Tuesday, August 7, 2012

An Update from a Slacker...

I know it's been a LONG time since my last post...I wanted to wait to post pics once we had a good amount of decorating and unpacking done.  I now realize that may actually never happen, so I figured what the heck...I will post some really rough pics that I took a few weeks back.

We mostly have concentrated on putting the downstairs into a nice, livable area.  We still need to paint and find a few more wall decorations, but it's getting there.

My hubby has started to install a home automation system where we can control the lighting, door locks, thermostat, etc. from our iphones or ipads.  So far, he has done the lights, and it's pretty cool!  I like the "Watch Movie" setting he did the best...good mood lighting at the touch of one button!

Our upstairs is a mess.  This summer has been so hectic, especially with us just having a baby, and I haven't had a good few days to concentrate on it.  I do have some good ideas for it, though!  One thing we did get that we are thrilled with are the honeycomb blinds from JCPenney.  The ones that are cordless that you can either pull down or up.  Definitely a good purchase.

I did decide to make my own cornices for the morning room windows.  (Pics below)  Basically, it's foam cut to size and hot glued together and then upholstered.  I went through 3 different fabrics before I found one that I was happy with.  What a pain!  :)  But, I do like how they came out!

Last week, we had our first post move walk-thru.  Honestly, there wasn't a whole lot wrong...just a few things here and there.  The biggest one being that they carpeted over one of the vents in our master bedroom and never cut it out.  Now, it's all fixed and our room is sooooo much cooler.  Guardian also put our subwoofer port on the wrong side of the room somehow.  We have no idea how that happened as it was fine when we met with them.  Also, our PM was so cool and fixed some of our self-induced nicks and scratches and a decent sized drywall hole (my hubby decided to run all of the cable and electrical cords behind the wall and into the basement so it looks like the tv is floating.)  Pretty cool!

This week, they put the final layer of asphalt on top of our driveway and we have to stay off of it a few days.  They also come around weekly and replace any dead sod pieces.  My hubby waters it like crazy, so hopefully we won't need more replacements.  We just have to keep the dogs from peeing on it, which is not an easy feat!  (I actually am trying to train my one dog to pee on the ugly bushes in front of our house so I have an excuse to get new ones!)  :)

My goal will be to take some more pics this weekend...hopefully I will get a lot done upstairs.  Don't even ask me about the basement...OMG...not a pretty sight.  But, I love my house and look forward to making it just the way we envisioned!

Cute chandelier in Brynn's room

Counter height table in Morning Room

My homemade cornices

The messy kitchen-baby stuff all over!

Family Room

Another morning room pic

Little nook area-LOVE this piece of furniture I found. Looks like a table, but you can open it up and it becomes a desk, dry erase/cork board, and charging station.  Too cool!

Our "Lounge" area-this will look SO cool when it's totally done!

Glass wall art-I ordered 1 more to add a bit more depth to it 

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Bye Bye Hole...Hello Home!

Okay, I have been a HUGE slacker about posting to the blog.  And I have also not taken any pictures.  I keep meaning to, but then the pile of boxes and stuff all over the place distracts me, and then I forget.

Everything went great with the walk thru and settlement.  The walk thru was very informative and it was great to know how the house "worked."  We used an outside settlement company (non-NVR) and NVR FedExed all of the resale packet to them with the paperwork and keys.  This whole process was surprisingly smooth and painless, much to our relief!

I swear it took the movers forever to move us.  There were 4 of them and they were very good and professional, but it took 11.5 hours (and a couple 4-packs of Red Bull)  when all said and done.  They scuffed the walls in a few places, but nothing major.  Ryan Homes said that they could touch that up for us after our 3-week visit, which is awesome!  They also gave us a coupon to get a free quart of the wall and ceiling paint, so we plan to do that since we probably won't be painting the house anytime soon.  I must say that I don't mind the wall color...it has a nice contrast with the white.  That being said, I definitely cannot wait to throw some real color on the walls!

Best Buy delivered our fridge on time and the delivery men were friendly and helpful.  We LOVE the fridge!  It's just too cool...literally and figuratively.

Sears delivered our washer/dryer.  We paid for delivery but not set-up.  My hubby bought the dryer vent attachment and cord on amazon, so he planned to do the install himself.  However, the delivery guys accidentally nicked the door jam and felt horrible, so they gave us free hoses for the washer and hooked both the washer/dryer up and tested them out.

