Two-For-One Blog!

It's been a while, and I have good reason.  First, we've been just a bit busy moving in and settling into our new home.  Second, we still don't have internet.  Long story, and Comcast is quickly working towards becoming the new BGE.  But that's not what I'm going to blog about today.  I figured you may want to start seeing some more interior pictures as we settle in.  I had hopes to blog about a room each week, but given that we're working on a month without internet, you get two rooms today.  Shout out to my parents for letting me use some internet time at their house today!

So let's get caught up real quick from the last blog, which was right in the middle of our water drama.  Long story short, we ended up having a UV filter put in and things happened very quickly after that.  We were able to officially close on the house on October 19 which was the best early birthday present I could have ever received!  We spent our first official night in the house by the fire with some bubbly staring at the house saying over and over again that we couldn't believe we finally live there.  It's been a whirlwind since then!  Since I was off for a week before then to move stuff in, we had a great head-start unpacking, but there was still plenty to be done (and plenty we are still doing, but we are very close to being done!!).

Anyway, this will be a two-for-one blog because I'm going to blog about the family room and the guest suite.  We'll start with the family room.  I posted a sneak peek of that room on Facebook back in October, and we got a lot of comments about the color we used in that room - more on that later.  Before it all came together in real life, my vision for the room was to keep it light and airy since it gets so much natural light and then the stone fireplace brought in an "earthy" feel to the room.  So I was going on those thoughts when it came to decor.  Plus, I like feeling like I'm in a National Park in my own house.  :-)

We started with the ottoman.  When we were moving out of our townhouse in July, I really wanted to keep the ottoman that was a wedding gift from Steve's parents, but our dog chewed a hole in it when she was a puppy.  So the entire twelve years in the townhouse, the ottoman had a ratty blanket over it to hide the hole.  Since we were moving to a grown-up house, it was time to have grown-up furniture (and Sadie grew up too so she's out of her chewing phase now).  I decided to have it reupholstered and I found a person local to the area that was able to do it.  She said to go to JoAnn Fabrics and pick out anything I wanted.  I wasn't really sure what the room was going to look like yet, so when Steve and I were looking at fabric I told him we could really pick anything we want and we'll find a paint color that matches later.  We ended up picking a pattern with a gray/tan theme which was perfect because it's still neutral (so we could paint any color we wanted!) and the furniture we already had from the townhouse for that room is light tan.  The ottoman was returned to us in August and it turned out great!

We made a trip to Bed, Bath, and Beyond at some point over the summer and bought the gray throw pillows.  And during one of our many trips to Ikea, we found the accent pillows.  We really needed an area rug because the family room is a pretty big room and Sadie doesn't really get a lot of traction on hard floors anymore.  Also the rug warms up the space.  With the loud pattern on the ottoman, we really needed to keep the rug very plain and we did - we found that one at Lowe's and it was so freaking heavy to move!

Next came paint.  As we started putting together the tan and gray scheme, I wanted some color in the room.  The color had to keep the light and airy feeling and I was thinking green would be nice against the fireplace and keep that earthy element.  One day we were at my best friend's house (shout out Amy!) who recently moved into a beautiful, brand new house of her own.  She had a color in her powder room that was what my mind was thinking already and she told me it was Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams.  We went to Sherwin Williams to pick out samples for the family room and several other rooms and then we made sure we liked a color in the family room and we put it on the ottoman to see if we liked it with it.  Sea Salt was the winner for both of those tests!

Now that we have the color actually painted on our walls, it is probably one of the most fun colors we've ever picked.  As the light changes throughout the day in the room, so do the walls.  In bright light it looks green and in dim light it looks gray (but a pretty gray), with different shades of both coming through at different times.  It's like a neutral paint with flare and I love it!  Steve and I love how the color pops against the white trim in the room too.  We loved the color so much that we carried it into the foyer too!

The entertainment center is from Gavigan's (a furniture chain in MD, not sure if they are located anywhere else).  While out shopping for bedroom furniture over the summer, we came across this entertainment center and it was a total impulse buy!  We both loved it and of course barn doors are "in" thanks to Joanna Gaines.  I love it in the room and it also goes well with the tan and dark elements.

