The last box - for now at least!

Today I worked all day in my sewing room. I don't have before pictures, or during and after pictures either. I know, you are saying, "thank goodness"! But, believe me, the improvement is wonderful! A few weeks ago we added the IKEA bookcase to the room. While Eric's mom was here I unpacked fabric and I placed it on the shelves. Today I sorted. Now I know that doesn't sound like much, but I sorted for 8 hours. I had stacks and bags everywhere. Part of the madness was to empty the last cardboard boxes and the plastic boxes that I had on the boat for thread, scissors, Olfa cutters, etc, etc, etc. I had at least 10 different boxes (to keep things dry). So, I sorted all those things into bags, because I have a chest with 12 drawers coming that will be my mobile sewing/knitting/quilting gadget chest. It's on wheels, and I can wheel it to wherever it's needed (or into the closet). So, my theory is that when the chest comes, all I'll have to do is empty the bags into the appropriate drawer.

Oh no, no time to blog ....

Sewing room progress

The sewing room is looking brighter now thanks to the addition of the braided rug I found online at the Home Decorator's Outlet. I was really pleased, as I found this for a mere $15.00, marked down from $129.00. This is the same online store that had the TV table/desk that I bought for the corner. The rug is reversible and the colors are bright and cheerful. Pinks, blues, greens, tan and of course yellow. I had found this rug months ago and never expected to find it on sale. I would have never paid $129.00!

Oh yes, the Christmas Elf was decorating here too!

Patio Door Blinds

Click on the picture to be taken to a large shot - and hover over the areas where you see a square!

The cable was buried today, and then one of the Eagle men came and spliced in pieces of grass in all the areas where the sod had spaces. Things are looking up! Now if the recycle men will just show up tomorrow and pick up the 300 pounds of cardboard we have - we will be happy! Also, more furniture is ready to be scheduled for delivery.

First Grass cutting - about time!

It was like a jungle out there!

from www.safetycenter.navy.mil/.../ Melton2.htm



No, we weren't growing bamboo, but everytime the cat went outside she disappeared in the grass. Now it's regulation height again, because finally we saw this ..... the yard guys! They ride these mowers, and look out - don't get in their way!! They did cut the grass twice, we think because it was so wet, the first cut was sloppy. Yes, it rained last night. Guess rain doesn't stop them! We're looking very manicured now if I do say so myself!

It was a bit long, you think?

Fall comes to Coles Point Way

We're having beautiful weather here, Eric is in his shorts again. You all know how happy that makes him! I put this picture on my knitting blog, it's the view from the sewing room window.

I am still following the doctor's orders to stay off my foot, so Eric has been busy outside, planting the rest of the bulbs, spraying inside and out for "bugs and pests" and putting the garage in order. He's also been cooking and cleaning! I feel bad because he's having to do everything, but then I guess if my foot gets well, all will be worth it. At least I hope he thinks so.

Some of you may remember the big question we had while the house was under construction concerning would the truck fit into the garage? Well I can report we can get it in, either front or back first. The only catch is that is has to be done at an angle into the back right corner, and someone (me) had to stand in the corner and guide the driver (Eric) in the last few inches. However, it's worth knowing it can be done! Since we expect to continue to experience traffic and dirt flying from construction crews it will be nice to keep the truck in the garage.

Not much else is happening. We are expecting our second delivery from FurniturelandSouth this week, so that is exciting! We'll be glad to get the TV in the living room up off the floor and into the entertainment center.

Progress in the sewing room

Here's how the sewing room Tv has looked for the last month. Not very exciting I must say! I've been working on plans for the cabinets for this room, and found several that would work. Last Saturday I got an email from the company who had the items and one of the cabinets I picked was on sale for $89.99. This was down from nearly $300.00. So we placed an order and it arrived today.

While I supervised from the bed, Eric got to work putting the desk/TV cabinet together. You will see that this is actually a desk and eventually I will set my laptop on the keyboard shelf. However I wanted something sturdy for the TV to sit on. Turns out the cabinet was very well made, and solid wood (as advertized in the catalog, but you never know).

