Wow - 3 Months Since Last Post

We certainly never figured it would be this long since our last post.  Will try and catch everyone up on what's kept us busy.  We had Thanksgiving and Christmas at our house.  We also hosted a Christmas Party for DH's work friends.  Our daughters were both in at Christmas time so that was a special treat.  DH got a special Xmas gift(picture later)  The sprinkler system, landscaping, hardscaping, and lighting are finally completed...other then the lighting will have to wait for spring for pictures.  A good portion of the 30-day inspection list is complete, but there is still another chunk to get done.  Hardwood Flooring update...not much to report here...the Bruce Hardwood rep was out just over a week ago and took all kinds of measurements and photos.  We have a ton more cracked boards then we did right before Thanksgiving.  He has submitted his report to their corporate office.  We think the result is going to be rip all the hardwood flooring out and redo it all.  Other then the cracks they really do look great.  We got a new computer hutch and file cabinet for the study which very closely match the antique desk that we have.  We got a table for the basement media area that has one side that lifts up with storage underneath...it also has 2 stools that slide out from underneath that each have storage in them too.  We purchased 4 barstools for the basement bar.  All of the blinds have finally come in and are now installed.

Family Room Fireplace

 Hutch with Crystal Figurine collection

 Xmas Tree in Solarium with Murphy in front...Toby wouldn't sit still for the picture

 Solarium shades and furniture - Wine Frig in corner from Costco.

 Xmas Decorations and Wine Bar

 Stairs

 Basement with new table

 Xmas Village has a new home

 Basement Fireplace and backlit shades

Basement Pub table with mirror

Foyer Hall Decorations and Grandmother's Desk

 

 Bedroom #3

 Study

 New Computer Desk and File Cabinet

 Vase with flowers

 Another beautiful sunrise - this view never gets old :)

 You can see the new fence out the window

 House accent lighting

 We got our new fence and quickly discovered that are smallest dog(Toby) could twist his shoulders and get through the fence.  We definitely did not want to have to run chicken wire along the bottom and instead found Puppy Bumpers online and purchased two of them...now he can't fit through the fence and we are all happy again.

 DH's Xmas Present - we were sad to see the Suburban go after 11 great years, but hubby doesn't miss it too much and with the very mild winter we have had he has had numerous top town driving days...including one last week.

That's all for now...hopefully it is not another 3 months before we post again.

Quick Update - No new pics yet - soon

Busy....busy...busy...I could leave it at that and those that have closed already would understand, but I will try and update everyone on what's been going on.

Flooring people came in and cleaned up all the excess grout except for 2 tiles...we have begun sealing the grout...more on that later.

We just had our 30-Day walk thru and the list is very very long (71 line items) not counting painting touch-ups and the hardwood dings and cracks.  The large majority of these were on the list from our walk thru at settlement...we have probably added less then 12 to the list since moving in.  As I mentioned before the hardwoods look fantastic, but the cracks have us very concerned...our PM has never seen so many and is going to have the flooring company manager come to take a look at it before deciding what to do...not sure if it is just a bad batch or an installation problem, but for now our beautiful floors have blue tape all over them and it is keeping us from putting down some oriental rugs as well as putting other things away in the china cabinet and buffet since we may have to move them and they are already quite heavy pieces of furniture when empty.  Anyway, our PM agreed with us on all the items on our list and we should begin to see work on them in the next couple weeks...it's going to be a scheduling nightmare though.

We have a company putting in our shrubs, irrigation system, hardscaping, and accent lighting, but it has been taking forever...not one of those items is totally complete and they have been working on it for at least 4 weeks...everything is about 95-98% complete but nothing totally finished...supposedly it is ALL going to be finished today...we will see....I must say it all looks great, just not DONE and now that we are into November and the temperatures have dropped we might as well forget about trying to do anything with the grass till spring...grrrrrrr.

Our fence was put in this week and looks fantastic.  Our 2 dogs are loving the fact that they don't have to go outside on a lead any more and can chase each other around like normal.

For those of you that have to seal your grout our PM told us about this product:  Tile Guard - One Step Grout Sealer - we got it from Lowe's - it is fantastic....you just spray it on the grout and any overspray or excess evaporates away - be careful - they have an identical product that is water-based - it does not evaporate and you have to wipe up the excess by hand.  This one the majority evaporates by itself and usually you will have one or two spots that you need to wipe up by hand if they haven't evaporated in an hour.  It goes extremely fast...I did our entire master bath in less then 30 minutes.  My other caution is if you have asthma you should probably NOT use this product.

As I mentioned in the last blog entry we have ordered our blinds and if all goes well they should start coming in next week and will get installed as they arrive...a few of them will take about 4 weeks to come in.  They were nice enough to hang a temporary one in the master bath so we are able to now use the shower and tub...can I just say that the Shower Spa (human car wash) is awesome and we both have used the jetted tub quite frequently...they both have been great for the sore backs that come along with the moving process and very very relaxing. 

Will try and post some pictures if I get a chance...maybe they will actually finish the outside work and I can get some pictures even though the grass looks horrible...that's all for now....

Happy HOME Building!!!!

Update with Some Pictures

It's hard to believe we have been in our new home for almost 3 weeks.  We finally got the Verizon installation today...YIPPIE...but tonight I discovered that the hardwired Ethernet ports do not appear to be working.  Verizon wireless router is working fine and any computer connected wirelessly or directly to that router is working...oh well...that will have to wait for another day...

