ELECTRICIAN MEETING, A PURCHASE, & A SURPRISE!

We had our meeting with our electrician today.  We thoroughly enjoyed it.  We're so glad we were able to do the electrical the old way, meaning dealing with the electrician directly instead of just with our sales rep.  Granted our sales rep is great, but I felt we asked detailed questions and it was helpful to get a response on the spot.  We pretty much stuck with what we were initially thinking:

Ceiling fan rough ins for all bedrooms
Lighting rough in for the morning room
Extra outlet above the fireplace, bottom of the staircase, garage, in the vanity in owner's bath, and in the tray ceiling (for rope lighting)
Dedicated circuit in the basement for a future freezer chest or fridge and on the side of the house (same side as electrical panel for a generator)
Flood lamp on the outside of the morning room (so there will be more than just the patio light when we put in a deck)
Extra light fixture on the garage (we get two, but since we have a 3 car it just looked better)
Additional switches in the owners suite and 2nd full bath to control lighting
Under cabinet lighting ( forgot to add this during original post)

We didn't have to add recessed lights in the bathrooms, they come standard, and no dedicated circuit in the kitchen.  He said we get one anyway because it's code with the range hood.  We talked about adding a surge protector on the electrical box.  He gave us a price, but said that could be done later.  Lastly we talked about should we do something now in the event that we want a jetted tub in the owner's suite.  He said it would be better to do it now by adding a dedicated circuit, but we decided against it. 

Below are some of the pics from yesterday and today...





From yesterday.  I didn't know the door was on already.  The rest of the pics are from today




Oh yeah, morning room




Fireplace




Attic stairs




So glad we got the 6' tub.  Can't wait to soak in this bad boy


We finally bought my dream vacuum today.  I've been obsessed with this company for the past year, but maybe for the past few months I've longed for a canister vacuum.  I can't wait to use it in the house.

Finally we locked in our rate today...4.5% baby.  Super pumped.

THE ROOF, THE ROOF, THE ROOF IS GOING ON!

Daniel stopped by the house on his way to work today and sent me these pics from his camera phone.  



Gotta love the shingles




What are they doing to our fireplace?


He has more on the camera, but I won't be able to upload them until tomorrow.  The weather has been so good to us.  Our PM said that the roof will be done tomorrow.  Also he said that he's confident that we'll be closing May 6th.  He could do it at the end of April, but we don't want to close until May so we have a July payment.  You know what that means?  Yeap you guessed it, time to lock in our rate.  I called our loan officer, but he didn't call back yet.  Understandable since I called him around 4:30 pm.  I'm working on pulling docs to update our commitment letter now.  I've been looking at bank statements all day at work and now I'm doing it with my own loan.  IRONY!

I also reached out to our realtor about the electrical upgrades.  She said that she's never had lighting or an outlet make or break a sale.  So add what we want and keep it moving.  So that means lamp light for the living and family room since there were the areas that we weren't sure about. 

Pics tomorrow are going to be awesome because that will be our first time inside the house.  (insert fist bump here_____)

WINDOWS & CONCRETE & STAIRS...OH MY!

All of our windows have been installed and the concrete has been poured in our garage.  I'm assuming the basement has been poured also, but we'll have to wait until Friday to confirm during our meeting with the electrician. 






CONCRETE...CONCRETE!




Our stairs.  My peep hole, see next photo, has been covered.  So until Friday, the garage is my only viewpoint into the house.  We can't wait to see the stairs up close and personal. 




My former peep hole.  :-)




First time we've gotten a shot of a worker on our lot since we broke ground




Did you really think I wasn't going to take a pic of the morning room?  Plus here's another shot of our dedicated worker.




When knew our house was on the larger side, our rep today confirmed that it's just under 2700 sq feet (like 2698).  However, this shot really shows the massive size of it.  Who wants to help clean it?  Any volunteers?

