Contractor Walkthrough day

Wow! Was that hectic! (and kinda fun!)

Monday was our on-site contractor walk-through. Most of the contractors associated with our house to this stage were there.

Plumbing, electrical, hvac, well-driller, Dennis, etc.  Each of them came to the meeting armed with their bid, alot of questions for Robin and myself, and suggestions/ideas for some of their stuff.

We started off with the plumbing installer. He needed to know things like how high the shower heads needed to be mounted, where the washing machine would be sitting exactly, where we wanted the outdoor hose faucets, etc. As we were walking around the outside of the house making those decisions, the well-driller caught me and wanted to know where the well head should be placed. He had a spot all picked out, but the plumbing installer brought up some good points and we moved it a bit and we were then told the well should be drilled on Thursday of this week.

plumbing drain and vent piping in half-bath

kitchen sink drain and vent piping

master bathroom sinks drain and vent piping

After the plumbing, we talked with the hvac (heating/ventilation/air-conditioning) installer. We talked about two different types of furnaces (we're getting one that's 95% efficient), various options for control panels/thermostats, etc., etc. We also had to decide where we wanted the air conditioner to be placed outside (we picked a nice spot that's completely hidden from most every side of the house.

Once hvac was done with us we hit up the electrical installer. With him we had to figure out exactly where we wanted things like "can" lights...

can light rough in in the kitchen

.. and some things he didn't know about like the master bathroom lights won't be your typical above-mirror fixture, we're having pendants instead. Likewise, we had in the bid 3 pendant lights over the snack counter in the kitchen, but after looking at how it lays out in the actual kitchen we were able to reduce that number to only 2.

We have a few of those little lights in the side walls of the staircases (rather than having a light fixture mounted on a wall, etc). Here's the rough-in of one of those.

..and an exhaust fan in a bathroom....

After we were done with all the sub-contractor walk-throughs we had some things to discuss with the builder as well. In conversations with him some things were mentioned that sparked ideas from us or Dennis and also little details that can only be flushed out during construction.

We got to look around at a bit more leisurely pace after that. The framing of the fireplace enclosure continues...

Monday was a very busy day for Robin and myself... but Tuesday brought a very big task for the two of us of another sort....We had a meeting at the bank to finally close on our construction loan.

After a 30 minute meeting and the handing over of a sum of money to the title company for closing costs, etc., we were on our way.

We stopped out at the new house after that and took some more photos.

Today the girls' bathtub got installed. They've been waiting to see that since it showed up on site last week.

Downstairs, the living room half-walls and fireplace "black box" were installed today.

In the master bedroom, framing was started on our tray ceiling in there, as well as a surprise to Robin that Dennis and I had worked out... a smaller tray ceiling above her reading nook.(yeah, Robin loved it) They're kind of difficult to make out in amongst all the other framing...

The plumbing installer had been doing alot more of his rough-in stuff too... you'll notice the red or blue "PEX" piping;  the red is hot water runs, the blue is cold water runs.

hot and cold water piping in the hallway wall framing

half-bath hot and cold water piping for the sink

master bathroom shower head piping

The framers were busy again today (as they are every day). 

half wall at the stairs from garage to basement

doorway framing at bottom of stairway from foyer

doorway framing at bottom of garage stairway

The electrician was also very busy today, installing more rough-ins for outlets, switches, and light fixtures throughout the house.

The following two photos are of can lights on the exterior soffits of the house (front of the house).

above the master bedroom window

above the reading nook window

The word from Joe (Dennis' on-site construction manager) is that they'll have the rough in stage done this week and they'll begin insulating the walls early next week, followed immediately by hanging the drywall around the interior of the house. That'll certainly change the look of the interior substantially.

This week I'll be helping our neighbor pull wiring through the house for the security system we're going to install (he owns a security installation company that's done very well for itself), and then this weekend I believe I'll have to do a bit of insulation work in one of the walls in the house as well.

Also, I'm getting bids in on the seeding of the lawn, and the pouring of the concrete driveway slab too.

Robin and I also need to get out and finalize our light fixture selections some time in the next week or so.

In today's news of our current home, the buyers had their inspector come through the house. We should be getting his report back in a few days. The previous buyers' inspector gave us mostly high marks on things and only a few "not quite as high" marks on a couple things just attributed to the age of things in the home.

Paul

Sold! (again)

Yup! It's happened!

We had three private showings of our current home this past week;  one on Wednesday, one on Thursday, and one on Friday. The couple who came thru our house on Saturday made us an offer that afternoon. 

We amended the offer to change the closing date from late July to August 21.... they accepted it by noon today. What that means for us is that they're allowing us to stay living in this house until our new home is ready to move into on the 20th. That's huge!