Play it again ....

Bed, originally uploaded by Joanna Root.

We're putting together the guest bed today, so all will be ready soon for out-of town guests! Hint to all of you out there! This picture is really from the first bed we put up, but they look the same!

A Fall View

This is just a shot taken across the back yard towards the house that sits to our right. Downhill from us. The leaves are starting to turn and it really looks pretty. One of the new trees they planted in the yard next door has already lost all its leaves, but our maples are just starting to turn red. We are still really pleased with the way out lot sits back from the street and we get such a nice view of the trees.

What a difference!

I'm back again after about three weeks of moving in . . . . and as you can see in this picture taken this morning, we have some nice improvements. Green grass! It looks alot like a hay field waiting to be mowed. We figure they are waiting for it to get rooted well before cutting the first time. Silly thinks she is in the savanah when she goes out back. She actually thinks she is hidden when she crouches down. If you look closely at this picture, she is the black spot at the bottom of the front door. It was pretty cool, so she was sitting in the sun.

Well, tomorrow and in coming days I'll post more about goings on here on Coles Point Way. Until then, keep tuned and I'll be back soon.

Tomorrow is the Day!!

This is the last before picture! When this was taken a day or so ago, no grass! But now all that has changed!



We have grass! We have trees! Can you guess I am excited? We had our final walkthough, and tomorrow we sign the papers.

As we were doing the walkthrough, which took about 45 minutes, the little yard men were busy as beavers putting down the sod. There are three trees in the back yard, two silver maples and what I think may be a flowering pear. There are also beds at the back of the lot with small hedge looking shrubs and some evergreen - cypress like trees. I've noticed the trees don't have tags, so I am going to have to do a little research to see just what we have. I'm just glad it's a mix of evergreens and deciduous. I wasn't expecting the trees inside the yard, and so I'm happy to see them and the big beds around them! I see bulbs in my future, and flowers .... the five annoying cutoff valves in the middle of the back yard for the sprinklers (ours and the neighbors I expect) don't even seem so bad! Oh yes, the big green box in the front yard between us and the neighbors has even been camouflaged! Great progress.

Tomorrow we move in - and if I don't get trapped behind or under a box I'll get tree and yard pictures!

36 Hours and Counting

Thirty-six hours from tonight, we should be signing the papers for the new house. We are getting very excited. We went to the store and got a front door mat - and two folding chairs. Since we won't have furniture we can sit on for a least another 4-6 weeks, we decided the folding patio chairs from SAM's were a good option. Fine for now, fold for storage later, and easy to pull out when we have overflow crowds! (HA HA).

Anyhow, our final walkthough is tomorrow at 3 pm. They are supposed to have the punch list finished, or at least a good percentage done. They did call up today and say we may not have grass, or SOD, as the last load they got in was not good enough to put down. Since we are under a water advisory, that may be fine. I'd rather have good healthy lawn later than a carpet of brown dead grass.

Oh yes, we failed the final inspection again, this time for lack of a piece of paper. I think this inspector is just trying to get the best of the chief contractor for our house. So, we have a temporary certificate of occupancy, since the house is OK, just the paper missing for something. Funny, he never mentioned this piece of paper the last two times he inspected. Kind of like he chages the rules as he goes along.

Second Walk-through by the expurrrrt!

Is this my house?

Is my room upstairs or downstairs?

This view is OK.

Is this dryer vent a way out?

Ok, I like it, I'll stay here.

Before the Walk Through

This was taken before we went through the house. The little man on the front walk was from Brazil. He didn't speak any English, but he and I managed to communicate! It was fun talking to him in Portuguese - as weak as mine is now. He was from Rio, and has been in the States 10 years. He said that he loves America, because the lifestyle is so quiet! I had to laugh. He said Brazil is pretty crazy and dangerous. The cleaning lady (his boss) was also a Brazilian, but spoke excellent English. They both said the house was very nice, and they had worked on it alot. I must admit, it was sparkling clean!

