Finally closed!

We signed closing papers Wed, Nov 25. We're supposed to get our keys on Monday, Nov 30. Then the moving begins!

House update

Earlier this week we had our walkthrough on the house. At the walkthrough, we went through the house with the Project Manager and a Customer Service/Warranty guy. They taught us how to use everything, how to maintain a new house, and all about the warranties for everything. That was fun and marked our last step before the closing.

Yesterday, Friday Nov 6, the house passed it's final building inspections. It is now legally ready for occupancy.

We are set to close this Thursday, Nov 12. Yay!!!! I think we're going to go find some boxes today and start packing nonessential stuff. There's no where to put the boxes except in our living room, but it'll be good to get it started. We'll just have to be careful not to ship any of our stuff to customers, or store a customer's order with our stuff!

Our house is finished!

Our house is finished!! There are some small things yet to be completed, but the house is in the final inspection stages. We do our walkthrough next Tuesday, on Nov 3. We might be signing papers the same day, but I don't think we'll get our keys for at least another week.
The final picture of the outside. The light is poor since it was nearly dusk, but you get the idea. It's a lovely house, I think.

Camille standing in her room.

The final pic of the living room, dining room, and kitchen. Shannon's talking to a painter in the doorway. The painter was doing touchup work outside.

Final kitchen photo! In the end, I like the white appliances fine.

A photo of Camille's amazing closet. I couldn't get a really good picture, but the thing is huge! Easily big enough for a dresser and some storage. Or her mountain of shoes. Or her huge collection of dresses!

So that's it, until we have keys anyway. It's been a fun process to watch and photograph. I've enjoyed journaling about it and will like having the journal as part of our memories.

Almost there!

We're getting so close and now that we know it's ours, we're visiting at least once a day.

They painted! They've done Phase 1 of the exterior paint, so we now have a dark green house. Phase 2 is in process...they're painting the fake shutters and any trim that can be removed and taken into the garage (it's pretty wet today). Phase 3 will be on the next dry day and will be the rest of the trim. In the end, we'll have three colors...dark green, ivory trim, and tan accents.

The kitchen, missing only the stove and microwave. I'm wishing we'd gone with black appliances. We chose white, though, because our refrigerator is white and it's only a year old, so we won't be buying another anytime soon. But I think black would look really nice in the kitchen. There's more counter space and more cabinets than I remember.

Master bathroom is complete and sooo roomy. It's huge! We could put in shelves on the opposite wall. Cabinets even, if we want. My brother Matthew and his wife just completed a house in August and they told me to expect things to look bigger than they do when the house is unfinished. And he's absolutely right. There were times during the building, especially when only the studs were up that we wondered if the house was simply too small. But it's actually so big. At 1200+ square feet, it's about the size of our current rental house, but it's laid out differently and the space use is more efficient. Not so much hallway and more living space. I can't wait to move in!

We officially got the house!

Our loan officer just called...we officially have the house!!!! Our financing came through this morning and she locked our rate at 4.875%. Amazing!!!! God has brought us so far in the past three years...from literally nothing to the American Dream.

Neighborhood pics

It's been a long while since I showed pics of the neighborhood. For comparison, here's my last post on the neighborhood: http://hicksfamilyhouse.blogspot.com/2009/09/some-of-our-neighborhood.html. The pics below are the same views as in that post.


First, the infamous "house next door". Still about a week ahead of us, this one is now finished except for the tiny little details, like painting over little scratches on the walls.

Looking out our front door to the east. These houses weren't in the first picture at all. They are a couple of weeks behind ours and I'm not sure they're sold yet. Behind them are several almost-complete houses that are sold and just about ready.

From our front door looking west. These houses were either barely started or partially finished in the last post. Now they're completely done (except for the one with the white garage door). The one at the far right is now occupied.

So many changes since last time!

It's been a full 10 days since I've posted and a lot has happened since then. If you click on the pictures, you'll get a bigger view of them.