So we cancelled the open house we had planned today. I saw at least 4 cars stop out at our driveway (one person came up and knocked on the door even) that apparently were planning on attending the open house.

So that's the big exciting news for the weekend for us! :)  Now we can focus on construction of our new home and not worry about working to sell this one.

Speaking of our new home, Friday's progress had several substantial things take place.

As you can see in the following photo, pretty much all the windows are now in place. The notable exceptions are the front entry window and the backside top window in the Wall of Windows. Both of those have arched tops, so that must have something to do with them not being installed yet.

The bathtub for the girls' bathroom upstairs was delivered to the site on Friday as well...

In the next photo of the living room you may recognize the piece of paper nailed to the wall. I mentioned in my last blog post that it is the drawing of how that wall is going to be framed.... the part of that photo that is new is above the fireplace.

There are going to be three "nooks" above the fireplace on that wall. Each will be about 20" deep and will have a small can light in the arch at the top.

Also on Friday, the installer from the cabinet company was on-site. He went through the entire house measuring things up (and drawing them on the plywood floors with labels on them) so that the cabinet makers can begin building our cabinets. This photo is of the floor markings in the kitchen, with the raised "snack bar" on the kitchen counter.

Rachel's bedroom window got installed on Friday.....

....as did the smallest window in the house (bonus room).

This rather odd looking photo is taken from down in the laundry room looking up, through the trusses, to an opening in the wall above from the hallway to the future bonus room.

That opening is going to be one of four "attic access hatches" in the house. The builder has to have access to all attic spaces in the entire place. When Robin and I were walking past this opening upstairs in the hallway we looked at it and both said "laundry chute" at the same time. So I called the builder right then and there and asked him about the possibility of adding that in. In the photo above the chute would go just to the right side of the hatch opening shown, and right down in between those two roof trusses shown there.

He said he could do it, and that we'd need to talk to the cabinet supplier (which we just happened to have a meeting on Saturday anyway) about changing one cabinet to accommodate the bottom end of the chute.

So while the private showing was going on yesterday (Saturday), Robin and I were up in Green Bay having our final meeting with the cabinet supplier. We had to pick out our laminate countertops and the door/drawer hardware for all the cabinets. While we were there we told her about our idea of a laundry chute. She gave us some ideas on how to make the cabinets below work and then said she'd throw that in without any additional charge for the cabinets (yay!).

We then left there and went the other side of Green Bay to select our granite for the kitchen countertops. The photo below shows the granite (it's outside in the bright sunlight, so it's a bit washed out) with our paint color for the walls and the cabinet sample.

Monday is our big contractor walkthrough at the site. Dennis, our builder, and pretty much all of the sub-contractors will be there for questions, answers, etc. Pretty much anything any of us come up with.

Then Tuesday we'll be meeting at the bank to close on our construction loan so all the subs who've already done work on the house can finally get paid.

Paul

A little, but alot....

I hope everyone had a good long weekend....

Since the end of last week there's been alot going on at the house, but not much all that readily visible nor able to be easily photographed.

I'm going to combine a few days photos into this one post simply because there aren't alot of photos of things before today's progress. As you see the photos for the last few days you'll understand why.

As you may recall they began putting the shingles on the roof late last week.... well, they finally finished that part of the process yesterday...

progress on the shingles as of the end of last week

shingles above the master bedroom

 

the shingles as of Tuesday

The shingles are all finished as of Thursday!

Some other very notable bits of progress that have happened this week include the "walling off" (via the vapor barrier "wrap") of the bonus room...

..and a couple other areas around various attic spaces.

the attic space above the master bedroom

Also, on Tuesday we were pleasantly surprised to find that the carpenters had installed the temporary stairway down to the basement. The stud walls you see around the staircase down in the basement will have two doors at the bottom;  one at the bottom of the stairs themselves, and another closing off the storage space underneath the stairs themselves.

On Saturday we went out there for a couple of hours. I had to bring out the chainsaw and cut out alot of brush and some very small trees so the excavator could finish the grading on the site.... For a period of time, Rachel was put in charge of the camera and taking the pictures:

Lyndsey hanging out at her bedroom window

..and this is what happens when Rachel is unsupervised while roaming around with the camera....

yeah, the little turkey figured out the timer on the camera all by herself!

On Wednesday we noticed that the pocket door frames had been installed... one in each of the bedroom closets, one in each bathroom. The frame for the pocket doors is the part where you can see all of the horizontal framing in the midst of all the vertical framing. The pocket door then slides in between those horizontal members.