Walkthrough

We moved the last major load of belongings off the boat today. It was a beautiful day, so slight a breeze that the water was almost flat. It made transferring things off easy. The truck was loaded to the gills, and if I could have gotten to my camera I'd have taken a picture. Maybe later when I find it and we unload!

We arrived in Richmond, got a hotel reservation and then went to look at the house. It's pretty exciting to see the flowerbeds in. The sprinkler installers were there trenching around the house and beds. the new front porch is poured and the new walk! I noticed I didn't get the standard crepe mytle bush in my front bed, but instead an evergreen, a holly. We'll like that, and it will look great decorated for Christmas!

We looked around inside for several hours and made notes for the inspection tomorrow. Some of the major boo boo's we've noted before have been fixed. So things are looking up. Most of the things we noticed were minor, and may in fact be cleaned up by tomorrow.

More news tomorrow and pictures, I promise!

Mailbox

Mailbox, originally uploaded by Joanna Root.

Well it's getting to look more and more like a real house. You'll notice that we now have a mailbox, and the columns for the front porch are now back up. We also have a light over the garage.

New pictures are in Flickr House Set of the appliances.

All in all they are working fast and furious.

More backwards progess

I’ve been behind on my house updates, but then it turns out that some of what I had to report would now have to be retracted.

On Saturday I visited and found hardwood flooring in areas it was not supposed to be in. On Monday when I checked back the floor was still unfinished and a worker told me they had run out of flooring – well DUH I thought, that’s cause you put it where it wasn’t supposed to be! Well, tonight (Wednesday) we went back and the flooring was removed from the wrong places, and now they have completed the wood floor in the areas that were missing wood. Still no carpet. Guess now we will have to check to see how chopped up the last areas are, if they reused the small cut pieces or used new boards. Just another of those small irritations.

The front porch columns came down (see the pictures above), and it looks to us like they completely redid the brickwork for the porch. In the process, the front walk is no longer flush with the porch brick. Not sure how they will address that issue, but it definitely won’t do. We wonder if a back hoe ran into the column and knocked it over? Mystery? The only clue that might prve the back hoe theory wrong is that the Fisher across the street had it's columns taken down too.

We were only able to peek in the windows tonight, and it wasn’t till just before we were leaving that we noticed the appliances are in. Tomorrow we’ll visit before we head home to the boat.

We’ll have to wait for the storm to pass to go home, so we’ll have time to try to see the progress.

Photo of the week

It's September now, and as you can see from the countdown we are three weeks away from closing. It's hard to tell if we will in fact close that date, but I guess no news is good news! I find it hard to believe we might actually be in the house in 21 days!!!! Click the picture to go to flickr and see a larger shot.

The picture shows the front of the house again - this time with driveway, fron walk and sidewalks complete. The pario is also in and the lot has been graded on the left side of the house. Another improvement, the dumpster is no longer in the yard, it's out in the street now. At least I can get a better progress picture without the big red blob in the yard. The brickwork over the garage has all been cleaned up, so it looks nice now.

We were pleased to see that the front door has been replaced, they had to take it all out in order to put in the low-e windows that got that were not installed. Seems like they would not have done the sheetrock, paint, trim etc. for the door knowing it would have to come out later to put in the right glass. I am no longer second guessing their logic. The patio doors are now correct too, only the transom window over them and the laundry window are incorrect. The fireplace is in place, not quite where it should be, but not horribly out of place. Obviously we are going to have some issues with light switches and the bookcases, but nothing we can't resolve with some ingenuity.

We're real close

The psot office now recognizes our address! I guess that means they are already collecting junk mail for us to be delivered as soon as we move in.

Since we haven't been to the house we can only judge by what we have seen online. We managed to pass our mechanical inspection on the first try some time this past week. We think that means the furnace, waterheater, and fireplace, but then, who knows for sure?

We'll be visiting this week so be sure to tune in for pictures and news after Wednesday,

Secret Door?

Who knows, maybe this is like the Price is Right TV show, choose the right door and everything behind it is yours if your guess is closest! Anyhow, on the last trip to Richmond this door was standing in the middle of the living room - obviously so it could be painted. I actually didn't bother to try to figure out which door it was - but I think it was for one of the bedrooms.

