House pics after closing

Sorry for the late post, these are photos that we took after our closing on June 24th. After closing, we have epoxied the garage floors, sealed shower tiles and installed blinds. We are in the midst of moving and will have more pics to post soon.

stairs

hall bath shower/tub combo

hall bath vanity

laundry room

looking from laundry room

huge bonus room

in the master bedroom looking at master bath and  hallway

door to closet and water closet (right)

master bath shower

bathroom fixture

We asked that master closet shelves be left uninstalled

dining room

powder room and mudroom opening

foyer

great room

kitchen showing morning room

kitchen showing pantry (left) and door to basement

cooktop and hood

faucet

Our vehicles could fit in our 3-car garage. LOL!

Mudroom looking out the foyer

First install

Above fridge cabinet

This post is for Kimmie (and for those interested) . Here's what our PM did with our above-fridge cabinet. He built a bump out from the wall with 2x4s and drywalled it so he could attach the cabinet on the back.

Closed!

We were scheduled to close yesterday (Tuesday) at 1pm but did not actually sign the paperwork until around 5pm.  NVR settlement were supposed to give me the HUD 4 days before closing but I did not get a preliminary HUD until the night before closing. Of course, I lost sleep scrutinizing it and found some numbers that had to be adjusted. The morning of closing day comprised of endless back and forth emails between lender, settlement company, builder and me.  We had to sign a Ryan homes addendum at the last minute. Anyway, glad that's over :)

Well, technically still not over. We headed to the home after closing and guess what, problem with the sump pump :( PM should be checking it right now.

Update: 6 days from closing (No excitement here)

This photo above perfectly depicts what I feel right now, 6 days from closing. Like there's a big storm cloud hovering over my head. Sorry to be such a damper, I really want to feel excited as we approach closing, but I am just not. At least not totally.

I really do like this photo taken by hubby but that storm caused major panic in my part. Due to lack of proper grading and electricity to power the sump pump, water flooded the stairwell and made its way to the basement. I freaked out (still am) and would like to be assured that our basement won't be flooded in the future. I am not comfortable closing until after a major downpour and the basement remains completely dry, not a single drop of water. Am I being unreasonable?

In other news...
I mentioned in my previous post that half of our driveway had to be torn apart. This happened because they forgot to run electrical wires under it. Good things resulted from this: we got a slighty wider driveway and we were able to run a PVC conduit (for cable lines) under the newly poured concrete.

Half driveway

New driveway

In my other previous post here, I mentioned the tube (water line) sticking out in the middle of the floor of a future finished space in the basement. PM told me that they will dig a trench and pull the line and make it flush to the wall so that the protrusion will be the same as the one in the Palermo model.

Model home basement. Not a very good pic but see the protrusion on the right wall.

Water line sticking out 19 inches from the concrete wall

Yes, they pulled the line, but not all the way. Not happy about this. If you look at the model pic, the bumpout is around 6 inches and ours is about 19 inches, and that's not even including the thickness of the 2x4s and drywall to be used when finishing the wall.

On a brighter note...
I stopped by earlier today and the house is looking great. They are just putting the finishing touches and cleaning crew was also there.  Landscaping has been done and sod is ready to go down. I do not have many interior pictures because the inside was still a mess. PM is working overtime to have the house ready for the Ryan Homes quality inspection tomorrow. We are supposed to have the pre-settlement walkthrough on Friday but PM is requesting to move it to Monday. Then we close on Tuesday.

Here are some exterior pictures taken this week:

We have a willow oak tree in front. This tree will be huuuuge! We might replace it with something else.

Black front door

Side garage with lights on

Some interior pictures taken this week:

GE cooktop on black slate formica

Kitchen mess

Stained balusters and carpeted stairs

Hope to write an update again soon. I'll take more pictures next time. Also, hopefully this apprehension will turn into excitement soon!

Twelve days from closing and appraisal

This home building process is really testing my patience. We never seem to run out of issues in the house. I don't want this blog to be all about my rants so I don't post all of them here. But there are so many! Some minor but a few major ones. Our walls have holes in them because fixtures are not centered, not leveled, incorrent placement of vents, there's a door where it's not supposed to be, etc. One of the major ones is that half of our driveway had to be torn apart and repoured next week. Our presettlement walkthrough is scheduled next Friday June 20th and closing on the 24th. Our new PM is working hard to address the issues and have the house ready by then.

On a brighter note, our appraisal came back to be higher than what we paid for so that's good.

Update with Exterior pics

First of all, we have a new PM since about 3 days ago. They said our first PM is really busy overseeing so many constructions and cannot devote his full attention to all the details in our home, I guess especially with all the questions and issues we have. (Or maybe he just thinks we are a pain-in-the... ). The new PM said that he will take care of the issues we have raised in my previous post and others that didn't make it to the post. So we will wait for these things to be addressed.

Anyway, some other major things have happened this week. Our house is now covered in vinyl sidings, in fact way too many sidings that an area supposed to be brick was also covered with vinyl sidings. Of course, that will be fixed too. The driveway has been poured, all the shutters and trims were installed. Doors have been painted black, the front brick steps have also been installed. The interior of the home has been painted, all doors have been painted, flooring (except carpet) laid down, cable/phone jacks were installed, balusters are in. All the bathroom vanities and mirrors have been installed and showers have been tiled. The kitchen cabinets were also installed but they took them apart so that they could fix the leaning bar wall mentioned in my previous post.

Here are some pics. I was only able to take pictures of the exterior of the home, forgot to take pics when we were inside.  'Til my next update.

Updates and Issues: Three weeks from closing

We are three weeks from closing!!! There are still so many things that have to be done inside the home but PM and PS assured us that we will definitely close on June 24th. We visited the house at least 3 times the past week and here are some photo updates from the past week. The brick facade has been completed. The interior has been drywalled and a first coat of paint has been applied. Our cabinets, sinks, mailbox and interior doors have also arrived and are now in the garage.

The brickwork is complete. All exterior doors and windows installed. The boxes in the front are the pebble clay siding.

I really like the Savannah moss and it's great that even though there are 4 or 5 (?) Palermos on our street (only one with the same elevation as ours), all our Palermos look different from each other and our house is the only one with a full brick facade.

Garage doors are installed!

Goodies in the garage.

Painted walls. Pantry and door to basement.

Plumbing work has also been done in the front of the home. Seems very shallow.

Now here are some issues that we have emailed our PM about:

This is a tube sticking out from the basement floor, in the middle of a future finished space. I thought this was something temporary but it is still there so I would like to know how this is going to be addressed. Also notice that puddle of water behind the tube? Water is dripping from the vent line (i don't know what it's called) in the picture below.

This shouldn't hold water in it, should it?

The picture below shows plumbing lines that were run under the joists, which will be in the way when we finish our basement ceiling. This issue has been raised to my PS before and he said that he will make the plumbers run the lines through the joists, instead of under them. But they still have not fixed these as of yesterday.

The next few pics show gaps between the floor and the walls. These are found in bedroom 3 and the master closet. I am aware that they will be covered in vinyl siding eventually but I think these gaps should still be sealed.

Lastly, not just in the angle in this photo but we looked closely at our kitchen bar and it seems leaning to the right. So we asked our PM to make sure it is straight.

Some other issues that we mentioned to our PM are squeaking windows and floors. Maybe it's too early to complain about these, I don't know. Another disappointment is that I requested our PS several times about extra studs/TV brackets and extra joists under the laundry room. We have been assured multiple times that they will be done but were not and it's too late to do it, so that was really annoying.