 

Also on this same day we also found out that they built a temporary stairway down from the garage to the basement. These will eventually be replaced by a permanent concrete stairway (I believe at the same time they pour the garage slab)

Today, however, was a huge day in the progress of our new home. After a literal flurry of phone calls this morning between the builder, Robin, and I to make various decisions on framing items (fireplace, tray ceiling, etc) that will be worked on by the end of this week, the day settled down to more "normal" happenings, with us anxiously awaiting to see what progress was made today.  It was a step we've been waiting for for a while now and we weren't disappointed at all!..... windows!

The house has to be all "buttoned up" before Monday's contractor walkthrough meeting and to that end, the windows and doors showed up on site. Most of the windows are now installed. None of the doors are yet, but almost all of them are on-site waiting to be installed tomorrow.

The following are some closer-up photos around the outside of the house. You can see we're using the Marvin "Integrity" line of windows. They're a notch less expensive than the Anderson windows originally in the contract, but are actually rated higher in quality by Consumer Reports for things like insulation value, hardware quality, etc. You can see the grills in the windows. We opted for these to be installed in all the windows facing the front of the house. The grills are set inside the window itself, between the two panes of glass. All the operable windows are casement style, with any operable transom windows (the smaller panes of glass either above larger panes of glass, or smaller rectangles of glass set up high are called "transoms") being an "awning" style (meaning they are hinged on the top of the glass rather than the sides like a regular casement)

The den and master bedroom windows are in place

(from left to right) master bedroom reading nook (1), master bathroom (3), transoms in the living room (2)

Robin's "wall of windows", the patio doors, Lyndsey's room, and kitchen

laundry room, bonus room, garage

The front entry door showed up on-site today as well.... it will have to be painted in the future (we haven't decided on the color yet), but for now they'll install it unpainted.

front door - exterior view (it's inside the house leaning up against a wall now)

front door - interior view

The carpenters also began framing up the area in the living room where the fireplace will go. If you look closely in the next photos you can see a piece of paper containing a computer drawing of what that wall will look like stuck up on the framing, complete with dimensions, that the carpenters are using to frame up that wall. 

The boxed in area in the middle is the fireplace.. you can see the two transom windows flanking it on both sides, and just below each of those transoms will be a built-in cabinet with shelving.

Up next are some photos of some of the windows as seen from the inside of the house.

patio doors

a closeup of part of the "Wall of Windows"

Lyndsey's window

bonus room

Also today the plumbing fixtures for the upstairs bathroom/vanities arrived from Home Depot... while the most crucial piece of that delivery was the shower valve (the plumber will be installing it Monday morning during rough-ins), the part that we really needed to verify was that the faucets are tall enough to fit over the girls' vessel sinks.

We chose a "brushed nickel" finish for the upstairs bathroom fixtures and selected a series of fixtures and accessories (towel bars, paper holder, etc) called "Bamboo". (we were fortunate enough to, after a ton of searching, find faucets the girls love for an inexpensive price) The faucets are of the type where the water doesn't come out of a hole in the bottom of the spout, but rather flows out over the top edge of the spout into the bowl.

Lyndsey's sink and faucet

Rachel's sink and faucet

Next up for Robin and I... 

Tomorrow the rest of the windows and some of the doors should be installed, the fireplace "black box" should be in place, and there may be a bathtub in the upstairs bathroom as well.

This weekend Robin and I have to travel back up to Green Bay where we'll make our final selections on countertops (laminate) and cabinet hardware. Then we'll travel to the opposite side of Green Bay to make our selection for the granite countertops for the kitchen.

All this progress in the construction of the new house isn't meant to overshadow the things going on with the sale of our current house.

Two Sundays ago you may recall we had our first open house since this house went back on the market. Well, in there we've had Memorial Day weekend, so we've been hoping that kind of thing is the reason there's not been much for private showings (the first go-around on the market we had a ton of private showings in addition to the open houses).

Well, we had our first private showing Wednesday morning... the feedback on that was was "somewhat interested", but that they had another house they liked better so far.

We now have another private showing tomorrow afternoon, and yet another private showing Saturday morning (at the same time we'll be in Green Bay).

Also we have our second open house this coming Sunday as well.... we're hopeful an offer comes out of one of these showings! :)

Once we get our meetings done on Saturday, the only supplier meeting we'll have left is lighting. We have some ideas on what we want, and we've looked around somewhat a couple of different times at different places, but haven't met with the supplier yet.

Monday is the big contractor walkthrough on-site. Most every sub-contractor will be there at some point during the day. Robin and I will be there most of the day as well. Discussing details with the various suppliers and our builder.

Tuesday morning we will (finally) actually close on our construction loan. It's kind of weird not closing on it until this far into construction, but the bank pulled alot of strings to allow construction to start prior to closing so that Dennis could get an entry in this summer's Parade of Homes (if we would have had to wait for closing before starting he would never have made the Parade).

Things are certainly keeping us hopping, that's for sure!

Paul