All the boxes stacked behind it are the cabinets for the kitchen and bathrooms. It was very tempting to open and look - but we didn't. To our surprise, just as we were leaving a little tiny man - about 5 foot tall came to install them, alone! Sure enough, when we got back the next morning all the boxes were gone and most of the cabinets were installed. We are still not sure if they found the missing kitchen sink cabinet, but I am not too worried. If we get back this coming week and they still can't or didn't find it then I will worry!

Weekly Progress

Well things are coming together and the house is really starting to shape up. Our house is the one in the middle.

In the week we were in North Carolina this happened:

Cabinets arrived for the kitchen and baths, all installed except for the missing kitchen cabinet for the sink and trimwork.

Tile installed and grouted for the floors in baths.

Enclosure installed for masterbath.

Trimwork Painted.

Walls Painted.

Enclosure for guest bath was being delivered as we left.

Dirt work beginning for drive, walks and patios as we left.



Left to do: (Big things)

Install fireplace. Keep your fingers crossed on this one!

Replace doors and patio doors that are not low-e.

Blow in insulation in attic.

Water heater installed.

Install fans and lighting.

Hook up Utilities.

Grass and Flowerbeds

Final touchups inside - all boo boo's quaranteed to be fixed in the last 3 weeks.

I'm sure I'm forgetting lots more!

Saturday, August 20

The gables are finished and they even took the stickers out of the windows. There is no rhyme of reason to what they are doing though. We have things in our house that houses that are further along don't have yet. The house next door looks like it has come to a stand-still, and yet others started later look about like ours.

When we arrived this morning the tile man was there putting down the master bath floor. The sides of the shower are in too. We took Maddie home and returned after about an hour and when we got back the guest bath was also finished. When they work, they work quickly.

Eric and I measured windows and walls today, and are still wondering where the fireplace is going to be. You may ask why that's a problem, surely it goes where the plan shows it. At least you would think so .... The thing is, the two houses like ours each have the fireplace in a different position. The builder who was supposed to meet us at 9 (to talk specifically about the fireplace)never showed up, so we marked the floor where we want the base of the fireplace to be, and we hope he gets the hint. We called his cell and left a message, so maybe he will call us back. The only reason the location is critical is that we want to be able to have all the wall unit - and not just 3 of the 5 pieces. Even 8 inches will make a difference. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

4125 Cole's Point Way Gets Painted

Another step closer. I'm just glad I am not the one on the ladder.

Lots more progress has been made since the last update. Texture and paint. Columns on the Front Porch. Columns in the Dining Room. Newl Posts on the stairs. Completed Master shower stall. The Gables have their siding and the stickers are gone from the inside of their windows. Trim work is done and crown molding is in. Tomorrow I'll go visit and get lots of pictures and let you all know how things are looking. We also have to measure all the walls and windows again now that we have trim in place. Hopefully all the furniture will go where we planned!

The shower pan

Last Wednesday when we left Richmond we stopped by the house and the installers were sitting in the shower, finishing up the shower pan. If you remember in past posts every time we went to the house the pan was marked for a different size. It seems they finally got it right, and we even have a pan glued in to prove it! At least we know the next time we go it won't have changed.

According to Rebecca all the sheetrock has been painted (at least the first coat) and the trim work. Maddie came home with a white smudge on her hand! I guess if we find a smear about 18 inches off the floor we will know where it came from!

When last we checked...

originally uploaded by Joanna Root.

the sheetrock folks had done their job. According to our man on the street, Brandon, who works under Eric the builder (not to be confused with DH) the texturizer machine will be there this week, hopefully Friday, which is tomorrow. He said then the trim people would follow in and then the painters.

Wild Goose Chase

We went to the house yesterday, and it was not worth the trip. Eric crossed one item off his list, and I managed to measure windows for future placement of rods. (I noted how wide all the re-inforcements were). We did talk to the siding sub-contractor and he told us he would have his part done, not to worry. He did say that once everything is finished the house will be power washed, so this should take care of the concerns I have on the brickwork. He also said some of the problems we noted where flashing didn't cover wood were not his job, but framing problems, and this we knew.