The lemon and lime trees are from my friend Kathy (shout out!).  When Kathy and her husband stopped by to see the house shortly after we moved in, she saw how much light we get in that room and thought those trees would be perfect for us.  She doesn't get a lot of light at her house and she wasn't about to look at sad-looking trees all winter, so they were offered to us.  I've always wanted to grow lemons and limes but we never had room for them at the townhouse, so I'm very excited to have them now!

Currently, we only have blinds up in most of the house (our room and the guest room are the exception with curtains).  I have no idea where to start with curtains in most of the house.  In the family room, I'm not sure I even want to put curtains in because it will darken the room.  One of the biggest reasons we bought this house was because of the natural light in this room.  I have a funny story about the blinds for this room (Levolor brand from Lowe's, by the way).  When we were still bringing this room to life, I really wanted plantation shutters for the windows.  Wouldn't that be awesome!?!?  I told Steve about this idea and he was kind of on board until we priced it out:  $500...for ONE window!  There are 6 windows in that room alone and since that whole floor is open concept, I would have wanted the whole floor to have plantation shutters, which is 10 windows.  Five thousand dollars in window treatments.  So we let that one go.  Maybe if we ever strike it rich it might happen.

Family Room - Throw from Amazon; Lamps from Lowe's

Family Room

Family Room - if you are interested in the giant gingerbread man, my sister and her boyfriend make them (different sizes and can custom order different shapes).  Check out her etsy page:  hamiltonhomedesigns.etsy.com

That's it for the family room, onto the guest suite.  This room I had planned in my head before anything else for the house.  I knew from the get-go that I wanted it to have a gray and turquoise color scheme with splashes of coral for both the bedroom and the bathroom.  I already had the curtains from our family room in the townhouse (Target find a few years ago).  I knew I wanted to paint the bedroom walls gray (we chose Evening Shadow by Sherwin Williams) so that I could have turquoise bedding.  I admit that the bedding I bought isn't my favorite, but it will do until I find what I have in my mind.  I wanted something a little more solid so there aren't so many patterns in the room, but this works for now.

The nightstands were the first thing we bought for the house from Target.  As soon as I saw them, I knew we needed them for this bedroom.  The dresser was one I've had for a long time (also from Target from years ago).  The splashes of coral are the throw (Target), the extra pillows on the bed (Amazon), and a photo we took while in Antelope Canyon in Arizona.  I'm still trying to find the perfect chair to put in the corner by the two windows, but again I'm not finding exactly what I am envisioning.

Our guests that stay in this room are fortunate to have their own walk-in closet and their own bathroom.  I kept the same color scheme in the bathroom, but reversed it.  I put turquoise on the walls with gray and coral accents.  The color is Tidewater by Sherwin Williams.  The shower curtain, towels, and coral cup & toothbrush holder were all Amazon finds.  Rugs were from Target.  Enjoy the pictures!

Guest suite - Sorry I took pictures on a rainy morning!

Still need a chair for the corner by the windows.  Antelope Canyon picture actually has several shades of coral, and it's not as dark as it looks here.  That's what I get for taking pictures on a rainy day.  :-/

Door to the left is the bathroom, door in the middle is the closet, door to the right is how the door opens from the hallway.  Sadie found a great spot to lay down for my picture.  :-)

Guest suite bathroom

Water Water Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Drink

I figure I owe you an update in the latest house drama:  our water.  The good news is, this really is the last hurdle we need to get over before we move into the house.  As of the last blog, we were waiting on the results of a water test that if we had passed it, it would have been our second passed test.  Let's just say Steve and I don't get our hopes up for anything anymore because we've been let down plenty of times now.  Sure enough, we failed.  For some reason, Barlow insisted on taking another test again to make sure they "didn't contaminate the last test."  Whatever.  We all knew it would fail again, and we found out on Monday that it did.

We love our team at Bob Ward but we really are at our wits end now and we're sick of chlorinating the lines and the well when that clearly is not working (it's happened 3 times now).  So we insisted that it's time to do a UV filter.  Not only will this solve the issue now, but it also gives us peace of mind should we ever get bacteria in the well again.  Clark agreed that it was time to try that, but apparently it is a process.  Clark immediately reached out to Barlow to get things going on that side.  But Steve needed to talk to the Health Department to find out what was needed to be done there.

