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.  :-)