On a good note, the roofing is finished and the ridge vents were in place and screens on the gable vents in the attic. Up the street the landscaping is going in. I saw nice white Crepe Myrtles. I happen to like them and it will be in the front flower bed that extends out away from front of the dinning room. Should look nice. It seems they are also putting in day liles. It will be a start.

All traces of the dinning room half walls disappeared. The sheetrock is stacked in the downstairs and I have to report that some of it was made by Temple Inland. Small world! It's kind of like the 9 degrees of separation theory in a warped way. The speakers in the living room were moved higher on the wall, but the phone jack on the wall was still too low. The studs hammered into the floor in the shower have written in red - MOVE 12 INCHS and an arrow pointing in the right direction. Windows and doors that were wrong (3 of them are not Low-E) are still wrong. Crooked window in sewing room is still crooked.

Our only consolation, if any is that one of the Fisher houses across the street has failed their framing inspection 7 times. Still has not passed. At least we have only failed once. Good thing this inspector is so tough.

Forgot to take the camera with me, so no new pictures to report.

July 23rd Update

This week's visit to the house found us with the correct window over the garage, so that was one step in the right direction.

To counter that progress, we found it appears they have decided to eliminate the half walls in the dinning room (that of course we liked) and they are also messing with the size of the master bath shower again. One has to wonder what the powers that be are doing. Of course, our understanding is that they have to build what is on the plan, and the half walls are on the plan. And we were assured we were getting the correct shower by two different sources a few visits ago.

We spent a total of three hours there the first day, and then returned again on Sunday. Sunday night at 3 am I woke up and had a revelation that the speaker boxes in the living room were two low for the future pieece of furniture we plan to house the TV. I carefully got out of bed and got the computer hooked up with assistance from Silly and began hunting up the home entertainment furniture I had looked at online. Sure enough, they ranged from 76 inches to 84 inches tall. When Eric woke up a 5am he wondered where I was, and found me surfing away.

We called the installation man at Livewire and he said yes, we did need to have the speakers at least 6 inches above a piece of furniture. So, that was a good save and he said he would take care of it. We were lucky too, as his vacation began that afternoon and the main guy who owns the company was already on vacation at the Boy Scout Jamboree in Fort Hill. Whew, we could have been sorry later.

Eric and I came home and he immediately went to work composing our weekly "OOPS YOU DID THIS WRONG LIST" to send off to Eagle. We will see if there are any results. Below is one example, see if you can tell what is wrong with this picture.

We finally passed the gas rough in inspection!

Front--07-15-05, originally uploaded by Joanna Root.

Right where the man is standing on the scaffolding at the right front corner of the garage is the permit for the house. It has the lot number and the address of the house. Only problem is, it is for a house 3 houses down, not ours. Wrong lot number, wrong address.

So, one of the inspectors kept failing the house on his inspections. At one point he even put fees against the house - all because Eagle didn't put up the right sign. Of course, I had to agree with him, why didn't they have the right sign up? Where was our sign? I even walked down the street to see if our sign was on the other house, but no, they had a cardboard sign up (since we had their original sign)!

Oh well, no harm done, Eagle finally got us the right sign, and the inspector finally saw it posted, so he finally finished the inspection and we passed! One more down.

The Arch or soffit between rooms

Dad asked about the division between the living room and the Florida room. If you look where the red arrows are you can see the arch being built that will be a visual division between the two rooms up a ceiling level. At one time when the plans were still young we worried that it would block the view of the windows. but as you can see that will not be a problem. It is just a detail that gives definition, but doesn't really block anything.

4125 Cole's Point Way Looks like a House!

This photo was taken on Thursday afternoon the 14th. We arrived in Richmond on Wednesday morning and went directly to our appointment with the Audio man who will do all the wiring for computers, phone, cable etc. We went over our requirements again with him and made a walk though appointment with him for the next day. We hoped to be able to go in the house later Wednesday (our morning meeting was at the clubhouse), but about the time it was quiting time for the workmen and clear for us to go to the house the sky opened up and it poured. So much for our plans.