Steve had to leave work for a few hours today to go to the Health Department and sign a form while a representative at the Health Department witnessed it.  Then he had to take the form to the courthouse to register it with land records and then return all the paperwork to the Health Department.  At that point, we were allowed to have the filter installed.  Somehow Clark, Victor, and Barlow were able to make it all happen today.  The good news is we do have the filter installed.  The bad news is, there is something (a part of some sort) that is broken that needs to be fixed and will be done tomorrow.  Additionally they do need to run chlorine from the filter into the house so that any pipes/lines are flushed from bacteria inside the house.  This also means they need to flush the chlorine out of the pipes tomorrow and will likely take a water sample Thursday and hopefully we get results on Friday.

I'm being told that the UV filter will definitely take care of this issue, so I'd like to think we're in the home stretch now, but I'm just not sure and I'm really sick of getting excited just to be let down again.  So I'm in "I'll believe it when I see it" mode right now.  The best birthday present ever would be that we are in the house by Monday (my birthday), but I'm not holding my breath on that one either.

As far as the house goes, we're down to one and a half rooms left of boxes to unpack.  There's still a few projects to do like putting shelves up in the garage so we can organize that stuff and eventually park our cars in the garage.  Steve's probably going to start working on that this weekend whether we are allowed to live there or not.  We finished all of our planned painting last week and neither one of us really wants to hold a paint brush or roller for a little while, so I'm not sure when we'll paint other rooms in the house.  I was trying to wait until there was paint on the walls in the closet before I blogged about it, but I'm too excited to wait since it happens to be one of my favorite rooms in the house right now.  :-)

When we first saw the master closet in the model home, I told Steve that if we were to buy that house, there is no way the white wire shelves in that closet would work.  A closet that size needs an organization system and thankfully he agreed with me.  When we decided on that house, I started researching closet organization systems.  Target and Home Depot have a few options, but they are very minimal options with no flexibility.  I kept reading a lot about the Pax system at Ikea which is what we ended up going with.  There are a lot of other more expensive solutions out there too, like the companies that are specifically selling closet solutions.  Ikea worked just fine for us.  The Pax system is really just the "shell."  It looks like an empty bookshelf but then you fill it with things in the Komplement line like drawers, shelves, etc.  We did a lot of planning for this including drawings, measuring, and taking inventory of what we needed to put in the closet.  I can't stress enough that there is no such thing as too much planning for this because I'll share a mistake we made that we were able to overcome.

Anyway, we decided on Steve having two of the Pax shells and I was going to have four.  We both liked the look of the glass drawers with a glass shelf on top of it, so we planned on that.  Steve is using his for ties and belts and I'm using mine for scarves and Fitbit bands because I have a small obsession with Fitbit bands.  I wanted a few drawers to hold some t-shirts and shorts/capris.  We both added the pants hanger which is really cool because it's like a drawer.  Then of course we had hanging rods for each shell.  Steve also wanted two shelves for shoes.  These are pretty cool because they are two shelves in one, sort of doubling your shoe capacity.  Before we built our system, we were planning on the entire back wall of our closet being devoted to my shrine of shoes and purses without the Pax shell, so I originally didn't need the shoe shelves.  Now comes the mistake...

Pax comes in a variety of sizes.  There is a 22" deep option or a 13" deep option (I think those are the right measurements).  Plus there is a 78" tall option or an even taller option that I can't remember the exact measurement.  We have 8 foot ceilings on the second floor, so we were considering the taller option, but since I wanted little lights over each shell, we couldn't do the taller option.  Not a huge deal at all, and I actually like it a lot better this way.  Where we made the mistake though is we got the 22" deep option for all six of our shells.  We originally planned on all four of my shells being on the opposite wall of Steve's two, which meant the aisle between the two sides was only going to be as wide as the doorway which didn't look very wide once we were in the closet with the first one assembled.  Each shell weighs 90 pounds in the box.  Steve and I really didn't feel like returning 5 90-pound shelves to a store that's a half hour away only to come back with the 13" deep version that was roughly the same weight with no help to carry this stuff in (the moving crew originally helped carry all these in last weekend).  We were determined to find a way to make this work.  The other reason we talked ourselves out of the 13" deep option was because the hangers would stick out and we liked the thought of it looking a little more tidy by having that all contained within the shell.

