Construction Update and Pictures - Week 6

Hi all :)

In addition to Sam's video on Wednesday, Frank (PM) updated us on what's been done and what's coming next. Here's where we are as of Friday 2/17:

We've completed the foundation and begun tying in the water and sewer and doing the groundwork plumbing. If weather cooperates next week I'm hoping to have the slab poured so we can start framing a week from Monday.

Oh yea, Frank. Weather will be just fine :D

Chad and I stopped by on Saturday and took some pictures. Funny how during the foundation step of the process, the house looks so tiny!

Panoramic of our row. There will be 5 houses. We have the second from the right to the left.

Our one-car garage at the front of the house. The front door will be to the left of the garage. 

Picture of the back of the house. Our garage to the left. The neighbor's front door and ours will be side to side.

Another picture of the back of the house. It shows the foundation wall a little better.

Construction Update - Footers

Hello!


Sam, our SR, just sent us a video showing the progress in our house. It looks like they are pouring footers for our home today! I plan on driving by the house this weekend and see how that's going. I'll get some pictures to upload here later.


Also, I added a link to a website with an explanation on what footers are and their purpose on my Helpful Links in the Menu to the right --->


Here is the link for the video Sam sent us.

I See Dirt!

Chad gets so frustrated that cleaning and organizing is one of my hobbies. He says, "Woman, you just woke up. Let go of the vacuum and sit your butt down for a minute!" I come from a culture where mommy would wake up early and I'd get up to music playing, broom sweeping, and food cooking. So yes, I love seeing my house clean.

So, with that, I never thought I'd say I've never been happier to see some dirt! Look at that pile--most beautiful thing I've seen in months! It's real. It's happening :D

Pre-Construction Meeting

Pre-construction meeting is out of the way!

We met Frank, our Project Manager, today. He was very nice and attentive to our questions and concerns. He's been with Ryan Homes for 5 years managing different communities. He seems very knowledgeable and didn't skip a beat when it was time to answer my questions. We liked him, which is a great start :)
For everyone out there: make sure you know exactly which changes you've made, even if you got your Addendum. We had an extra outlet in the basement ceiling and the single kitchen bowl selected, but they weren't on the PM's paperwork. That is exactly the purpose of those meetings, of course, but don't assume RH will have everything in place.

Here are the answers to my questions:

1. When will you be onsite?
Monday - Friday, 6:30am to 3:30pm

2. Will you be away on vacation during this build?
No

3. What's your preferred contact method and how frequent will we get updates?
Email or text. At the beginning, probably every other week. As construction pick up, weekly

4. What is the rough schedule from ground breaking to delivery?
Breaking ground tomorrow. Should be finished by end of April / beginning of May (we had asked SR at contract signing to settle in June, if possible. She said she's aware and we should be ok with that)

5. Can remnants be saved from construction (tile/wood/carpet/siding/etc.) and placed in garage?
Yes. We will keep it in the unfinished portion of the basement. Note that if we have to do any fixes in the first couple months after you move in, that we will use that material first before ordering more.

6. Will the subflooring be glued/screwed or glued/nailed?
Glued / screwed

7. Will drywall be screwed or nailed?
Both

8. What kind of insulation do you use throughout home? Blown/sprayed/batting?
Blown in the attic, batting in the exterior walls

9. Is each bedroom on a separate circuit?
Master is on one circuit, 2nd and 3rd bedrooms should be on another

10. What type of feed lines are run for plumbing? PEX/PVC/copper?
PEX for water and PVC for drain

11. Does our ump pump come with backup battery?
No. We don't need it since we are on a slab

12. How many coats of asphalt will the driveway get? 
Potentially two

13. What's the location of power outlets (and make sure he knows of the basement ceiling one we paid for)?
We were shown an electrical map of the house

14. Will the laundry room have light and outlets?
Yes

15. Are there outlets in garage and exterior?
Outlets in the garage wall, as well as one in the ceiling. One outlet by the front door, one on the deck, and one under the deck

16. Where is the hose connection located?
One in the garage and another one in the back of the house

17. Will our lawn be seeded?
Sodded

18. What are the dimensions of the backyard for fencing? 
He gave us a plot map. Should be 26 x 20', approximately

19. When can we visit site?
Anytime, just give him a heads up so he can expect us

20. Which way does the ceiling beam in basement run?
Side to side

21. Can you center the island lights?

No (this one was a bummer. We have 6 recessed lights in the kitchen, but the 3 lights above the island is not centered)

Those were the main questions. Now we wait until we see progress. Can't wait to start getting pictures :)

Pre-Construction Meeting Prep Work

Hello, hello!