Irrigation(sprinkler) system installation is just about complete.  We will end up with 14 zones for now.  Today they were working on taking 2 of our gutters and running them into a pipe that runs underground, under the sidewalk, into a pop-up drain by the street.  This will get the water coming off the 2 largest areas of the roof away from the house foundation, shrub beds, and driveway(ie no frozen driveway).  They also started work on the landscape/accent lighting today and when that is complete they will start the installation of our shrubs and trees.  This is not RH work but a company called Lawn Quenchers is doing the work...will take pictures when it looks pretty...right now it looks like a bomb went off in our yard.  We have approval to install our fence and are waiting for the materials to come in and that can get started.  Our 2 dogs will love it when the fence is finally in...they do not like being out on the leads at all.

We are slowing getting boxes unpacked and put away.  8 of 9 ceiling fans have been installed.  Blinds for all the windows have been ordered and should begin arriving in the next couple of weeks.  Thankfully the order includes installation...otherwise, by my rough estimate it would have been in the neighborhood of 26 hours of installation...whew!!!  A few of the rooms are just about done and I have included some pictures below.

Our dishwasher is working great, but has a bent wheel...GE service said they were sending a complete new bottom rack, but what arrived was one set of the folding tines...oh well...try again.

We are not too happy with the hardwood floor installation.  We have numerous dings and cracks all over the place...most in the foyer and dining room.  The areas with tile floors have numerous grout smears on the tiles and we have not been able to get them off and don't want to seal the grout till this is removed.  Contacted PM who agreed that these should be cleaned up....flooring people will come in...not sure when yet.

Here's the Pictures:

SunRoom

 SunRoom with the boys checking out the workers

 SunRoom with the beautiful Sunrises we are treated to each morning

 SunRises

 Basement Media Area - still working on getting everything setup right

 Pub Table area - granite lazy susan is MIA from movers - they are looking for it - waiting to hear the resolution

 Basement Fireplace with 2 love seats and an ottoman - don't mind the speaker cables running across the floor - as I said, the media area is still a work in progress

 Fireplace - Bucks County Ledgestone - the stone mantel looks fantastic

 Sitting Room off Master Bedroom

 Master Bedroom - notice the two dog begs - yeah right - they don't sleep there very often - right in the bed with us!!!

 New bed - still deciding on lampshades and lamps might even change

 Master Bedroom dresser and chair

 Bedroom #2

 Bathroom #2

 Bedroom #4

 Bedroom #3 - LOL - this is just temporary till the furniture comes from our old house - it is being used for staging - until that time the inflatable mattress will do

 And Finally - Our Lion King photo - another beautiful sunrise

Take care and happy building.

Time Flies!!!

It is hard to believe we have been the new owners of this beautiful home for 1 week now...time sure flies when you are crazy busy.  We keep pinching ourselves to make sure this is not some crazy dream we are having.  Let's see if I can remember everything that has gone on in this last week.  The day after settlement was crazy here.  We had torrential downpours most of the day.  We had our movers bring all our stuff that we had in storage....we had a delivery from Raymour & Flanagan(bedroom set, 2 love seats, and man cave furniture) and another from Jonny Janosik(master bedroom furniture and ottoman)...On Monday we had a table delivered that we had refinished and it looks fantastic...there are 2 more pieces being worked on that should be delivered this weekend.  The new and old furniture all looks great in the house and it was nice to see some of the pieces that have been in storage since May.  We have approval from HOA to install our fence and are in the process of getting approval for the sprinkler system.  We have made numerous trips back and forth to our old house.  Our Suburban is giving us problems so that has been slowing us down...it is currently in the shop to find out what the problem is.  It has been cloudy every day and at some point each day it has poured...that's actually a good thing since it is helping our grass get started, but getting the sprinkler system and fence installed is going to be a setback for the grass.  My wife finally beat Verizon into submission and they finally agreed that yes they could install phone, FIOS Internet and FIOS TV...that only took 5 weeks, hours and hours on the phone, until she finally got a manager who would take ownership and contact the Engineer we talked with back in February.  Anyway it is now resolved and installation will be on the 11th...btw...while we were working it from our end our RH sales rep was tracking down the RH Verizon contact person and at the same time we were getting our order finalized our sales rep sent an email saying that their contact said we should be able to get the Triple Play and if we still weren't getting anywhere to call that Verizon person directly.  I told our sales rep to save that contact name and that favor for the customer that has the same problem.  We have a punch list of 45 items which either weren't finished in time for settlement or we found during our 2 walkthrus.  Our two fireplaces don't work...one has a bad part which is ordered, the second one worked during walkthru, but didn't work the next day.  We have a huge hole in the ceiling of one bedroom and 2 more holes in the ceiling of the basement where the township inspector made our PM cut access holes...more on that at another time...they will be fixed.  I have been busy installing ceiling fans...7 installed so far...2 to go...the 2 left are the 15 ft. ceiling in the sunroom and the 12 ft ceiling in the morning room...guess why those 2 are left.  I have been promising to show pictures of the kitchen and while it is not quite finished yet and these pictures are at night I will share them anyway.

Under cabinet lighting on looking from family room.

The cover for the duct work above the vent is backordered till November.

The left cabinet is going to be glass too...that door just arrived and is awaiting installation.

The sink faucet is not the correct model and the soap dispenser has not yet arrived.

The refrigerator is not installed flush with the cabinets and there is more trim needed to finish that installation.

A piece of kickboard is the wrong color(can't see it in pictures)

 Next to Frig:  Avantium Oven, Trivection Wall Oven, and Warming Drawer

 Glass cabinets on the backside of the island

 Recessed Lighting now on too

 The 6 burner gas stove is on fire...just kidding...that's the glow from the warming light that is in the vent hood.  If you look close you can see the pot filler just to the right of the stove.

Just realized I forgot to upload the picture that shows the dishwasher and a closer view of the sink...oh well...will have to wait for another time.

Will add additional pictures as we get areas completed...