it doesn't, I do recall the loan officer stating that they would do another estimate 60 days before settlement and would adjust based on the changes. We shall see. Overall I am excited I am over this hump!

And so it begins!

Today is the start of construction of our new home, and I am EXCITED! There have been highs and lows during this process but I am glad to know we have come this far and things are finally becoming real. I barely slept last night due to all of the excitement and anticipation, and I wish I was able to stalk the neighborhood to track the progress. Instead I will depend on Steve and our sales rep Nikki to document it all--I better have pictures in my email every other day! :)

**Update** Steve was able to go out and take a few pictures of the excavator in action. Nothing too exciting but it made my day.

I will try not to bombard the blog with countless unnecessary pictures so I won't put up any more until they start the basement.