One thing for sure is that the delivery and moving guys were excellent in all cases.  It makes a big difference when you work with nice, helpful people.  It's sad that our society is surprised when someone does a good job and is friendly...we should be surprised when they are not.  Okay, stepping back down off my soapbox and back to the house.

Now, for a sore subject.  Freakin' Comcast.  They came out last Thursday to install the tv and internet.  The tech said something about the street line not being run to our house and assured us his supervisor would follow up and they would send a survey crew out on Friday.  NADA.  No call.  No crew.  I start to stalk them via the phone and IMing on the internet.  I literally talked to 8 reps who either made empty promises, had no clue what they were talking about, or disconnected me while I was put on hold to wait for them to talk to a supervisor.  Yesterday, 5 days after the initial install was scheduled, I was hell bent on getting to the right person.  After talking to a sales rep, the customer service center, and the tech support service center, we got someone scheduled to come out this morning.  My hubby gets a follow up call saying that they have to do something with the lines from the street and it can take up to 10-14 days for them to come out if the technician cannot fix it today.  Whatever.  All of our neighbors have it.  How are they so clueless?   8 AM this morning, they call again saying the technician won't be coming since they have this issue with the line and promised to send a crew out by the end of the week.  I will believe it when I see it.  So, no tv or internet now day 6.  Luckily, our super generous new neighbors gave us their password to their wifi so my hubby can use it during the day since he works from home and must be connected all of the time.  Ugh.  I have the radio on a LOT now...getting a chance to catch up on the latest country music since that is pretty much all we get in the house.  Too much to do to make up playlists on my ipod!

I am sure some of you (well, at least the few people that actually read this blog!) are wondering why we are bothering with Comcast.  Verizon isn't active in our new neighborhood yet and my hubby needs reliable internet service.  (HA!)  Our only other option for tv is DirecTV, but again, doesn't solve the internet problem.  So, we are stuck right now, at least until Verizon is up and running.

Ryan put sod on our 1/3 of an acre.  Most of it has survived, but it needs a LOT of watering and attention right now.  It looks great overall though...  We bought a Craftsman Self Propelled rear wheel drive lawn mower the other day that we plan to put to work over the next few days.  We have a pretty steep hill, so research showed that the rear wheel drive is the way to go.  The mower also has the feature of disengaging the blades without cutting the motor off so you aren't constantly stopping and starting.

Next time I will post pictures.  I must say that I LOVE OUR NEW HOUSE!  It's beautiful and so very livable and I know we will have a happy life in it!

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Now Introducing our Red Door!

I wasn't certain I would like the color door that we choose (since there were so few choices with the siding we chose), but I think it looks nice!  Well, at least from the picture that my sister sent us yesterday below...

We head up there tonight to take another look around.  8 days till it's all ours (and the bank's)!  So excited!


Monday, June 4, 2012

Roses are red, Violets are blue, We have new sod, Trees and bushes, too!

We are coming down the backstretch!  7 days till the final walk-thru and 10 days till settlement!  Crazy how time has flown towards the end.  On Friday, they layed the sod and planted some shrubs and trees.  My hubby has a tree-identifier app and he took a picture of each tree leaf.  It appears we have 1 oak tree and 3 types of birch trees.  I am not a fan of the bush selection, so I have a feeling those will be changed shortly after moving in.  But they did a nice job cutting out the beds and laying the sod.

When we snuck in yesterday to look around, they had pulled up the floor coverings and we got the full effect of the carpet, wood and ceramic.  All and all, the choices we made turned out terrific!  It all flows nicely and the colors compliment each other.  Since we picked mostly neutrals with dark woods, we are going to have furniture and decor that make the rooms pop with color.  (Our big red couch, for example.)  I have also been looking at area rugs for our living/lounge room.  There are so many nice ones out there but I just cannot decide on the final color scheme. 

One odd thing is that our shower was on when we snuck into the house.  Not fully on, but like at 50%.  The knob was clearly out of whack because it took me a lot of tries to get it to turn off.  Now either we have a squatter in our house who enjoys a hot shower, or it is just faulty. On a positive note, the hubby decided to christen the toilet and it flushes quite nicely (oh, and I took a picture to use as blackmail later on if he annoys me.  Consider yourself warned, Pete!)

We changed our Verizon service to transfer to the new house, but saw they didn't offer FIOS TV yet, only internet and phone.  So, we decided to do Comcast month by month till the FIOS TV was available.  After much confusion (and 44 minutes on hold), we found out that the FIOS internet & phone won't be active until a minimum of 2 weeks AFTER we move in.  The hubby works for home, so that is a no-go for that!  So, we will have to Comcast Triple Play it until FIOS has their act together.  I will very, very much miss the FIOS!  It's been awesome...  Adios FIOS.