We scrapped the idea of the back wall being entirely shoes and purses and we ended up putting one of my shells on the back wall.  We also scrapped one of my four shells altogether, so now I only have three.  When we were drawing up where everything would go, I was actually struggling to fill the last shell, so I knew I could make three work anyway.  We still put my other two shells across from Steve's but that also created a dead space between the back wall and the first shell.  We fixed that by buying a tension rod from Target and that is now used to hang dresses.  Because we decided to return one of my shells, this created a good bit of open space at the front of the closet, making it feel not as closed in and really the aisle isn't as bad as we originally thought anyway.  We used some of the space next to Steve's area of the closet to install shelves for my purses.  We also ended up buying more of the shoe shelves for me for the shell that's on the back wall.  The purse shelves were from Ikea as well, called Ekby Bjarnum.

A couple very easy things you can do to make your closet feel cleaner and more organized is to spend money on hangers.  I know it seems ridiculous, but this was a tip I picked up when we were trying to sell our house.  Not to mention I was sick of all my sweaters getting those stupid puckers on the shoulders from cheap hangers.  When all your hangers match, it's a much cleaner look.  I splurged and wanted velvet hangers so those puckers wouldn't happen.  The other easy thing you can do to make a closet feel more organized is to put everything in color order.  Again, that was a tip I picked up when trying to sell our townhouse and now it's a habit I can't break.

Now let's talk accessories!  I know Steve has to share the closet with me, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from blinging out the closet in a major way!  First, I already knew I wanted lights on top of each shelf and again those were from Ikea as well (Lindshult).  Then I wanted to switch out the generic overhead closet lights with over-the-top chandeliers.  Steve thought I was insane and he definitely didn't appreciate having to install them, but he did tell me after they were installed that he really liked the look!  Next was drawer pulls.  I had three drawers in my closet that I didn't want to have as glass drawers, so they have a boring solid white front.  I found the most perfect, sparkly drawer pulls at Home Depot months ago by Richlieu Hardware.  The chandeliers are Fifth Main brand from Home Depot as well - both of those purchases were before the appliance debacle with Home Depot.

Enjoy the pictures!  It will be painted someday, I'm just not sure when and I'm not sure what color.

View in the closet from the door (purses are not shown but are on shelves to the left)

Purse shelves

Steve's side of the closet.  I pulled out the pants hanger so you could see how that works.

My side!  :-)

Chandeliers and lights on top

Rhinestone drawer pulls

Tension rod in the dead space in the back of the closet.

Steve and I each have a valet hook so we can pick out our clothes the night before.

Someday We Will Live In Our House

Ok, so let's get you caught up.  There's a lot, so bear with me...

The last delivery we had lined up the first week of October was our furniture delivery on Tuesday, October 2.  My dad was able to stay at the house that day so he could tell Gavigan's where our furniture would go.  While he was there, the inspector came and let my dad know that we passed our final inspection.  Earlier in the day, we received word that we had passed the water test too.  We were ecstatic because all this meant was Victor had to go to the county and get our Use & Occupancy permit and we were all ready to go for closing with the builder on Thursday.  We thought wrong again.

Apparently when Victor went to get the permit, he was told that because we failed one water test, we had to pass two tests a week apart in order to get a temporary U & O permit.  We didn't find this out until late Wednesday and thankfully Barlow had been out already to get the sample for the second water test.  This time it was going to be an 18-hour test, so Clark and JoAnna were feeling pretty good that we'd still be closing on Thursday, it just likely wouldn't be in the morning like we had originally scheduled.  So we had our final walkthrough Thursday morning and I had already planned to take off work last Thursday through the end of this week.  I stayed after the walkthrough to continue painting.

I found out later in the day from Steve that the second water test failed.  There was a brief moment of total heartbreak followed by several expletives, but then Steve gave me the semi-good news:  Clark and JoAnna were willing to have an unofficial closing where we received keys and we were allowed to paint and move everything in.  We think our whole team just feels so bad for us because this build should never have been close to reaching the 8-month mark like we are quickly approaching now.  Plus, we had PODS coming back on Monday to pick up an empty pod, so we were stressing about that too!  The downside to this arrangement is technically we are not allowed to live there, which is defined as sleeping and cooking and we definitely cannot use the water (other than flushing toilets).

