New Home Update

I'm letting my husband Dave take over the blog again to give you another update on the construction of our new home.

It's only been 3 weeks since our last update, but the progress has been almost unbelievable.  At our last update they had just finished framing and had the windows installed.  So here's a quick synopsis of the last three weeks:

With the framing complete we conducted an "electrical walk through" with our Realtor and Randall the Superintendent of Remington Homes.  We thought we were done making decisions, well we were wrong.  There was no electrical installed when we did the walk through, the whole point of the meeting was to discuss and mark where we wanted outlets, light switches, lights, etc.  This was tremendously valuable to think about and nice to be able to make sure we had switches and outlets where we'd need them...we're hopeful we didn't forget anything, but Randall was great to work with and very thorough (this isn't his first house!).  We'll give some highlights of our decision through this blog.

We left our meeting at 1:30 p.m. on July 14th and they were only finishing up some framing items.  Shortly after 5 we received a text from our new neighbors letting us know they were shingling.  Why yes, they were and finished the whole roof yet that evening:

Shingling...they were much faster than I would have been...

On July 15th they poured the concrete for the front stoop...

Little C and R Man inspecting the new front porch!

Also on July 15th the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) Contractor arrived to begin installing all of those components:

New Air Conditioner and exhaust/air intake for the furnace.

New Furnace

Air returns, which will bring air back to the furnace/air conditioner.

Air returns.

New Fireplace!

With the HVAC roughed in, the plumbers arrived on July 18th:

Main Bathroom shower, drain and water lines.

Washer and Dryer hookups.

Gas distribution for the fireplace, water heater and furnace.

On July 22nd the electricians got to work:

Lots of wires...

Tray ceiling in our living room...there will be a ceiling fan in the middle...also notice the four can lights.  Janet had the idea of adding those to improve the lighting in the living room.

Lots of wires here.  This is in Little C's room and is the main conduit from the breaker box in the basement to the attic, where they go throughout the house.  Also one of many outlets in the house.  We added outlets in the garage and basement storage area (can never have enough).  We also had several installed higher where we hope to have future cabinets, etc.

Wires, wires, wires in the attic...glad I don't have to know where they're all going...the box at the top of the photo is for a smoke detector and another can light in the hallway.

Breaker box, all cleaned up and hooked up.

Gas meter, electrical meter and hose bib on the east side of the house.

Phone (blue)/cable (black) lines all organized in the storage room.  Orange tube is a conduit from the outside of the house to make installing the phone/cable cleaner/easier.  In the electrical walk through we picked out the locations of the jacks for each room.

We don't have a picture of it, but we also added on the "Christmas Light Package" which includes two outlets in the eaves on each side of the front of the house and a switch in the garage to control them.  So we won't need to run extension cords to the roof...guess we'll be hanging Christmas lights!

With all of the HVAC, plumbing and electric complete, it was time for insulation, which started on July 31st.

Rolled insulation in the basement walls.

Blown in insulation in the upstairs walls.

On Saturday, August 2nd we stopped by in the morning to take a look at the weeks progress.  When we arrived a crew of six drywallers were just getting started.  By the end of the day, the entire house was drywalled...

Kitchen and pantry.

Stairs to the basement.

Master bath, arch straight ahead is the walk in closet, arch on the right is the shower/toilet.

Basement family room from the bottom of the stairs.

Basement bathroom.  This drywall is blue for moisture resistance.

Without question, the drywall has been the biggest visual progress to date. It's been fun walking through the house through the various framing stages, but now its really coming together and you can get a real good feel about the room sizes, layout, lighting, etc.  This construction site is quickly turning into our home!

View from the street.  You can't see them, but we opted for can lights under the front porch and under the eaves above the garage in lieu of coach lights.  You won't see them this way and they provide more light.  You can also see the arches on the garage doors.  In a future post, we'll share another "arch" add on that we opted to add...

View from the back yard, windows on right are the kitchen, windows on left are the master bed room and in between is the living room.  Basement window on the left is the family room, basement window on the right is the spare bedroom/office.

With major changes happening daily, stayed tuned for our next blog post as we count down to our move in date of September 25th!