This week is the final touch-ups, front door painting, foundation painting, & garage door opener installation.  We are pretty sure the humidifier slipped thru the cracks because it's not there and when I mentioned it, they said it was on it's way the next day.  That was like 4 days ago and still isn't in.

We are just so excited to move into our new home!  I just wish I could snap my fingers and have everything all packed up and ready to move.  I have tried and tried with no success...

Here are some pics of the almost final product...

White door will be painted a dark red

Pete posing on the fireplace

Family room looking into the kitchen

Looking out the window by the front door

Looking into the family room

Master bath (I kinda like the fixtures...not too bad for builder grade)


Shower that was leaky

Closet (not sure where Pete will put his clothes)

Brynn's Bathroom

Brynn's Nursery

Laundry Room (tiled now)


Kitchen


Kitchen view from Morning Room


Bushes

Tree (we think Birch)

Tree (we think Oak)

You can sorta see a tree in the backgrond

Baby got back

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

OMG!! 16 days!!!

I cannot believe how quickly time has passed since we started building!  So far, I am loving all of our choices and the only thing left really to see inside is the carpet, which is being put in as we speak!

This week will be carpeting, toilets, touch-ups and punch-outs.  Apparently, punch-outs refer to the general leveling of doors and other various items to QC.  They will also be tiling the laundry room floor.  Apparently, there was confusion with the laundry room flooring.  We originally factored into the cost that we would get ceramic tile.  But, to save money, we chose the resilient flooring.  Well, somehow, we were still charged for the tile upgrade.  It's too late to change things financially now, so we are going with the tile.

We finally bit the bullet and bought ceiling fans and kitchen pendant lights.  I seriously looked for 20 hours online until I was literally insane from staring at pictures of fans and lights.  Not being able to take it anymore, I did something that I was trying to avoid.  Yep, I hit up the big box stores and bought a fan my hubby loved for the Morning Room and a fan that I loved for the Master Bedroom.  We both really liked these red/orange/ivory pendant lights, so we picked those up, too.  The electrician was kind enough to hang them for us, which was awesome!  Pics are below...

I am hoping to go and see the carpet today, but I am not sure I will because I am still exhausted from the weekend and should do some laundry and pack.  Ugh.  I despise the whole moving process!  However, I LOVE getting ready to move to a new, awesome house!



Putting on the stone!

Close-Up of stone-LOVE IT!

Morning Room Ceiling Fan

Granite counter and tile floors

Island lights (and mom & Brynn running out of the picture!)

Another kitchen pic

Kitchen and Morning Room

Close-Up of Pendant Light

Stone fireplace (still wet)


Fixture above stair landing



Ceiling Fan in Master-Love it!


Lighting in Master Bath (standard)


Pretty tiling in Master Bath


Shower


Another beautiful sunset!





Thursday, May 24, 2012

Nailed, Floored, & Stoned

This past week has brought a crazy amount of progress inside!  Since I never posted pics or blogged last week, below are some pictures of the house after the drywall went up and the cabinetry went in.

Yesterday, we went up to see what was going on and were pleased to see that all of the tile was done and the granite was in.  The hardwood floors were also in.  Everything looked great, but we couldn't see too well or take any pictures because it was a bit late and very rainy/gross outside.

The stone fireplace was put up inside and today they are putting up the stone on the front.  I am DYING to go see it in person!

So, everything is really turning out well!  You just never know how it's all going to look together when you are picking everything out from a little snippet of a sample.  My hubby said that he thought the grouting in the kitchen/morning room looked a bit pinkish...I need to see it in the light...I am not into pink grout!  Or maybe he just needs a vision check...haha...

We dropped off 2 ceiling fans and 3 pendant lights by the house last night.  Our super nice electrician is putting them in for us.  We ended up getting the fans pictured below.

Will post pics of the tiling and stone as soon as we get some!


Master Bath-Uba Tuba granite & butterscotch cabinets

View of street

Pete posing with the kitchen cabinets & the morning room

Family pic in front of fireplace pre-stone

Front of house (duh!) 

Back of house


Side of house-land was graded again

Sunset view out the Morning Room

First and last time we see all 0's here!

We have a paved driveway and sidewalk!

Fan for Morning Room with an 18" downrod


Zoomed: allen + roth 52" Altena Brushed Nickel Ceiling Fan
Fan for Master Bedroom

Pendant lights in the kitchen (3 in total)