Steve and I agreed to the unofficial closing and we quickly got to work.  Over the last six days we have painted the guest room, the family room, the dining room, the foyer, and unpacked a lot of our stuff.  On Sunday, several people from Steve's work joined us and unloaded our pod and our U-Haul - we are so thankful for everyone that helped out!!  I'm still off work this week, so I've been tackling boxes as much as I can so that the house is ready for us when we finally pass the appropriate number of water tests.

Speaking of that - we had a bit of good news today.  We passed the first of two tests today.  They took another sample today and again it's for an 18-hour test, so we will hear results tomorrow.  If we pass that, Victor is going to push for us to at least get temporary U & O.  Then they will pull another sample next week and if we pass that we get permanent U & O.  If we get temporary U & O tomorrow then we can actually start living there which would be awesome, because commuting to our house everyday is kind of a pain...especially when our new bed looks so freaking comfy!  ;-)

Here's the quick backstory on why the water has been such an issue.  We have had so much rain over the last few weeks that wells across the county are having similar issues.  The rain is pushing bacteria into wells (at least that's how it was explained to me).  Typically when this happens for a new build, a single chlorine treatment does the trick.  We all know that didn't happen for us.  Since the county has seen this all over the place, the county has mandated a specific treatment to try which is to take a pressure washer of chlorine and spray it into the well.  They did this last Thursday for us and over the weekend we did the run-off again to get the chlorine out.  If we fail any of the upcoming water tests, then we can get a UV filter installed which will definitely take care of the issue.  Steve and I are considering installing this ourselves even after we move in just so we never run into this again.

So that's where we are now.  I'll take better pictures later as we finish up the rooms, but here's some pics to tide you over.

Painted the bathroom

New welcome mat  :-)

Grown-up furniture!!

We took this hideous light down and replaced it with a new one that looks a million times better.  Anyone want this one?

First Ravens game in the new house.  After they lost and played terribly, I told Steve we had to sell the house since it is obviously unlucky.  ;-)

Guest room getting there.

I still can't believe I agreed to this.

Chandeliers in the closet.  :-)

Feeling Better

After the horrendous week we had last week, Steve and I needed to do something to reset our brains and relax for a bit.  We did exactly that:  a National Park and beer in small glasses.  :-)  Yesterday, we had a great time hiking to Cunningham Falls in Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland.  We followed that up with a wine tasting, a spirit tasting, and beer in small glasses at Springfield Manor in Thurmont, MD.  The wines were ok, the beer was better, and the spirits were ok, but the highlight of them all was the lavender gin for which they have won many awards.  I don't even like gin, but this is pretty tasty!  It truly was the perfect day for us and it was great to hit a trail for a couple hours too.  I'd post pictures of all of that, but they are on Steve's phone and he's not here right now.

So on to house stuff then...

The second delivery we had scheduled was our pod delivery.  If you aren't familiar with that it is actually called PODS (Portable On Demand Storage).  It's essentially a storage unit that gets delivered to you, you load it all up, they take it away and store it, then you tell them when and where to drop it off.  It's super convenient because that means all of our stuff is already in our driveway when we do finally move in.  Our pod was scheduled to be delivered on Saturday morning while we were out hiking.  After our hike and our drinks, we stopped by to see it was delivered.  We opened it up just to see how badly things shifted, and actually it wasn't too bad!  We packed it pretty well when we moved out of the townhouse.  :-)  This was great to see though because we really needed something to go right, and it did!

As an added bonus, we checked the house and it was unlocked.  Clark had given us permission to paint our bedroom before Tuesday's furniture delivery.  If the house was locked, that meant we only had Monday to paint.  Since it was unlocked though, we took advantage and boy am I glad we did that!  We started taping our bedroom and bathroom Saturday evening, then we came back this morning to start painting.  We had big plans to paint the bathroom today too, but we are not used to a bedroom that big, haha!  It took us all day to get it done, but it is done!  We plan to stop by tomorrow after work to get the bathroom done too.  It feels like a huge amount of stress has been lifted off my shoulders getting some of the painting done, so I'm very thankful Clark agreed to let us do that.  We love how the color turned out, although pictures never do it justice.  If you are interested, the color is Moonmist by Sherwin Williams.

This picture looks more green even though the paint is really a light blue.

A little more true to the actual color in this picture.

Other side of the room (I'm standing by the barn doors to take this shot).  The blue tape you see is actually indicating a drywall touch-up that needs to be done.  We put it back after painting so they can still fix it.  We'll touch up the paint when we move in.

