And pics!

OK, so clearly I didn't get them up the next day... we went thrift store rummaging and found some good deals but we finally got a chance to sit down and get some pics uploaded. We have prepped our apartment for packing and did the dreaded cleaning of the closet, 7 trash bags, not too shabby! So here are a bunch of pics, some are from this past Wednesday and some from the weekend right before that. The ones where you can see electrical outlets, cable/CAT5 and such are the newer of them. Oh and the HVAC was installed, she is purring like a kitten! My husband proposed that we don't go back out again until the final walk through. I wasn't liking this too much but I might have changed my mind.... He spoke to our PM on Friday to get the low down of this upcoming week which is flooring, side walks, drive way and the deck! Then the finishers come in after that. He mentioned to our PM some of the dry wall imperfections and the PM pretty much was like "don't worry about that stuff, I got you." He insisted that he will go through the house with a fine tooth comb and make sure that stuff is taken care of. I have mentioned before, he is quite the type A personality and I know he's got our back. So I'm leaning towards awaiting a "big reveal" but not completely set on it yet :) So here are some pics, she is looking so gorgeous!

Kitchen from about a week ago

 Owners bath!! Some of the grout on the tiles doesn't look so hot....

Owners double vanity, love!!

Spindles and balusters, sigh, they are so pretty!

Family room

Kitchen again with a nice coat of paint!

From the corner of the loft

Owners closet, yay!! I can't wait to get a real closet system in there, on the to do list....

Spare bath, it looks great! And looky there, we have the lights on!!

Standing in loft looking down the hallway.... vents in, lights, speakers, smoke detectors etc

Most recent of the kitchen! Recessed lighting in and all the electrical outlets

It's official- we are on the map :)

 Side yard graded- it's actually huge! We may not have to clear as much of the back as initially thought because of all this space for a future doggie to play!

All painted with numbers and carriage light in

Most recent of back, still more space than we originally thought, very happy!

Panorama of the upstairs before they painted and put in electrical etc.

Morning room, love!

Spindles and balusters again.... is anyone getting the idea that we love these? haha!

Sorry for the no particular order, I'm not all the computer savvy and missed updating pics twice. But there you have her! She is coming right along and we are SO excited. Hubby just printed out a blank calender for April and we made it a count down calender.

On the NVR note, I just sent the last pay stub and signed what I was told would be a final "soft pull" document.... but then I get an email from Credit Karma and of course, it was a hard pull. It's not the end of the world, but it's annoying and they did tell me it would only be a soft pull, not a hard. I'm debating calling about this or just being happy and grateful we are so close to moving into our new house.

Thanks all and enjoy the pics!

Update!

Hi all!

I have been SO busy!!! I'm a future home owner rookie and it's literally every day we are running around to do something! But this is good busy, I'm not complaining :) So we just went out today and also this past Sunday. I will get some pics to the computer tomorrow to share, but just wanted to throw up a rattle off of what's going on....our final walk through is Monday the 14th and we close on Thursday the 17th! Movers on the 18th along with Comcast. They have the cabinets in and they look AMAZING, exterior is painted and graded, bathroom tiled, first coat of interior paint, electric and Guardian completed, spindles and balusters installed, light fixtures in including recessed lighting, HVAC installed, front porch poured and the linoleum was started.... I'm sure I'm missing a ton! We bought blinds for all the windows and plan on taking them over and installing the day we move, plus curtains and rods for the family room and morning room. Plus a few adorable new lamps. I like that the final walk through is a few days before closing so any touch ups we might see will have plenty of time to be fixed. I know I need to get some hoses, sprinklers and mailbox, but what else? I feel like there is 8,000 things but my mind is full- it has shut down for business! So any little things that anyone can suggest that we should get to make the first few days comfy, please do! It feels like there is so much left for them to do, but then again, we saw a house that had footers poured about a week and a half ago and now it's standing tall and proud with roof, windows and all. Pics will come tomorrow!

So much progress!

We got up and headed out to the house yesterday morning... and we did it, we went inside (thanks DW,  you were right :) Let me try to rattle off what was done since the last visit- electrical ran, Guardian ran, water and sewer trenched in and back filled, electrical, gas and cable trenched in, siding 80% completed, drywall hung (not taped and sanded yet) and the garage floor was poured. Yay! So much completed, it looks like a real house now. And my love/hate relationship with concrete is over, you will not be missed!

We only found 2 things we weren't thrilled with. The blue prints for the house were laying outside in the mud. We gathered them together and gave them to the sales rep. I don't know how many of these they have lying around, but it is supposed to rain/snow here on Sunday night and if they were ruined, well it could have slowed them down. The sales rep (not our original but the new guy at the development) made the comment that these would have been expensive to order new ones. And the rough in for the morning room... the box is nice and small how we asked for it but the rough in is not centered into the box at all. We sat and stared at it and went back and forth- we can live with this, no we can't, yes we can, no we can't.... So Nick sent the PM a quick email to ask to have that centered. Other than that, gorgeous, we love it and just amazed at the progress. Here are some pics, in no particular order, the computer is not agreeing with me today!