Finally, I have some updates regarding our home: we will have our pre-construction meeting tomorrow. Woohoo!
Chad and I aren't too sure what to ask the Project Manager, so I did some researching on Google. Also, I saw a post from Travis at Some Roads Lead to Rome which helped me tremendously. I'm sure more questions will come to mind once we're there, but this should be a great starting point. I'll update the post tomorrow with the PM's answers:

1. When will you be onsite?

2. Will you be away on vacation during this build?

3. What's your preferred contact method and how frequent will we get updates?

4. What is the rough schedule from ground breaking to delivery?

5. Can remnants be saved from construction (tile/wood/carpet/siding/etc.) and placed in garage?

6. Will the subflooring be glued/screwed or glued/nailed?

7. Will drywall be screwed or nailed?

8. What kind of insulation do you use throughout home? Blown/sprayed/batting?

9. Is each bedroom on a separate circuit?

10. What type of feed lines are run for plumbing? PEX/PVC/copper?

11. Does our ump pump come with backup battery?

12. How many coats of asphalt will the driveway get? 

13. What's the location of power outlets (and make sure he knows of the basement ceiling one we paid for)?

14. Will the laundry room have light and outlets?

15. Are there outlets in garage and exterior?

16. Where is the hose connection located?

17. Will our lawn be seeded?

18. What are the dimensions of the backyard for fencing? 

19. When can we visit site?

20. Which way does the ceiling beam in basement run?

21. Can you center the island lights?

Project 1: Make the Chairs Great Again! - Part 2

Putting the fabric on the chair was a little more challenging than I thought. As I mentioned in part 1, save your templates. It will make this project so much easier. We made a couple of mistakes here and there (I'll let you know what they are), but for the first time trying something like this, I think the first chair turned out pretty good. We will definitely apply our learnings when we are ready to work on the second one--but not yet; I need a couple of days off and a big glass of wine.

We started with the seat portion. Get enough fabric to cover the whole seat, with some to spare. Start by stapling both sides in one spot (right in the middle), just so it's easier to handle the fabric. Mistake 1: I had barely enough fabric towards the back to tuck between the seat and the back--leave more fabric than what the picture shows.

Around the leg posts, make a slit on the fabric and tuck one part between the seat and the back and wrap the other side around the legs. Cut the excess and staple the fabric behind the chair. Mistake 2: our slit was too towards the middle of the chair, not the ends. When was time to wrap the fabric around the legs, we almost didn't have enough fabric to cover the seat (see photo below). We were able to move things around and make it work, but it created some tension in the corner.

Continue to staple the sides from the back to the front. Mistake 3: make sure you are pulling the fabric towards the back of the chair and not straight down when stapling it. If you pull it straight down, you will have too much fabric to work on in the front of the chair and it will be difficult to create a clean front corner.

For the front corner, we were so stressed to get it right that I forgot to get a picture. After you staple both sides from back to front, you will end up with some folded fabric on the corners. Fold it towards the back of the chair very tightly and staple that side. Cut any excess fabric, pull the remaining fabric (also tightly) over the fold you just created and staple the bottom part. I only have a finished photo in which I placed a tack to hide the staple, but it will give you an idea.

Moving on to the back. Just like the seat piece, we covered the front with enough fabric to fold on top, sides, and between seat and back. Also cut a slit so fabric can be tuck between seat and back and wrap around leg posts. Make sure it clean and neat around post as this is the part of the chair that will be visible. We started stapling the top, then the sides, from bottom to top. On the corners, use the same method used for the seat corners.

Finally, we covered the back. We were wondering how we were going to do that in a way that it didn't look crappy and we weren't satisfied each time we just played with the fabric before stapling it, but at the end we don't think it was bad. We used a few staples to hold it in place. We knew we were going to cover it with tacks afterwards. Also, we added the dust cover to the bottom of the chair.