Not much new to see here, but if you look closely, you can see that the exterior lights have all been installed. The only thing left is to paint and to install some fancy woodwork on the porch posts.

Ah ha! Carpet at last! And lights! They've installed all of the carpet, all of the cabinets, the countertops, the backsplashes, light switches, outlet plates, trim, etc. The house really looks like a house now and we had great fun trying all the light switches.

Just for fun, a pic showing out colors. The colors match so well. I really like what we picked out.

Master bathroom. Pretty much everything is here except the mirror and the toilet isn't installed yet.

Progress!

We stopped by the house today. No one was working there and all the doors were locked. Except, hee hee, the mandoor in the garage. It was previously nailed shut but I guess they opened it.
This is taken from outside the back door. We thought we were locked out so I took a picture...actually not too bad of a view, though. Living room, kitchen (dining is in the middle), and hallway to the right.

Once we were inside, I got some better pics. The cabinets Shannon wasn't sure about look fabulous. Yes, he loves them too! The floor that I picked but was afraid I'd hate looks GREAT. So glad I picked it because it goes so well with the cabinets. Hope it looks just as good with the carpet.

Camille's bathroom. Teeny tiny, but it's hers and we won't have to keep the potty chair handy for those emergencies anymore.

Master bathroom. Camille was shocked to see two sinks!

In other news, the trim is finished and doors are ready to hang. The laminate for the countertops is in the garage. Then the only things left inside will be the finish work (outlets and such) and the rest of the flooring. They painted our neighbor's house this week, so hopefully we'll have paint soon, too.

That's it for this time. Pray for us, though. Our financing still isn't 100% and Nov 2 is the day we'll know for sure. If the answer is No, then we'll wait until January which will stink but we should still be able to get our house. Until then, we're still taking pictures and visiting in the faith that this house, custom built for us, is going to be our future home.

Walls are painted

Our house on Saturday, October 3. Exterior is little changed except for the garage door.

They've delivered our cabinets and installed a garage door opener. These cabinets are huge, but take up a tiny amount of our large garage.

The big news this week...they've painted! The texturing and painting was completed since we last visited. It looks so nice.

The TV goes right here! Camille loves playing pretend and today she took us on a tour of the house. "Our table is here, the TV is here. In the mornings I get out of bed and walk in here for some juice."

Our walkthrough is scheduled for Nov 6 and closing is a week later. In less than 6 weeks, we could have the keys to our first house!

Lots of changes this week

We were gone for most of the week and a lot of things have changed! It was our first stop once we got back into town, we didn't even go home first! (Well, maybe we did, in a way!)

No garage door yet, but the other exterior doors and windows are all in. The roof and all of the siding is complete. They started drywalling Thursday. When we visited today (Sunday) the drywalling looks finished.

The living room, kitchen, front entry, and Shannon is standing in the hallway looking into the coat closet.

Camille's room. Her closet (huge!) is to the right. The door at the back leads to the hallway.

Master bathroom. I tried taking pictures of the master bedroom, but there just isn't anything to really see, except lots of doorways. I also took a pic of the garage, but I can't get the whole garage into the picture and I figure you're tired of reading about it anyway!

Judging by the house next door, we should have a drywall inspection in the next day or two. Then they'll tape over the windows and spray spackle, then paint. Then clean up, smooth the floor, and get ready to start laying flooring.

Our walk-through is now just 5 weeks away! Then closing is a week later. We'll be giving notice to our landlord pretty soon. I can't believe we're getting so close.

Bathtubs, electicity, ducting, Oh My!

Visited today and saw lots of "little" changes. We're at a stage where they're working hard, but the changes are harder to see. Since the other day, all of the plumbing is installed, the electrical work looks mostly finished, the gas line is in, and the duct work in the attic is complete. We also have a front door and side door now. Judging by the house next door (same model, 1 week ahead of us) our's is ready for insulation. Then drywall!!

Camille peaking from the hallway. She's looking toward the kitchen.

