I wish this blog would bring exciting news about the house, but literally nothing has happened this week at Home Base. The only mildly exciting progress made was that the lumber for the framing was delivered on Monday. That's it.
Lumber for framing
Snow in the basement on Friday
We have the weather to blame for all this because we ended up getting about 8 total inches of snow all day Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday, there was still a blanket of snow everywhere, so they didn't do anything that day. On Friday, I drove by and nothing was done then either. We have extremely high hopes that framing starts on Monday. Someone please feel free to hunt down that asshole groundhog...I'm ready for warmer weather and no snow!
In the meantime, we have been super busy preparing our current house for sale. We plan to list it on May 18. We've been busy packing up things, moving stuff to storage, selling off furniture and items we don't need anymore, and painting. We're almost done painting all the trim and doors and we're working on painting almost every room in the house. I usually enjoy painting, but when it is with neutral colors and I don't get to brainstorm some fun decorating ideas, it really feels more like a chore. I even took Wednesday off work to just paint all day which helped give us a boost in our huge list of things to do to get ready to sell. We're trying to get all the painting done within the next week since we'll be scheduling carpet installation late next week or early the week after. It's amazing what a fresh coat of paint on walls and trim does to a house! Our house is 17 years old and I feel like the paint has "erased" many years and makes it look almost brand new! Here's hoping that translates into a bidding war on our house! :-)
It was another semi-boring week at Home Base. Steve and I stopped by last Friday where we were happy to see that they did the waterproofing on the outside of the house and in the garage and front porch. This was good news because that meant they could start backfilling.
The black stuff is the waterproofing.
On Sunday, we decided to stop by on a whim thinking nothing would have changed since last Friday. But we were surprised to see they did start backfilling over the weekend. This got my hopes up that we'd see framing start at the end of the week (spoiler alert, it didn't). I was excited, though, that I am finally able to take a picture of the front of the house without the giant pile of dirt in the way!
Garage
Finally a picture of the front of the house!! Steve's on the front porch.
I stopped by on Monday hoping to see some progress, but nothing had changed. Tuesday was slightly more exciting because they had done the prep work to pour the slab, which is the garage floor and basement floor (they do the porch later). We knew on Wednesday they had a slab prep inspection, which had passed pretty early on in the day, but we weren't surprised to see that they didn't pour the slab that day.
Vapor barrier/prepping for basement floor
Vapor barrier/prepping for garage floor
I stopped by after work on Thursday with one of our loyal blog followers, Tyler (shout out!). I was happy to see that the slab was FINALLY poured. I was hoping it would still be wet enough that I could put our initials in either the garage or basement, but silly work got in the way and it was dry by the time I got there. The nice thing is, now that the slab is poured, framing can start any day!
Garage floor
Basement floor from above. The circles are where the steel beams will go when they start framing.
Basement floor from the walkout
Steve and I met at Home Base yesterday afternoon and they didn't start framing yet, but the steel beams were delivered which is a good sign that they'll be starting soon.
Steel beams
The view from the front porch.
We're hoping framing can start before Wednesday of next week because winter is desperately holding on, and we have another storm coming our way that's supposed to be bringing a few inches of snow. If that's the case, we'll be delayed again for who knows how long.
Last week we had so many exciting things happening with the house, but this week progress came to a screeching halt. :-( I stop by Home Base pretty much every day on my way home from work and on Monday I was sad to see that nothing had changed.
Tuesday, Steve met me at the lot where we saw that not much had changed that day either. They were supposed to waterproof the basement, but for whatever reason it wasn't done. We were happy to see that a plumber had put in the start of the plumbing for the whole house. But that's really the only milestone we've hit this week.
