Drywall Up- Day 42 (Sept. 28th)

Drywall is up.  They began yesterday.

Our tentative walk-through date is November 5th, with settlement to occur a few days after that.  I pray that these dates "stick".   We are soooooo ready to get out of our apartment.  We have been climbing 63 stairs everyday for the last 4 1/2 years, to reach our front door.  Pain. In. The. Butt.  It is so bad, we were a little hesitant in getting the Venice, because it is a two-story house!  We did not want to look at another stair in our lives!!!  We can see the light at the end of the tunnel now...

Basement

First Floor

Top Floor

My handsome hubby who comes with the house.  Lucky me! ;-) 

Some Exterior Photos

That's one fine looking' house, if I do say so myself! :-)

Rome, Rome, Milan.

Where the sidewalk will be.  Not crazy about this standing water.  Hopefully they will do something about this.

So this will probably be it for a while.  The hubs and I decided not to go out and look at the house during the month of October.  We kinda want to be surprised at the end of this process.  We have not had any major issues with anything up to this point, so we are going to trust our PM to finish the job satisfactorily.  He has been more than awesome, by the way.  I'm not sure if I can stay away that long, though.  I'm not sure if we can stay away that long.

Would you do the same?

God is our Foundation- Day 33 (Sept. 19th)

My husband and I went by the house today to write some of our favorite scriptures in various places.  We had one of our bibles buried in the foundation as well.  We are a family of faith, and we try to put God first in all that we do.
We actually borrowed this idea from some other bloggers, and we have used some of the scriptures they used.  These are just a few we wrote.

We are believing God for a family.  We wrote this in our bedroom.

In the guest bedroom.

Above the future nursery.

In the future nursery.

In our bedroom.

Master bathroom.

Master bedroom.

Above front door.

Pre-Drywall Meeting, Day 32 (Sept. 18th)

The pre-drywall meeting went very well.  It was rather quick, partly because I didn't really have any questions. The inspector we hired seemed to answer everything on Tuesday.  The concerns we had wight he truss and gussets are being addressed and repaired.  The engineer will be providing us paperwork as well.
I can't say enough about our PM.  He has been awesome.
We found out that the salesperson we have been dealing with is leaving.  This would be the 2nd one to leave in 7 months.  I wonder what's going on in that end of the business?  I expressed my utter satisfaction with the building process to my PM, while the sales process was lacking.  There were many things we could have added to our home that we had no idea we could get.  We specifically asked about a deck, and were told that they do not do them anymore.  That was not true.  Our PM said that it was an option.  He even gave us the name and number of the company that Ryan uses.  This would have been nice to roll into our mortgage.  Oh well.
While walking around the home at this point, we are regretting not doing a couple of things.  Those optional morning room windows would have been nice.  My husband even mentioned this, and he usually could care less about the cosmetics of a home.  But the downside of these windows would have been the view- the side of our neighbors home.  We would have opted for more recessed lights in some other places in the house.
I think that the laundry room is a bunch of wasted space.  I mean really, it could be used as another bathroom.  It should be.  I don't know anyone who needs this much room to wash and dry clothes.  Well, unless you have a family of 8 or so, maybe.  Seriously, it is a massive room, all things considered.  I asked the PM about knocking out that wall between the laundry room and the master bath to make the master bath larger to fit in a tub (at a later date), because we opted for the alternate bath set-up with just the shower.  He said that it is possible, but that it would be a large cost because all of the plumbing would have to be moved.
I told the PM about all of the extra recessed lights (10 extra in all) were not what we paid for.  He did confirm that they were not "per plan" and that it was probably an oversight on their end.  He said they were in now, and that they're staying!  I said thank you Ryan Homes!  We both laughed.

Pre-Drywall Inspection- Day 30 (Sept. 16th)

We decided to hire our own inspector prior to our pre-drywall meeting.  Our private inspectors name is Patrick Lee from Lee Home Inspections.  He was well worth the money.  He supplied me with tons of knowledge.  By the time I left his presence, I felt that I knew every nook and cranny of my home, and its purpose.
He was recommended to us by our fabulous realtor, Brenda Thomas, who has become a friend.  We love her!
We did find one potential problem.  I say potential because I was forewarned by my PM (who is super-awesome by the way.  If he's single, I have a girlfriend I'd like to introduce him to) that some of the things we might "catch" are things that they already have on their radar and are preparing to go back and fix.  Well, we have the real pre-drywall meeting on Thursday.  I hope that this is on their radar:

Wood truss is broken.

The silver looking "nail plate" thingy at the very top is suppose to be laying flat against the wood.  Its not- compare it to the blurry one at the bottom of the pic.  It's suppose to look like that.

In all fairness, the inspector said that this could have already been addressed with the engineer.  He could have said it was fine and to proceed.  But, to be on the safe side, I will be pointing this out during the pre-drywall meeting.  Either way, I will be getting something in writing from either the engineer or Ryan Homes concerning this.
I must say that I am impressed with the quality of the home.  So was the inspector.  He said that all of the valves, utility units, etc. were really quality items.  This made me feel really good.
I was also surprised with some unexpected things I saw-
We have 9 recessed lights in the kitchen!  We were told we were only getting 6.

We are also getting one in the guest bathroom, instead of that "boob" light.
There will be another recessed light on the "porch" outside as well.

Here are some more pics.  Nothing exciting.  I just took all of theses for my records.

Morning Room ceiling fan rough-in.

One last item- our super-duper PM moved a hose bib last minute for me.  I really appreciate that.  He has been very accommodating with anything that we have asked.  I don't think that we have asked for much, but what we have asked, we usually have gotten it.  He has definitely been a pleasure to work with!