Standing in the family room looking out towards the morning and kitchen on the left

An attempt of a panoramic view of the family room into the kitchen

Kitchen with the recessed lights and house audio speaker

Graphite grey siding! Just a little more to go up top and she is done!

 Family room from kitchen

From morning room- the door way is the mudroom

Another attempt of a panoramic view, please ignore my scowl, I really am happy!

From upstairs looking down, can't wait for spindles and balusters!

Standing outside of the Owner's suite looking down the hallway

Part of Owner's bath

Bedroom one

Bedroom 2

Loft

Outside again, looks great!

Owner's suite- sorry- I totally photo bombed this one :)

Owner's walk in! I mean MY walk in!

So we know this week consists of mudding and taping the drywall, cabinets to be delivered on Wednesday, finish the utility trenches and hopefully the correction of the morning room rough in. I'm sure much more though too. He said the finishing people will be there within 2 weeks! So flooring and such will go in before this. It really is flying by- I hope we can make it out this week to see it again.

We took a walk at Sadsbury preserve, nice little area with some easy trails then went out a little more west to Middle Creek National Wildlife area. If anyone is local, in the PA, NJ, MD, DE region and enjoy a little nature, this is worth the trip! Snow geese are migrating back north and there are about a half million of them sitting on a lake, along with thousands of trumpeter swans. It really was a cool experience, only a short walk down a paved path to get to it. Here is a pic, it doesn't do any justice really, it's all about the experience!

Pre-drywall walk through

Slightly delayed post, we had our pre-drywall walk through on Wed and all went very well. Our PM took us through the house room by room, explained the electrical layout and confirmed some of our extras. Then followed Guardian to mark out the whole house audio and the cable/CAT5 jack placements. Permitting weather, we should have drywall by the end of this week, yay! AND, best of all, we were given our estimated completion date of........ April 14th! Not necessarily closing, but completion. This is great news, so great, that we went out and bought our new washer and dryer this weekend. Sears had a GREAT deal on Kenmore appliances so we splurged and bought the Kenmore Elite series with a 4.7 cubic foot washer with so many options I'm gonna have to rethink how to do laundry! And the matching dryer which was 7.3 cubic feet with steam! I never thought I would be so excited to do laundry!!! Here's a few pics, in no particular order...

Family room with the half bath and front room off to the right... Our PM is going to put extra wood up to mount the flat screen

Mudroom/entry from garage/laundry with the kitchen on the right

Loft!

One of the two other bedrooms upstairs...

and the other, with the loft to the back. Those are hard to photograph!

 Master bath! And the tub we have is SO much nicer than what was in the model, I couldn't resist!

On one of our door frames to the master- the other has some more mushy gushy stuff on it too. We put a few notes throughout the house for good juju.

We are going to head back out this week to check out the guardian placement before they start to drywall. The basement concrete was poured, but the garage still needs it.... I swear, I am and have been obsessed with concrete since this process has began.... it just doesn't want to come together. I will breath a bit easier when the garage is poured. Our PM also stated he would clear as much of the trees in our lot in the back as he can. All coming along nicely, very happy with PM!

Locked!

We locked our rate today at 3.25% with NO POINTS (yup, that's right!!!!) and a .125 closing rebate! So that reduced our closing cost to almost nothing! Just wanted to share....

We have a roof!!

So we took a trip out this weekend to check out progress.....And we have a lock on the door!! Now as far as we have ever ventured in is to the garage, my husband won't let me go further. I find this hysterical! We were both rebel, non rule following teenagers/20 something's and now look at us, all grown up! So true to word, we didn't go in, even though I could have sneaked in underneath the wrapping around the garage- even tried to bribe him to let me go in the window hahaha! Our PM texted some pics last week when they finished the roof and some of the inside, so I'll share those. We strolled through the model home also to make sure we were on the same page for our Guardian meeting this week. Good thing we did, we changed two walls for cable/CAT6 wiring. And the sales rep currently there gave us the electrical plan, woo hoo! That was a score, nice to see where those will be. And met a family who bought a lot down the road and due to move in sometime in July, they seemed cool too, another good score!

Look at her, all roofed and waiting for some garage and basement concrete

Owner's Bath

View from corner of the loft upstairs

From family room, looking at kitchen on left and morning room on right

Family room into the half bath and front sitting room

Owner's Suite, woooo hooooo!

View from out Owner's Suite out to the back.

So, no concrete was poured and the plan on Friday was for Tuesday, but I also think that was before the arctic air planned to move in, there is a high of 20 forecasted for Tuesday. The pre-drywall walk through is still on for Wednesday, with Guardian to follow. So all in all, looks like an exciting week in store for us. I did look in the windows and saw HVAC duct work hanging in the first floor, so they made some progress there as well..... Until the pre-drywall walk through, lots of pics to follow.