Had to get the bathroom shot too because it's awesome.  :-)

Stress

I’m at the point now where the stress of the house not being done, the feeling that this house will never be ours, the impending move, deadlines for deliveries, and every other little thing is taking its toll on me.  I’m not speaking for Steve, but I’m pretty sure he’s stressed out too.  I’ve been trying to stay focused on the big picture that even though we keep running into problems and delays, someday we will be living in our own house again and it’s a house we love.  Thursday night, everything went to hell and I lost it.  Here’s what happened…

In terms of our contract with our builder, we were supposed to have a house by the end of July.  We are realistic though and we were willing to be okay with August as our potential move in target.  But then BGE happened and that was a giant mess in itself.  So then we prepared ourselves for a September move in and came to terms with that understanding that this was on BGE and not our builder.  But let’s face it, September’s now over and we are not only NOT moving in this month, but the hope of moving in yesterday was taken away earlier this week.  When Friday’s closing with Bob Ward was taken off the table, we put our foot down and said we needed to take the deliveries that we have been rescheduling since July.  We were nice about it, and so were they and they agreed to let us do that.  The first delivery up was our fridge and washer/dryer.  Most builders don’t provide those when building new homes for some strange reason.

Wanting to take advantage of 4^th of July holiday sale prices, we priced out Home Depot and Jarvis Appliances (a local business) and whoever had the better price and better holding policy was going to win.  We were up front with both of these businesses saying we were building a house with an anticipated move in of sometime in July.  Jarvis technically had the cheaper price, but Home Depot does price matching and had a 90-day hold policy compared to Jarvis’ 30-day policy.  We placed the order with Home Depot on 6/25.  We felt bad not giving the local business the love, but we just needed those 90-days should anything go wrong with the house and we all know now that it did.

Fast forward to July 20 when we found out that BGE wasn’t coming until August 20.  We rescheduled our appliances to be delivered the first week of September.  Home Depot happily changed it for us.  We ended up having to change it again when that date was quickly approaching and we moved it to 9/25.  Again, no indication from Home Depot that we were going to lose the order.

Eleven days ago, when we thought we were moving in yesterday, Bob Ward heavily insisted that we push delivery of the appliances to yesterday so that nothing happened to them while they were doing all the finishing touches in our house.  I wasn’t thrilled about this, but Bob Ward was willing to let us keep 9/25 if we weren’t able to move delivery to 9/28.  We realize that puts us out of our 90-day window, but again, Home Depot was very willing to make the change and we received no warning that our order was or was going to be cancelled.

Thursday night, we tried calling Home Depot with a very simple request:  confirming our delivery window.  We needed to know this window because we don’t have keys to our house until closing.  Bob Ward agreed to open the house for us, but we needed to coordinate with them to make sure it was open before Home Depot arrived with our appliances.  Steve was the one who called and found out our order was cancelled but no one had any explanation why.  At this point, I don’t even know who Steve was talking to, but he gave me Home Depot’s 800 number to see if anyone there would be able to help out.  Sure enough, our order was cancelled because there’s apparently a 60-day hold policy that NO ONE told us about (trust me, it gets even better).  I asked why we hadn’t received a refund yet and it was explained to me that our order was in limbo because LG hadn’t received the fridge that was ours back in their warehouse yet.  Get this, the order was cancelled on September 4^th.  Not a single person called to tell us this.  Home Depot let us reschedule our delivery two more times and never told us the order was cancelled or “in limbo.”  And even though the order was cancelled, we never received our money back.  And to make it even worse, they were going to let us sit at our house expecting a delivery and never tell us otherwise.

This is where I turned into “crazy Becky” like I did with BGE.  The person I was speaking with transferred me to the Bel Air store because the “manager on duty would have more freedom to honor the same price from the 6/25 order.”  This manager, Matt, just made things a million times worse.  He kept saying that our paperwork clearly states 60 days and too bad for us.  He also kept saying it’s the responsibility of the consumer to know what we are signing.  Yes, the consumer is responsible to know what we are signing, but I let him know how misleading it is when we have Home Depot telling us 90 days and we were very up front that we are building a house and concerned about delays.  Not to mention, the three times we rescheduled this delivery, no one said anything about it!  Still Matt didn’t budge.  He put me on hold while he called the delivery company to find out exactly what happened and while on hold, I went through the paperwork and found nothing about 60 days or even 90 days.  When Matt came back on, I told him there was nothing in the paperwork.  He offered for Steve and I to go to the store and he’d point out where it is.  Additionally, when asked why he couldn’t honor the same price he kept telling me that that was a sale price.  I kept asking what difference does it make – they were willing to offer that price in June, why does September make any difference?  He answered by telling me the current price now would be $800 more for all three appliances.  I kept reminding him that I couldn’t believe he was willing to let a $4600 order walk out the store over an $800 difference.  Nothing.  Is my math wrong??  I’m pretty sure $4600 is significantly more than $800, right?

