We have flooring

Dan and I stopped by on Thursday so that he could see the progress that's been made the past few weeks. To our surprise, there was a guy working on the hardwood floors. There wasn't a lot of light, and I didn't have my camera, but here are a few shots of the progress so far.
This is the non-standard portion of the floor that we decided to add on. We wanted to carpet the family room, but I hated that to walk from the hallway to the kitchen you would walk over like 4' of carpet. It was kind of awkward and that piece of carpet would get a ton of wear, so I talked to Rusmur about extending the wood on an angle (more detail in this post-about 10 pics down).

The only negative with this flooring choice is that the stools at the breakfast bar will sit on the wood when they're pushed in, but when someone is sitting in them they will be half on wood and half on carpet. We stopped it where we did so that the wood ended at the edge of the window, not in the middle of it. This probably is a pretty big deal, but at this point I'm not going to worry about it.
I'm hoping they fix the gap where the angled pieces meet, or fill it with something so it isn't noticeable.I'm not a fan of vinyl tile, but there wasn't anything at Rusmur that I really loved, so we went with vinyl and will have the upstairs bathroom floors redone later (the game room bathroom will have ceramic and the 1st floor bathroom will have hardwood).
They had also installed the light fixtures (which was a reminder that we need to replace a few and buy/install a few also). The kitchen and hallway fixtures aren't terrible, but we do want to replace what's in the dining room.

I'm not sure what I want to put in the dining room yet. I like this style, but I'm trying to avoid things that are too trendy.
Dan is off for the next 10 days, so I'm sure we'll be stopping out to see where they're at with the flooring. The holidays are a lot less stressful when you don't have a house to clean and decorate or parties to host, but I can't wait until next year when we'll be spending Christmas in our new house.

Happy Holidays everyone!!!

The Garage is Empty

I got a call from the PM last night letting me know that they had worked on the trim and installed all of the cabinetry yesterday and would be finishing up today. He knows I like to photograph everything, so I was really glad he called since I wasn't planning on stopping out until later in the week.

My jaw literally dropped when I saw the kitchen cabinets with the crown molding. LOVE it!

We added crown molding onto the entire first floor in addition to chair rails in the dining room and office (both non-standard options). The pricing Ryan provided was very reasonable and we knew it was something we wanted but would never get around to doing on our own (since we said we would add it to our last house and that never happened after 7 years). I was shocked at what a difference it made, even with everything solid white, it looked awesome. I knew I was going to love the kitchen cabinets, but the molding on the cabinets and the crown molding just made everything look so finished.

There was hardly any sunlight today, but I did get a chance to compare paint swatches with the cabinets and I'm starting to narrow down the choices (will post about that later this week).

I'm shocked with how much of a difference each step makes, especially going from finished drywall to finished drywall with trim. One of the events I manage is an annual "Home Tour." We always make sure that people use the correct language calling it a "Home Tour" vs a "House Tour" because "home" has a totally different connotation. I feel like, as everything really starts to come together with the house, I'm starting to think of it more as a home.

Now onto the pics...

I love the amount of storage, although I realized today that I can only reach up to the front of the second shelf (added step-stool to the "things to buy" list).

I hadn't seen the island before since all of the Milan models have a morning room/gourmet island. I really like the size of the drawers and cabinets on the island.A close-up of the Red Montana counter with the cabinetry.This is a little blurry but it shows the entrance to the garage, fridge space, pantry and then the family room.Breakfast bar view from the family room. Did I mention I LOVE the kitchen??Looking towards the front door.From the front door looking back towards the family room.
Close-up of the crown molding (I love how they installed it in the hallway).Looking into my office.Office view #2.The dining room.
View from the dining room looking towards the kitchen. You can see the extra outlet I added above the cabinets for holiday decorating.
Family room
View #2 of the family room. I wasn't sure where they would put the molding in the family room with the bump/duct work thing along the one side, but they ran it along the top, straight through and into the kitchen, it looks really nice.
The banister on the 2nd floor.The loftVanity in the master bath (exact same thing in the other bathroom on the 2nd floor).
Close-up of the meteorite granite with espresso cabinets.

Basement 1/2 bath. Hate the mirror, but not a major priority to change. I'll either replace them with something new or buy one of those mirror framing kits (something like these: http://www.mirrormate.com/). Anyone have experience adding a frame to the standard mirrors?

Railing and trim in the game room.

Dan's Christmas gift that I won in a silent auction at the Penguin game tonight, the newest piece of artwork for the game room.

Finally, they also started to put the brick on our foundation. Once they finish this they're onto stone and siding.
I couldn't be more happy with the options we selected so far. I'm hoping Dan can stop out with me at the end of this week or sometime next week; he hasn't seen the house since before drywall.