As previously stated we're having our meeting with the electrician on Friday.  We know we want to do the following:

Ceiling fan rough ins in all bedrooms

Recessed lights above the tub and shower in both full bathrooms

Under cabinet lighting

Dedicated circuit above stove (we need this to put in the microwave after we close)

Basic outlet above fireplace for TV

I think we do have outlets on both sides of the island, but if we don't we'll add one

I have to also look at the electrical prints regarding outlets at the top and bottom of the stairs.  If there aren't any, we will add them

Things we're on the fence about:

Should we get a ceiling fan rough in for the morning room or just a basic light rough in?  I'm thinking basic light because I don't think I would ever want a fan in there. 

Lighting for the family room.  We already have recessed lights in the kitchen, but we have not clue what to do for the family room.  Neither of us are a fan of the recessed lights above the fireplace.  I would like suggestions from a resale perspective.  We've been operating with lamps for so long, over head lighting isn't a big deal to us. 

Our PM said if we install an outlet in the dining room tray ceiling, they would have the drop it a little bit and we could put rope lighting up there.  Your thoughts?

Should we put a light rough in for the living room?  Again thinking about it from a resale perspective.

Anything else that you can think of that we should add (from a resale perspective)?

Thanks





WE HAVE A SECOND FLOOR...

I love Monday's.  I always find out from our PM what the weeks activities are.  Today he told me that they were working on the second floor (Stephanie we have 12 framers :-D), the crane will be there tomorrow, and the roof shingler is scheduled for Wednesday.  Our walk through appointment with the electrician is on Friday and next Friday is pre-drywall.  I'm so glad the weather is better.  Once the permanent roof goes up, no worries.




Super pumped that some of the windows are installed





The window spacing and sizing looks odd to me.  Ah well.





MORNING ROOM...MORNING ROOM!  Can you tell I'm excited about the morning room?


Also I just started shopping around for satellite and phone.  We don't like Comcast and the picture can go out with them too, so I rather pay way less for satellite.  Both Dish and Direct TV seem around the same prices point, but the Direct TV reps seem way more excited than Dish.  Feel free to way in if you have experiences with either one.

MORE FRAMING PICS

I'm a little sad that we don't have a second floor on yet, but I can definitely tell there has been a lot more work done.  At first it looked the same to me, but then I forgot that our garage wasn't framed on Thursday.  The more I looked at it the more I was amazed at the changes.  I just remember how our neighbors house went from just a foundation to two stories in four days. 

So here are the pics...


I keep forgetting that we'll have four windows on the garage instead of three



Looking at the kitchen from our fireplace



I think the powder room is on the left, but the extended laundry is definitely on the right



Garage

Looks like we'll have a second floor early next week

FRAMING HAS STARTED!

We stopped by the lot on Tuesday and this is what we saw...

And now we almost have a first floor...



Wish I could have zoomed in more, but I only had my phone with me



Can you tell I was still in the car?  It was raining cats and dogs yesterday.



I guess this is our second floor



I couldn't resist taking a picture of this.  I love the middle window for the morning room

We can't wait to see what it will look like on Saturday.  By the way, I'm excited that we got Amish framers.  Everyone says they're the best. 

Wow That Was Quick!

I know we haven't posted in a while, but nothing really changed until Saturday when I stopped by.  We stopped by three times last week and the first two times, the foundation looked the same.  Saturday, however, was a different story...

Waterproofing and steel beams

Side entry garage

Front stoop

Brick to grade

Foundation from the side

View from the street

As you can see our egress window is in the back.  However, it's on the opposite side from our patio door so it won't be an issue when we put in a deck later.  I'm happy we went with the three car garage as the garages just don't seem deep to me.  We're going to use the 3rd garage for storage.  Our brick to grade is gorgeous.  I didn't really care what it looked like when we made our selections, but seeing it in person, I absolutely love it.  Oh and our lumber came yesterday...

I spoke with our PM yesterday and framing will start either today or tomorrow.  We're still on track for our pre-drywall inspection March 25th.  My parents are coming up for it from Virginia so I hope there are no hiccups. 

Speaking of parents, I just wanted to let all of you know how great they are.  A couple Saturday's ago my stepmother texts me that they just visited their nearest Victoria Falls model, which is about 1 1/2 to 2 hours away from them.  They loved it.  We are so touched that they took the time to drive to see our model.  If the mom and the dad are reading this, we love you!