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

WE'RE MOVING SOON!!!!!!!

This will be a very quick blog, and I apologize for not having any pictures, but this blog is full of great news!!  On Monday, we passed all 3 of our scheduled inspections, leaving us with only three more to go!  Right before I left work today, I had a call from JoAnna to go over the timeline of what is left.  In order to get an occupancy permit we have to have landscaping, which is scheduled for this Friday.  Final grading and driveway transition strips are set to be completed tomorrow or Thursday.

This next bit of information is all contingent on the items I just mentioned and us passing our last few inspections (which should be ok), but it looks like we are going to have our first walk through on Monday, September 24th.  We come up with a punch list during that walk through and they have until Friday, September 28th to get as much of it done as they can.  Or, they just keep working on it after we move in, which isn't a huge deal.  I would say we're probably 90-95% sure we're moving in next Friday!!!

I find September 28th to be an adorable move-in date for us.  Steve and I started dating on September 28, 2003 and then we moved into our first house on September 28, 2006!  I guess we've now made it a tradition to move in somewhere on the 28th of September.  :-)

Finishing Touches

I'm doing a bonus blog this weekend!

We stopped at the house Friday after work and saw that all of the finishing touches were done:  the fireplace has glass doors now, the microwave is installed, the dishwasher is installed, the hood above the stove is finished, etc.  Seriously - all of it is done.  This is weird to say, but the house is done!

There's still a few things to do on the exterior, like the transition strips and stone around parts of the driveway, final grading, and seeding/landscaping.  Victor didn't want to work on the exterior stuff last week until we knew whether or not Hurricane Florence was going to make an appearance in Maryland.  She didn't other than some rain here and there, so they'll be working on those next week while we get inspections.

We stopped at the house on Saturday too and as we were leaving, we saw the cleaning crew come in to clean the windows.  They told us that on Monday, the rest of the cleaning crew is coming to clean the house top to bottom.  This means we are SO close!!  I made a mistake in my last blog (and corrected it already) - we actually have 8 inspections that have to pass before we can move in.  We have 2 completed already and then 3 of them are scheduled for Monday.

With that said, I really don't know what's left to blog about until we move in.  Thank you so much for following along and watching our forever house go through this process.  We have a very long list of projects we are going to do once we get in the new house starting with smaller projects like painting up to bigger projects like having a deck and a fence installed in a few weeks.  Stay tuned, I'll post updates while we go through it.  And, someday soon Steve and I will have money back in our bank accounts to go on some trips again, and the blog will return to its regularly scheduled programming.  ;-)  Steve and I love to entertain and have people over, so feel free to visit us so you can see our house in person!  For our local followers, there will be one hell of a housewarming party coming soon!

Hood is finally finished

Powder room finally has a toilet and sink; we had to wait for floors first.

Doors on the fireplace.  I might love this fireplace as much as I love Steve.

Dishwasher

Microwave

We finally have hardware in our shower, but it isn't exactly correct.  Our shower is huge, so we paid extra to have an additional handheld shower head so we can use it to clean.  We've already heard back from Bob Ward that they will get this fixed.  We're hoping it's after we move in so we don't have to wait any longer.

Come and Knock on Our Door!

I meant to blog last night, but forgot about the Ravens game.  It turns out the Ravens forgot about the game last night too.  :-(  Anyway, the house...

Flooring stopped last Thursday and we didn't know why.  We thought that it had something to do with the fact that they were gearing up to pave the driveway and they wanted that to sit over the weekend without contractors driving on it.  That just turned out to be lucky in a way.  We found out on Tuesday this week that flooring stopped because a lot of the material was damaged.  They sent it back and it was delivered and installed on Wednesday.  So floors are done!  I didn't bother with many pictures of it because they have white paper down so that contractors can walk around the house without messing up the brand new floors (although there are a lot of dusty footprints all over the place too).

The flooring in the bar - the room with the least amount of paper in it.

The plumber has been to the house once already and he started the chlorine flush, which is great news.  We are hoping that is done soon so that the water can be tested and we get another inspection down.  Speaking of inspections, there are 8 total and we've passed 2 already.  We had a third one for electric this week and Steve saw yesterday that it failed but we don't know why yet.  We think it has something to do with our dishwasher and garbage disposal not hooked up yet, but we don't know for sure.

The drywall touch ups were completed this week and the painter came in on Wednesday to start those touch ups.  The painter also did the first coat on our front door and I absolutely LOVE the color.  We have an advantage by not living in a neighborhood - we don't have an HOA so we can do whatever we want to our house.  I wanted a pop of color on our door to break up all the neutrals and I think I got my pop!  If anyone is curious, the color is Spa by Sherwin Williams.

LOVE the door!

Close up