Birthday Gift

My birthday was this past Friday, and I got an awesome gift when I visited the house on Saturday- a full garage! Cabinets, doors, trim, counters, and stone, it's all there.
A close-up of the Red Montana kitchen counter.The Aspen stone for the front of the house.
I gave my parents a tour on Saturday. They had seen the Milan model in August, but this was their first time visiting our plan/house. It looks like the drywall was completed this past week (everything was smooth, so that's my guess). Here are a few pics from this past weekend and I also updated the neighborhood section with some new pics too (including the 1-story that went up across the street).

The loft from the stairs.
The kitchen from the family room.The game room, where the tv/electronics will be.

Updated Pages

I finally had a chance to update the pages for the blog. "Our Neighborhood" shows the progression of our street from different angles. Options includes the list of options we selected and a few pics. The Appliances/Furniture page has everything we've recently purchased for the new house. I'll be adding a "Paint" page soon once I start to get my ideas together.

Drywall is Up

We had some inspections earlier this week and then they started drywall on Thursday. By the time I stopped on Friday afternoon, all of the drywall was hung. They'll be taping and mudding this week and then after that I think they'll start installing cabinetry, etc. Here are a few pics from my visit Friday.

Kitchen from Family Room
Back corner of Kitchen
Other side of Kitchen (entrance to mud room, fridge space and pantry)
Family Room from Kitchen
Front Door from Family Room
View from top of Stairs- Bedroom 1 on left, Loft, Bedroom 2, Linen Closet and Master Bedroom on right (Laundry Room and Guest Bath are behind me)
Game Room
Game Room (where the tv will hang)
The Florence next door to us is framed and sits a bit higher than our house, but the PM said the grade between our houses will be pretty level.

Settlement Date

The countdown can officially start...We'll be closing on the new house on January 13, 2012!!!!

Our pre-settlement meeting will be on the 11th and we'll close on the 13th (just realized it's Friday the 13th, good thing we're not superstitious). Our original date was the 4th, so this isn't too far off (especially considering the weather this fall and the holidays).

Now we just have to close on our current house (that we've been out of for 8+ weeks), but that's a story for another day.

We drove to Philadelphia this weekend to check out the Pottery Barn Outlet and came home with a truck and SUV full of furniture. I'll update the furniture section with pics when I get a chance, but we ended up getting all of the Family Room accent furniture (entertainment stand, coffee table and end table) and a buffet for the kitchen.

Ready for Drywall

I'm really behind on updates, so I'm going to do my best to recap the past 2 weeks.

Our meeting with Guardian last Tuesday went well, except for the fact that we couldn't go into the basement to discuss tv and speaker wire placement. The concrete had just been poured, but the steps weren't installed yet. We ended up moving a few outlets around from our initial plans, and there were a few things we forgot we selected but it was a nice surprise when we found out we were getting it.

Not much happened throughout the week last week other than our garage door being installed and they framed the basement.
This week all of the wiring, hvac and plumbing went in. I stopped out yesterday and met a new PM that will be in our plan for at least the next month. Our other PM is still around, so now we have 2. The new PM was very nice and we walked through the house and went through a few things. I noticed one of the extra outlets we had added was missing and he said he would have it put in.

This morning our original PM called to schedule the pre-drywall meeting for Monday. We ended up deciding to have the meeting this afternoon with the new PM. He was very detailed and was able to answer all of our questions. I took pictures of every wall so we know where all of the wires, ducts, pipes, etc are. Since our conversation yesterday he already had the missing outlet put in. While we were there the guys were finishing up the insulation too.

We did have a few things that will be changed or fixed before drywall. They are going to move the data port in my office over one stud (my initial furniture plan changed this week when I found a sofa I couldn't pass up). They're also going to add a piece of wood between the studs where all tvs are going to hang (family room, game room, loft, master bedroom).

The only things Dan had issues with were related to Guardian. First, he didn't realize they were running component cables for the tvs, he would prefer to just have 2 hdmi cables instead of the 1. The PM said this is something he could easily run through, Dan just didn't like the idea of having all of those component cables there for no reason. The other thing was the gauge of the speaker wire used. We had 2 speakers put in the family room and one outside on the patio, so that's all whatever Guardian does standard. In the game room, we had Guardian install the wiring for us to just plug our own surround system into. Dan wasn't happy about the gauge they used and would have preferred a better quality (I know very little when it comes to this stuff, so not sure the specifics).

On Monday we'll have the energy test done and they should start drywall on Tuesday. We didn't get an estimated settlement date at the meeting today, but the original PM said he would call me on Monday with it (can't wait!).

Here are a few pics from the past 2 weeks...

Looking into kitchen from family room.

Top of the stairs looking into loft and bedroom 1

Bedroom 2

Master Bathroom Sink Plumbing

Looking from game room into storage room 1 with hvac

Basement storage area 2

They started framing the Florence next door to us while we were there today.

Top of the street view.

We made a few more furniture and appliance purchases last weekend, but from now on I'll add that info to the "Furniture/Appliances" page.