Oddly, when they install the tubs, they fill them with water. From wandering through other houses, we know they don't empty the tub until the house is complete. They get pretty dirty with sawdust and whatnot. Our's so far look like a water & sawdust soup. Not too bad yet!

Master bathroom. Through the wall, you can see Camille's bathroom. I asked her if she'd like to take a bath today. She said "No! It's full of sawdust!"

The roof is almost complete. That's really nice since it started raining today. The inside of the house was completely dry except for one spot where there's a hole through the roof still.

We have bathtubs!

We visited the house too late tonight to take pictures, but we did see that we have bathtubs! I don't know why, but they fill them with water, so the bathtubs have water and a bunch of sawdust in them.

We also have seen our neighbors a couple of times now. They'll live in the house that's about 10 feet away (literally!) so we hope to really get along with them. They're about our age I think. I said "Hi" but next time we see them, I plan to go over and introduce myself.

Roof!

We have a roof! This is a relief because the rains are supposed to start again next week. At the rate they're going, they'll probably have the shingles on before the rain starts.

The garage is, of course, of great interest to us. Nearly twice as long as a standard garage, it will give our little company some room to grow. Perhaps for fun I can post pics of our current "warehouse" so you can see why we need so much space!

Some of our neighborhood

I thought I'd share a couple of photos of our new neighborhood. These are both taken from standing in our driveway.
This is to the southwest. None of these houses are completed yet, but the one on the farthest right (the dark one) is almost done. It'll be finished this week probably.

This is to the souteast. The foundation across the street is on our street. The other houses are all on the cross street. None of them are finished yet. All together, there are about 15-16 houses in various stages, from barely started up to nearly complete. Most are sold already to first-time homeowners wanting the tax rebate.

We have walls!

We skipped yesterday's visit, so today we were delighted to see, for the first time, WALLS! All of the exterior walls and almost all of the interior walls are framed in. Most of the siding is on and some of the windows are in. Yay!!

Our front porch (paid extra for that!) and doorway. To the right is the kitchen window. To the left is the smallest bedroom's window.

Standing near the kitchen looking to the back of the house. On the right will be our dining area and toward the back, near the patio door, is the living room.

Standing near the kitchen looking into the 3rd bedroom and beyond. If I had cute little arrows, I could point them all over to show the 2nd bedroom, master, and if we squint, some of the bathroom.

It was raining today and when we drove past this morning, there was a small crew working. They were dripping wet but managed to still put up all of our walls. Tomorrow if they're there, we might take coffee and hot chocolate. We went back this evening when everyone was gone. That way we can wander all over, in and out of houses, etc. We got very muddy but it was such fun to see the house starting to take shape.

Making progress

Visited tonight and found the garage, front porch, and back porch are all in. They've put the plumbing and electrical conduits under the house. Our favorite part: they've delivered stacks and stacks of wood for building the floor, walls, and roof. The windows have been delivered and are waiting at the curb.

Camille and Shannon looking under the house. In the background you see several pallets of lumber.

Our ginormous garage. 2 1/2 cars wide, 8 feet longer than usual.

Garage Floor & Back Patio poured

Drove past today and there were workers everywhere on all the houses. Looks like they've laid the plumbing and other piping in the crawlspace under the house. They've also poured the concrete for the garage and back patio! And probably front step...I didn't see that but they probably did that too. We may go back tonight so we can get out and look around. Probably no pictures unless they've done something spectacular, otherwise it looks mostly the same as before!

Sub floor is started

We visited today and found the sub flooring has been started. They've also filled in the garage floor with gravel and it looks ready for cement on Monday. The workers were working (on a Saturday) on the house next door. They seemed friendly and waved to us.

We also met a neighbor. She lives just around the corner with her husband. She said they LOVE the neighborhood and that all of their neighbors are our age with young kids. Sounds great! She was helping her best friend move into a newly finished house today and welcomed us to the neighborhood.

Foundation is done!

