New Home - Final Construction Update

Our last update on the construction of our new home was almost a month ago, and at the time we were only 6 days away from closing.  Sorry for the delay, but it's been a busy month!  So here's the final construction update, the move and the first couple of home improvement projects.  Stay tuned...we'll also be blogging with final pictures of the inside and outside after the move and we'll also do some time lapse pictures showing the construction from start to finish!

On our last blog post, the inside was almost complete and the yard had just been graded.  Dave was concerned that as a result of all of the construction traffic in the yard and lack of top soil resulting from all of the grading to create the lots that we would have trouble growing sod. Remington Homes allowed us to have Soil-Tek add a layer of compost to the yard after it was graded and before the sod was put down.  1-inch of compost is equivalent to 3-inches of black top soil and will improve water infiltration, reduce the amount of watering needed and help the sod root better.  They can also do this over your existing yard, which we had done at our old house several years ago.  The best part of this was that the City of Ankeny, through their Stormwater Utility provides a 50% reimbursement program for soil quality restoration project such as this, so we were able to get reimbursed for half of this cost.  The compost was sprayed on September 18th.

The compost is pumped from a large truck and sprayed on the yard.

Because of the size of our yard, they used two trucks and it still took them about 4 hours to complete the work.

The finished project.  This isn't typical during a building process so we had lots of questions from our new neighbors wondering what we'd done to our yard.

On September 19th the sod was installed and front yard tree was planted.

New sod, new tree and almost completed house!

Amazing the difference a little green grass makes!

The sprinklers have gotten a good work out the first couple of weeks. However, we've also been fortunate to have several nice rains.

Dave now has over 12,000 square feet of grass to mow.  It took him over an hour to mow it for the first time.  More than double the amount of time it took at the old house.

While the sod was getting installed, the final touches were being put in place inside.

Shelving was installed throughout the house.  Here's the pantry.

Walls were touched up and final touches were put on the paint.

Meanwhile, we were busy packing, packing and packing...

This used to be our dining room.  Here it's taken over by boxes.  Thanks to my sister Becky for hooking us up with great boxes!

Little C liked to help pack!  

On September 24th, the day before closing we met with Colin Panzi our Realtor and Randall the Superintendent for Remington Homes to do our final walk through.  This was our opportunity to make sure everything was right and Randall was great about explaining how everything worked, what maintenance was required, etc.  They also provided us with a full binder of helpful information, contact information for subcontractors, etc.  Not surprisingly given how thorough Remington was throughout construction, we only found a couple of very minor touch ups.

September 25, 2014 was the big day!  While a few times here and there over the previous months we had our doubts wondering if our home would ever be done, and it seemed the weather didn't always cooperate, the worrying was for nothing.  We closed as scheduled first thing that morning! Tracy Frette at First American Bank was great to work with and ensured that everything was in order to finalize the loan and close on our new home.

Dave and I at the closing, new homeowners once again!

We didn't waste any time. After the closing we went straight to our new home and began to add our own touches. We wanted the kids room to have a little color, rather than pay the painters for each color in each room, we decided to do a little (and by little I mean only two walls) painting on our own.

Pink accent wall in Little C's room.  It's very pink, but looks great with her
Minnie Mouse bedding!

Blue accent wall in R-Man's room.

We also had the fun task of finishing packing. That evening with great help from our friend Eric and new neighbor Matt, and our awesome baby sitter Sam, we were able to get a lot of the stuff from the garage moved, the swing set, mower, snow blower, etc.  Exhausted from a big day, we spent the final night at 206 NW Applewood St.  

Early the next morning, the movers arrived!  We received several quotes, but selected All In Moving from Ankeny, as they were the cheapest and also guaranteed the estimate of 7 1/2 hours.  If they went over, it was at their cost, if they got done sooner, we would pay less.  A great deal, and we weren't disappointed.

They filled this truck 2 1/2 times.  Everything was handled with care, stacked and packed nicely and the four guys worked their tails off!

After a struggle getting our couch down into our old basement, Dave vowed he would never move it out.  Luckily he didn't have too, it was a tight fit, but it made the move in one piece.

In the end, it took the crew 7 hours and 15 minutes to get everything moved.  They did a great job, and we'd definitely recommend them. After the movers finished up about 4:30, we headed back to our old house to clean.  It was definitely a little emotional to say good bye since we'd called it home for 12 years.  We moved in as two young kids with barely enough furniture to sit on or enough money in the bank to pay the mortgage.  But, we remodeled, landscaped, decorated and made a house a home. As with all young home buyers, we had a plan to move onto the next home in 3-5 years.  12 years later, we left home a family of four with many wonderful memories.

Backing out the driveway for the final time.

We arrived at our new home to this amazing sunset.

The next morning, we awoke for the first time at 3925 NW 6th Street to this amazing sunrise after an overnight rain.

And then we got to work, making this house a home and the unpacking began!  I also put Dave's carpenter skills to work.

We painted the storage room floor with epoxy floor paint.

Little-C and R-Man helped Daddy build some storage shelves for our totes and boxes. 

And we did lots and lots of unpacking and there's still some of that too do.  It's still a little hard to believe what started as a conversation in March about what our home might be worth could turn into a brand new home by the end of September...

View of our new home at night.

Stay tuned, more pictures of the finished product to come!