Steve went to Home Depot without me because I was going to cause a major scene whether I was right or wrong about the paperwork.  Turns out the paperwork mentions only 30 days for Maytag appliances (which is what the washer/dryer were - the fridge should have never been cancelled)!  So we go from 90, to 60, to 30 days.  We would have never bought appliances with only a 30-day hold time – that’s the reason Jarvis didn’t get our business in the first place!  Steve kindly brought up the fact that we were very up front about building the house and we were concerned about delays.  It should have been on our Home Depot sales person to point out the 30 day policy.  I’ll give you 10 points if you can guess his response.  “It is the responsibility of the consumer to know what they are signing.”  Seriously dude?!  It gets better…

So Steve asks why we weren’t notified about the cancellation and why a refund was not processed.  Ten more points if you can guess his response.  Can you believe his response was that it was our responsibility to seek out a refund?!?!  That is completely unethical if that truly is Home Depot’s policy and that is precisely why Home Depot is never getting any of my business ever again.  If anyone knows me, you know I’m the champion at holding grudges, so if you think I’m just that mad and I’ll get over it eventually, you are wrong.  I will also be having a very uncomfortable conversation with Matt’s boss to let him know Matt does not do a good job representing Home Depot.  Our responsibility to seek out a refund…seriously!?  How stupid can you be?  I wish I knew this asshole’s last name because I would definitely be throwing his name out on my blog.

Steve got the refund and immediately drove to Jarvis, arriving 15 minutes before they closed.  Remember how Home Depot wasn’t willing to honor their 4^th of July sale price?  Guess what Jarvis did?  Jarvis, a local company with nowhere near the profits Home Depot has, was willing to honor a price from 3 months ago without even knowing anything about the shit we just went through with Home Depot.  They even talked us out of the fridge we wanted because they are maintenance nightmares into one that’s even cheaper.  They talked through options on three different fridges with Steve until a half hour after they were supposed to close.  We were treated like a truly valuable client and they now have all my appliance business for life.  I can’t wait to tell Matt’s boss what happened here.

I realize losing a fridge and washer/dryer is not the end of the world, and I would have been mad about this without house delays, but the stress is adding up so much.  Steve and I are actually heading to a park today so we can take a relaxing walk in the woods and forget about all of this for just a little bit.  Thank you to everyone on Facebook and in person for your support, we appreciate it.

I'll end this blog on an update of the house.  We heard from Clark yesterday that with the weekend's nice weather, the landscaper is planning to put down grass on Monday.  If that doesn't happen I don't know when we are ever moving in because it's supposed to rain again starting Tuesday.  The water test apparently did find bacteria so they had to do another chlorine flush.  We've already heard that the chlorine is out of the latest water test and we'll have the bacteria results on Monday.  Please, please, please, have your fingers crossed, your toes crossed, legs, eyes, arms, everything crossed and pray to the old Gods and the new (Game of Thrones reference) that the stars align and we pass our tests and Tuesday's final inspection.  I think Clark truly feels bad for us, so he has agreed to let us paint our bedroom before our furniture is delivered on Tuesday, which does help relieve some of the stress.

Roller Coaster

You know how I always compare building a house to a roller coaster with lots of ups and downs?  Well we're facing another "down" right now.

Steve and I had so much excitement at the start of this week and we didn't have a single doubt in our mind that anything would go wrong before Friday.  I should have known better.  Right before our first walkthrough on Monday at the house with Victor, we received an email notifying us that we failed our final inspection because there wasn't any grass planted.  Steve forwarded that email to our Bob Ward team with a note that said we'd discuss in a couple hours at our walkthrough.  The walkthrough went fine where we only found a few minor things to fix, some of which Victor already had noted before we even got there.  They've even been crossing off a few of those items this week which is the only good news we've had so far.

