Framing Day 1 and Day 2

For lack of a better title here are the progress pics on the framing. We were a little disappointed that on day one the only thing that we saw were the floor joists. The following day though there were walls all the way around! Exciting! Can't wait to see what it looks like in Monday.

The foundation, grading and a passed inspection...

Its been a few days since our last post...as many of you know first hand the holidays can be quite hectic with not much time to post updates.  We did however, have a couple of opportunities to visit the lot and we found that progress has been very quick and so much has happened with our house. Take a look!

I think the crew thinks we're crazy taking so many pictures.  There were a number of amused looks on their faces =)  The following day we returned to the lot and found that the crew was very efficient:

There is a good sized opening into our crawl space so we'll have plenty of room for anything that needs to be done by access house from underneath.  The vents are on the crawl space are pretty neat as well.  They open and close depending on the time of year to keep the area ventilated.  The next day (it was rainy so I think that was Monday) I took a quick trip during my lunch break for a peek at the lot...its so addictive!

 

The crew had leveled the inside of the crawl space and laid down protective tarp as well as prepped the floor of the garage to lay the concrete.  The lot had also been graded to reflect the shape that it will have once everything is complete.  We were pleasantly surprised that it didn't have quite as big of slope as we had expected and that there was a lot more room on the sides of the house than what we saw on the plat (those things are hard to read anyway).  And just before I left, the delivery truck came with the first loads of the wood! A quick meeting with our PM yesterday and we found that we had PASSED all the inspections and that framing starts today! Stay tuned for more pics to come...hubby and I are meeting after work to check out FRAMING DAY 1 (yes, I'm going to just use the same post title as others have...just makes it easy...=)

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our new blogger friends! We hope you are blessed to be with loved ones and have the opportunity to make new memories! Next year we'll all be in our new homes!

Fill 'er up!

I arrived at the lot just in time to see the concrete going in for our foundation.  I was able to spend some time with a very nice engineering inspector who was there to oversee the process. I learned all about how he and his wife should be retired but when she decided to go back to work he needed something to do because afterall there were only so many conversations you could have with a dog...I also learned that in our county there were regulations that required inspectors to be there during the entire process.  He also mentioned that minimum requirement for the concrete was 8in but that on our lot they were pouring 24in almost all the way around- which according to him makes it so that "you're lot ain't goin to settle hardly at all and you ain't paying extra for all that concrete"  After discussing the history of how my county's inspection system evolved to what it is now (being one of the only ones in these parts that has such stringent requirements) he talked about what a great job they had done in grading the lot and that we shouldn't get any standing water on our lot. YAY!!!!  Because we are bloggers and love visuals, here are the pics:

The Pumper (don't think that's what its called but its what I named it)

 

The guy in the overalls on the very right is the owner of the company.  Apparantly he makes it out to almost every site to work with his team.  When I left they were almost done pouring the concrete in the channels.  Hubby stopped by later and took these pics:

Front of the house

 

 Back of the house (family room with fireplace)

 

Back of the house (morning room)

 

Left side of the house (garage looking towards living room)

 

If all goes as planned we should have the crawl space bricks in by the weekend!

 

 

The Stakeout and Sunset

Hubby and I visited the lot this evening after work.  We were able to get there just as the last bit of daylight was fading in to night.  We found that they had dug out our lot and staked it out.  If you look closely in the picture you may be able to see the little orange flags that marks the spot of the exterior walls of our house! But daylight was fading fast so I only had the chance to take a couple of pics.

 

The view from the back of the lot to the front...great sunset view!!!

Uprooted!!!

True to his word, my PM had the lot cleared today!!! I was a little worried that with it being rainy today that they wouldn't get to clear our lot but when I stopped by today around lunchtime this is what I saw-

This shot is from across the street.

 

 

 

This is from the back.  There is a small lot behind us that may or may not be developed.

 

 

Bye bye trees! (Don't worry...we'll plant new ones!!!)

 



SOLD!!!!! (Again...)

True to my word, I went to visit the lot today to see if by chance they had started clearing it out.  Much to my chagrin, I found that there hadn't been any changes to the lot except for one...the lot sign.  When I arrived I saw that all of the lot signs had been changed to much nicer signage and that the lots next to us (which had just recently been released) now had signs on them.

Though much nicer, it was missing one very important piece....the SOLD sign!!!  After a quick call to my SR to see if he knew that the signs had been changed (he said he had noticed some newer signs in a totally different area but didn't know that the ones in our neighborhood had also been replaced) I went over to the model and picked up a new SOLD sign.  I also suggested that he (or anyone else from RYAN homes) go around and replace the SOLD signs on the other lots to avoid confusion if someone was showing lots in the area.  He said that was probably a good idea.

MUCH BETTER!!!!

Pre-Construction meeting and a new drainage ditch

Yesterday we had our pre-construction meeting where we were finally able to meet our PM.  (Isz Wisz- I think we have the same PM! He mentioned your blog and we, of course, told him that we were well aware of what had been going on...at least we'll keep him on his toes!)  He seemed very friendly and knowledgeable about the process.  He took the time to answer all of our questions and made suggestions that helped us decided on a couple of options.  One of those was the issue with the wine refrigerator which in the end we decided to make a future DIY project (and by DIY I mean that I will hire someone to do it!).  We are pretty excited that we'll be breaking ground sometime soon...possibly even by Monday! 

After the meeting we stopped by our lot and took a walk around.  We noticed that there was a new water drainage ditch at the very back of our lot (between us and the lot behind us).  Guess they had to get something in before the plans could be approved.  We are located right next to a protected area that includes wetlands so I they have to be very careful with drainage.  Our PM said that they have to even be careful with anything they have to remove from our lot.  If for instance, there is a tree that is on both our lot an in the protected area with the roots being in the protected area, they are only allowed to cut off what is in our lot.  It just means that they have to be very careful about where they have machinery and how close they get (our house had to be set back a minimum of 15 feet from the  protected area).  We are glad though that we have this protected area as it gives us an extra area next to the house where nothing can be built.

We did, of course, get the reminder from our PM that any visits to the house while it is under construction will have to have someone from RYAN homes there as a chaperon.  I went ahead and told him that he could expect me to visit the site on my lunch break every day that I'm at work (and probably on the weekends too).  He seemed very accommodating to this and only asked that I send him a text to make sure that either himself or his assistant could be there.  That's fine...at least I gave them fair warning.  I also reminded him that I would be blogging about our experience...again- just making sure he had fair warning. =)

Holding Pattern...and a wine refrigerator...

Hello bloggers! Its been awhile since I've posted but there really hasn't been much to report.  We are in a holding pattern on the start of construction but it is entirely by choice.  Our SR called and said that all of our plans got the approvals that we needed and that they could actually start our home earlier than anticipated.  While we were excited to have the approvals, an earlier start would mean an earlier settlement which doesn't fall in line with our budget to get the last of the downpayment that we will need to bring to us for closing.  So we decided to wait and go with the original schedule...although reading everyone's posts about the progress on their houses I almost wish that we had!

On another note, I am a little sad because I decided that I want a wine refrigerator in my island.  Of course, I decided this after the changes and final options were put in...wonder how much its going to cost to get them to leave an open space in the island and to put an electrical outlet on the inside?  Guess I will have to wait to talk to my PM about this...like other bloggers I am not really getting any more answers from him other than "we can talk to your PM about this during the pre-construction meeting." Well, if we talk about all the things that he suggested I talk to the PM about then I might rival Rick and Nadase's 6hr meeting time.  After all, our meeting to select colors for the house was over 2hrs. =)