So Thursday we went to our meeting at the house with the electricians at 10 am. This entailed going though every room and having them show us what was where and what worked what, etc. etc. We got to add and or move outlets, switches etc to our hearts content. We finally finished with them at noon, and then the audio man came and we were done with him at 2. It was a very hot time! I was really sorry the AC wasn’t working yet! HA HA!

The picture of the house says a lot – as you can see most of the roof is finished and the vinyl was done almost everywhere. All the windows are in place. The front of the garage is another matter. Look closely, see the vent up in the eve? It isn’t supposed to be there at all. Nope, it is supposed to be a window, so why you ask? One of the many strange excuses we have heard! This one was “the brick people got ahead of the window people”. So, they will cut out the bricks and put in a window sometime in the future. Seems that window was missing when the brick people came, so the masons just went straight to the top! Weird. You can also see the two gables on the front of the house over the dinning room. These are “Fake”, they don’t go anywhere and the windows are fixed. I guess that is so they don’t get dirty inside – this is something I’ll have to see to believe. Anyhow, they are there, but do not have their vinyl siding yet. Not sure why, but not to worry.

When we left the electricians were running wire like crazy. The upstairs looked like a spaghetti factory gone amuck. We’ll go back this week towards the end of the week just to double check the outlets and see the finished wiring.

Streets Getting Paved

No news from Eagle about our walk through, but my spy (AKA DD Becky) said she was without power Friday because the power trucks were out connecting the lines from Crossridge to the lines on her side of Staples Mills. She also said that they are paving Coles Point Way. When we were there last Sunday we saw that the crushed rock base for the street was down so it’s good news that the street is being laid. That will certainly cut down on the dust as the summer progresses.

We got an email today from the man who is putting in the Structured Wiring package (stuff for phones, computers, cable, etc) and he wants to meet with us again before we have the electrical walk though. Now days, all that wiring is built into the house, so all the phone or cable people do is connect to your house, they don’t wire inside at all. His company will run the wires for all the extra stuff and we need to know where it will all go. The Eagle electricians only do outlets, lights and the usual breaker boxes.


Here's a shot I took inside the house last weekend. We should hear soon about our appointment, regardless, we’ll be going again soon.

Street level view

West-side--6-26-05, originally uploaded by Joanna Root.

Here's the street level view of the west side of the house. The window missing in the picture on the side is the laundry room. The next window back is the master bathroom and then the master bedroom. You can see the front porch and the extra windows in the garage. This shot also shows the attic and how it is still not finished. Hopefully they will have enough time to get everything tight and the tar paper on before the next rain comes.

There are more pictures at Flickr.

Other house news

I thought I’d pass on a bit of information we gleamed from the builder who we met on Tuesday. I digress though, it turned out he called us on Monday (while I was standing in Joann’s Fabrics with Rebecca) to tell us the “found room” upstairs would have a door. After he and I talked a bit I told him we were in town and asked if we could meet on Tuesday. We set up an appointment for 10 and met him at the lot.

We drove over and the entire area was covered in pick-up trucks. (At least we fit in.) Turns out he had the biggest truck of all – but then he is the boss! He took us over to the first model under construction like ours, which is the furthest along. He and Eric talked about a lot of things that we had approached Eagle about initially, and been told they were not possible. Well seems that is not entirely true, and so the builder, whose name is Eric also, said he would check on the HOOD VENT, and ADDED INSULATION, so we may be able to get at least wiring for the vent (or the venting ready to be connected) etc. Of course all of this is like done behind the back of the rule makers. And some of the things will be done after closing but by the crews there who work on the side.

Eric the builder (I’ll call him Builder Eric) and my Eric (I’ll call him Buyer Eric) seem to understand each other and Builder Eric seems very eager to please, but not in a way that seems phony. He said he’ll get back with Buyer Eric and he wrote notes about what they talked about;  even said we should call him with anything that comes to pass that we have questions about.