We knew the first inspection was scheduled for today, so we headed over tonight to see what was new. To our surprise, the concrete foundation is finished. Looks like they'll be ready to pour the garage tomorrow. The house right next door to ours is about 2 days ahead, so it's interesting to see where it is every time we visit. You can click on the photos for a bigger version.

Without further ado, the photos:

The houses in progress across the street. Believe it or not, they'll be building a house in between the two here. Close together, yes they are! The house on the right is almost done. We first saw it with 2x4 studs. The house on the left was just a foundation when we first saw it. That was about a month ago. Three weeks maybe. Crazy, eh?

Standing in the garage, looking at the house. Shannon and Camille are standing roughly where the master bedroom will be.

From the back yard. The big square nearest the camera is the house. The littler square at the back of the photo is the garage. You can barely see Shannon in a blue shirt in front of that black truck.

Colors

I was going through some photos and found this. I'd forgotten all about it, but these are the colors for our house. The darker cabinet and darker carpet were our ultimate choices. We also went with a darker vinyl for the kitchen and bathrooms, but you get the idea.

We'll have laminate countertops with a tumbled stone backsplash, birch cabinets, a vinyl floor, a stone tile entryway, and carpet throughout. We upgraded the carpet from super cheap to semi-cheap. The birch cabinets were also an upgrade.

Foundation is almost up!

The wood mold for the concrete foundation is completely up and appears ready for pouring. It was fun to walk "through" the house today and imagine where everything will be.

We also have a better idea of just how big (or small!) our yard will be. The side yards will only be about 5 feet from house to fence. The backyard will be a bit bigger and it's still hard to tell there since there's a lot of dirt piled back there. I'm glad we were able to get a larger lot...the other lots are 2 feet narrower and 10 feet shorter! That makes a big difference on small lots like ours.

Our House

I'll light the fire

You put the flowers in the vase

That you bought today

Staring at the fire

For hours and hours

While I listen to you

Play your love songs

All night long for me

Only for me

Come to me now

And rest your head for just five minutes

Everything is good

Such a cosy room

The windows are illuminated

By the sunshine through them

Fiery gems for you

Only for you

Our house is a very, very fine house

With two cats in the yard

Life used to be so hard

Now everything is easy

'Cause of you

And our la,la,la, la,la, la, la, la, la, la, la.....

Our house is a very, very fine house

With two cats in the yard

Life used to be so hard

Now everything is easy

'Cause of you

And Our

I'll light the fire

And you place the flowers in the jar

That you bought today

House News

The news is more or less official...we're building a house!

I don't want to butt in on Matthew and Abby's house news (I'm so happy for you guys!) so I haven't really mentioned this to anyone but Mom. We didn't want to miss out on the tax credit so we've been house shopping for a few months. We finally found what we wanted in a new neighborhood not far from where we are now.

This is what it looked like about 3 weeks ago...bare ground with a SOLD sign! We signed the paperwork on August 6 to make an offer. It was accepted a day later and they put up the sold sign right away.

The pic below is an approximation of what we'll have in November. The picture is a house that was already built and was sold a few weeks ago. We toured it and really liked it a lot. By the time we had our ducks in a row, that house sold. So we're building one! Our house isn't fancy...it's in a neighborhood of nearly identical houses (though they actually do a decent job of making them look different). But it will be built with some specifications just for us: the garage will be 8 feet longer, the garage will be insulated, there's an exterior door from the garage to outside (have to pay extra for that!), and we've added outlets. Those are all benefits for the business.

Inside the house, we're upgrading the carpet and the kitchen cabinets. And we're adding a porch to the outside. So a few "wants" are being added, too. Once the house is done, we'll have to put in our own backyard and a fence. That may have to wait until spring, though. Anyway, they've started building already (foundation is in today!) and it's supposed to be done by Nov 15. We should be able to move right before Thanksgiving.

Oh, and for the "little" details: it's 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, kitchen, utility room, and garage. Small backyard but we can finally plant our plants in one spot. I've been lugging these two poor azaleas around for literally 10 years in pots. It's always been my benchmark...we'll be truly home when I can plant the azaleas.