Can't say it was the most fun project I've ever worked or the one with the best results, but I like it! Like I said, it is definitely better than it was and we will make improvements to the second chair. Final results:

Project 1: Make the Chairs Great Again! - Part 1

Hi everyone! :)

I won't have many updates on the house for about another week, so I decided to share one of the projects we've been working on. Chad and I will give our old Parson chairs a new purpose in life: decorating our new living room! Our sofa is charcoal and we want to have blue accents in that space, so this original burgundy color has to go. Also, what's up with the fabric-covered legs? Nope.

The first thing we did was carefully cut the fabric around the legs and back using an x-acto knife in order to expose the staples used to hold the fabric together. And holy crap, staples WERE plenty on this darn chair. We used a heavy duty staple remover we bought at Joann Fabrics for $10--you can probably use pliers to do the job, but it will require a lot of time and patience. The investment was well worth it. We were cautious not to remove staples holding the seat and back cushions. One thing we didn't think of until later in the process was to keep the fabric as intact as possible. It will help you tremendously when it's time to cut the new fabric as you can use it as a template.

Once the chair was completely naked (hehe), we fixed the legs. They were unfinished underneath the fabric and all the staples left it with more holes than Swiss cheese. We used wood putty ($5 at Home Depot) to fill the holes and fix any imperfections in the legs. We let it dry for about 4 hours and used 180 grit sandpaper to smooth it all out.

After the legs looked smoother than a baby's butt, I used two coats of Rust-Oleum Gray Spray Primer to prep the legs for paint. Make sure to really clean all the sand dust with a damp cloth and let it dry it completely before applying the primer. It was cold, dark, and windy, but I toughen up and made it work.

After letting it dry for a couple of hours, it was time to paint. We choose Black Rust-Oleum Gloss Paint for the job. Here are some pictures after 2 coats; I actually put another one later in the day, just didn't capture a photo.

Excuse the bathroom photo--this is the bad thing about living in an apartment :P

The next step is to apply the new fabric. I will create a different post for this part. See you then!

Some Confirmed Dates

Yay, we have scheduled our pre-construction meeting: February 7th. They had slots available as early as next Monday (1/30), but Chad didn't want to take a day off work to do that. He usually works from home on Tuesdays, so 2/7 was the next Tuesday the PM had available to meet with us.


I wanted to kill him; Chad, not the PM. I need the PM to make sure my house is built.


According to our SR, ground should break second week of February. They had told us last week of January, so that's a little disappointing. I will blame Mother Nature on that one. It'll make me feel better.


Ai ai ai.

The Anticipation is Killing Me

I know we have just started this journey, but I can already tell this part of the process is the WORST. We have signed papers, selected our options, gotten an initial approval, and paid an amount of money that could have been used to buy a LOT of candy and now... nothing.


Ground has not been touched yet and we are still waiting for our pre-construction meeting to be scheduled. I guess it doesn't help that the weather in MD has not been optimal...wait. Why am I measuring my words in here? It's been crappy. Shitty. A pain in my anxious ass.


Anyway...


Once we see some progress with construction, I will start feeling better. This is something so big for us, and as I mentioned in the last post, I'm just so excited and borderline obsessed. And I don't want to lose the habit of posting here, hence the babbling. Also, the anticipation is literally killing me. Look at what I found on my head this week:

My very first gray hair.

Too many changes in 1 month. I can't deal with this.

HELP!

HELP! I NEED HELP!

I'm on the verge of dropping to the ground like a 3-year-old, throwing a massive tantrum because I can't get what I want. If this were a Marshmallow Test, a whole bag would be gone. No delayed gratification for this girl.

I want my house ready. RIGHT NOW.

Now that we got the initial approval for our loan, the next step is to sit with Sam and our Project Manager for our pre-construction meeting so they can start breaking ground (apparently, that can occur simultaneously, too). They haven't given us a date for that yet, although she said it'd be in the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, I've been obsessing about everything house: I've been reading other blogs, browsing Pinterest for ideas on decoration, walking aimlessly around Home Depot and Lowe's making lists of items we might need.... It's very entertaining, to tell you the truth.

Chad and I actually decided to start buying some things for the house now--we don't want to start this new journey with a credit card debt. Last week, for example, we were at Walmart and saw a grill that usually costs $230 on sale for $99. That was a no-brainer. I do have a big ass box sitting in my living room, but hey, sacrifices, right? This is it:

Can't wait to cook some juicy steaks on this baby!