During the walkthrough, we asked Victor if we could drink the water and he said no because we failed the water test.  More bad news.  Apparently there were traces of something in the water.  We aren't sure if it's bacteria (which would be really bad) or chlorine, but Victor alluded to it being chlorine based on what needed to be done to fix it.  Steve also doesn't think it'd be bacteria since our well is 500 feet deep.

At the end of the walkthrough, I asked Victor the million dollar question - given the failed inspection and failed water test, is Friday still on the table?  He gave a wonderful non-answer.  Steve and I left the walkthrough completely bummed because we could tell the writing was on the wall.

A failed water test means they need to attempt to correct the issue, do another run off (which went on for a week once already), and do another test that likely takes a few days to get results.  Victor and Clark have been trying to get in touch with the well company (Barlow) to see if they even took a new sample yet and they are doing a great job of not returning a single call.  The inspection failed because we didn't have grass planted and the landscaper needed a dry day to do it and today was the only dry day for the week.  He attempted to plant today and ended up messing up the grading - not so much that it needs to be redone, but enough to know he couldn't continue.  It's supposed to rain the rest of the week.  To add an extra punch to this, landscaping was supposed to be done last Friday, when it was dry, but for some unknown reason it didn't happen.  We hope he works on Saturdays.

Steve got the call late this afternoon from Clark that officially told us Friday wasn't happening.  I was already trying to prepare for this after Monday's walkthrough, but now that it's real it's extra frustrating and we're just downright sad.  All that buildup for what was supposed to be such an exciting week for us and it's gone.  Add to it the stress of the many things we've had scheduled that we had to move AGAIN because we're delayed AGAIN.  We thought we were moving in July, so we bought furniture and appliances based on that.  We've had our PODS rescheduled multiple times already because we thought the driveway would be done sooner.  We've scheduled and cancelled a moving truck several times now too.  If we had a new date I don't think we'd be as sad and as frustrated, but we're back to the unknown which makes it so much worse.

Before Pictures (Or Are They After Pictures?)

It seems odd to be posting about "Before" pictures, when you've already seen the "Before Before Pictures" as the house was built!  But I figured it'd be fun to continue the blog through the process of getting settled and personalizing our home over the next few months.  We stopped at the house today and lucked out that the painters were there with the door open (we maybe had some other plans of getting in if no one was there...).  I thought it'd be a good idea to have before pictures while the house is empty so you can see the progression as we paint, unpack, arrange furniture, etc.

The first project on the list is paint.  We didn't even ask Bob Ward about pricing out how much it would be to paint the house because I really do like doing it.  And it's one of those things that anyone can do, so I'd rather save the money and put in my own time for that.  First room to paint will be our bedroom and bathroom so we can start living in those rooms as soon as our new bedroom furniture is delivered next Tuesday.  Next up is the family room and kitchen/dining room/mudroom.  With the open concept plan we have, the kitchen, dining room, and mudroom are all going to be the same color for now.  Eventually I might change up the dining room, but we'll see.  Then the main guest room will be painted next.  Any other room, I have no idea what to paint yet because I just need to start seeing our own things in the house first.  Our first priority on Friday and Saturday will be to get as much of that painting done as we possibly can.  Sunday morning is when our wonderful friends are going to help us move all our stuff in the house.  I know some of them have been following the blog, so thank you in advance for helping us move in!

I'll try to remember to take pictures of the progression of each room, but I can't make any promises.  Once I get busy doing something, I may forget to stop and take pictures.  Anyway, for the time being, here are the "After" pictures of the build process!  :-)  Steve and I are overjoyed with how everything turned out and we can't wait to make this house our home!!

Video Tour

Bar

Bar

Bar

Steve in the Powder Room

Kitchen looking into Family Room

Family Room looking into Kitchen and Dining Room

Pantry

Family Room

Kitchen

Basement

Upstairs now; Hallway Bathroom

Same Bathroom

Bedroom #1

Bedroom #2

Guest Bedroom (aka Bedroom #3)

Guest Bathroom

Walk-in Closet in Guest Bedroom

Laundry Room (don't worry, that vinyl will be gone pretty quickly)

Our Room

Our Room

Our Bathroom

Our Shower

Our Closet

Garage