Plumbing
Quick funny story about stopping at the house on Tuesday. I got there before Steve did and I saw a silver Honda CR-V pull into the driveway just before me. I thought it was my mom since that's the car she drives and I watched "her" drive all the way down the driveway to the house. I park at the top of the driveway since the construction drive scrapes the bottom of my car. I hurried out of the car to meet "mom" down there. As I got down there, I realized the gentleman walking around the house was most definitely not my mother! He looked a little puzzled at me so I introduced myself and said "I'm buying that," as I pointed to the house. That's when I noticed he had a Bob Ward jacket on. He introduced himself (Craig) and he wanted to stop by to see how things were progressing. Long story short, we found out from Katie yesterday when we stopped at the model home to measure something, that Craig and sometimes even Bob Ward himself will randomly stop at houses as quality control. Katie even explained that that will probably happen a few more times too throughout the build. We liked hearing that!
We had a few inspections done on Wednesday, but unfortunately had the foundation inspection cancelled since they haven't finished the waterproofing for it yet along with a couple other things. Wednesday morning, we had a meeting with our Superintendent from Bob Ward, Victor. He was great and it was nice to finally meet the person who is running the show with our house. Tuesday night into most of the day Wednesday brought a few inches of snow, which meant a chilly and quick meeting with Victor! It was fun to see what our yard will look like with freshly fallen snow, but Victor told us that we would be delayed because of this which we already assumed anyway. On a positive note, both Craig and Victor commented on the beautiful lot we have. We tend to agree. :-)
Looking towards the side/backyard (garage in foreground)
Looking towards the front/side yard (kitchen/family room in foreground)
Best case scenario would be that they do the waterproofing and the last of the foundation work tomorrow. That would mean an inspection on Monday or Tuesday, and then hopefully they start framing on Wednesday. Victor did tell us that the steel beams, floor joists, and lumber are all on order, so they should be ready to rock and roll when the inspections are done.
On Monday, they put in the construction driveway and put down the framing for the footers so they were ready to be poured. Check out the blog from Monday to see the pictures from that day.
Steve and I stopped by on Tuesday to see that they poured the concrete in the footers. We knew we were getting close to having walls when we saw that progress.
Footers were poured - and our shadows make me laugh.
Normally, when I stop by Home Base around 4:30 each day, the work crew is already gone. This was not the case on Wednesday. I pulled into the driveway and called Steve to let him know that a couple cement trucks were still there. Next thing I know, I look in my rear view mirror and two more cement trucks were lined up behind me to get to work! Steve met me at the lot so he could see the progress too. We were thrilled to see them pouring the walls for the basement! We thought they wouldn't like us snooping around but we asked one of the guys if we could walk around the outside of the house and take pictures and he didn't mind at all. We were sure to stay out of their way though.
Cement trucks at the house
The guy on the far right is pouring the walls
Looking at the kitchen side of the house
Looking at the family room side of the house - the opening is the walkout from the basement.
I stopped by again on Thursday and saw that the supports were off the walls and I was able to walk into our house for the very first time by going through the walkout from the basement! The floor is still dirt, but technically I was within the four walls of our house! It was funny hearing an echo in there while I was telling Steve about it over the phone. All of this is exciting progress - we had basement walls six days after breaking ground!
Side of the house with walkout
Side/back of house (I can't get a real picture of the back because there's a giant pile of dirt in the way)
Side/front of the house (I can't get a real picture of the front because of another giant pile of dirt in the way)
The title of the post is referring to my favorite song by the late Mr. Petty. Yesterday we had a weird wind storm all day, so I didn't think there would be any progress. But, I was pretty happy to see our walls hadn't fallen down from the wind. I was also excited to see that the guest bathroom was delivered and shocked that it had survived the wind all day! ;-)
Guest bathroom...we're not sure how we feel about the color.
Steve and I still didn't have power this morning because of the storm (it went out yesterday afternoon), so while we were out running errands as a way to warm up, we stopped by the house so he could see the walls without the supports. The guest bathroom surprisingly was still upright, which will be good news for the crew! Enjoy the video from today's visit.
We're guessing the walls need to be inspected before they can move on to framing, but we are thinking they will probably be able to start that next week. On a not-so-fun note, we paid our first bill for the land/construction loan this week too.