We also met another couple who purchased their home 18 months ago. They too are very pleased, etc. They told us about a way to get cabinets from the man who makes the cabinets for the houses at a great price. Cabinets that have been returned he sells for about $25.00 a unit. We don’t know if this is still the case, but we will check into it, as we’d like some for the utility room and also as base for the area I want to build to sew on.

Working Away

This was taken Monday evening after the work crews left the job site.



Tuesday Morning, around 10 am.



Tuesday evening, again after work crews are gone.



And here is the overhead view showing all the progress made in one day! It won't be long before all the good stuff is happening indoors and the outside shots won't be as interesting. The house next door is already sided, bricked and roofed.

Visiting the House

Tomorrow we are going to Richmond to visit the house, and from the reports we got this morning, out first floor is framed. So stay tuned for more pictures and adventures in home building.

Coles Point Way

Looking-up-street, originally uploaded by Joanna Root.

This is the street where we will live! Looking up toward the other houses being built. it is beginning to look like a neighborhood now. The curbs are already in as you can see, and eventually we'll have side walks on both sides of the street too. They don't allow residents to park in the streets either, so that is nice for traffic flow.

The neighbors

This picture shows several of the houses underway across the street. The one on the far left (garage showing only) and the one at a slant on the far right are identical to ours, but without the additional length to the bedroom/sewing room, and the bay window.

This is the window that caused all the inital failures because the inspector didn't have it on his plans. However Today we passed the foundation inspection!Now we are all on the same page, hopefully.

Bricks and stone

After a weekend visit to our future home site we finally saw some action! As I mentioned at the end of last week we read online that an inspection had failed to pass. We planned a visit and when we got to the lot we found the foundation almost complete, and the plumbing lines in place. One thing we noticed on other visits is that most of the lots under construction have a set of plans laying around somewhere. We found ours (in the dirt), and the plans did match what we had selected and what they had in fact put in. We can only guess the inspector had a different, more generic set of plans and that is why he flunked us!

There are three other homes of our same model that are framed, all in different stages. We walked through all three and noted a few items that didn’t seem to be right, so we made a short visit to the office and put our questions in writing so they could be answered in a meeting that takes place every Monday. We were told we would get a call by one of the site superintendents, who oversees all the construction.

We did get a good feel for the size of the rooms, though none of the houses we saw have the bay window in the Master bedroom or the extension in the back bedroom. We did see the patio door we ordered and liked it, and we were pleased with how it looked in that space. We also had a question about the soffit between the living room and the Florida room, and two of the homes had it framed in and it looked nice. We were afraid it might block the windows, but it is really very high up in the cathedral ceiling. These were little worries that were not big deals, but were questions inevitable when you can’t walk though a model of what you are buying.

One real surprise was the size of Eric’s upstairs train room – it is enormous! The storage room that will contain the heater/ac unit and water heater is also very large, and beside it there is also another large space that will be an excellent closet. That space didn’t show up on any floor plan we saw, so that is exciting. You can use all the storage space you can get.

More Stone and brick!

We heard from the actual man who is building our house, the team leader so to speak. His name just happens to be Eric too. So, according to him, we are ahead of schedule (not sure where this declaration came from!). He says they allow 18 weeks per house, and we are scheduled as before for mid September. We’ll see about that!

He answered the questions we had about windows, showers and the illusive toilet plumbing. Not to worry according to him. We checked the permits and we had passed one of the ones we failed before, but still failed the foundation review. When we were there we saw the area in question, so maybe they were just busy today and didn't get to that spot. At least we have an inspector that actually seems to be LOOKING at things, which is a good thing.


Next time I’ll show a few shots of the other houses going up.

"It's not ready yet!"

We spoke to Zachary on the phone as few days ago and asked him if he had been to see the new house. He answered in a very resigned voice, "Yes, but, It's not ready yet, they still have to build it!" He has this on his mind I guess - Last week he asked if we were going to have a basketball hoop. Obviously, he's trying to plan for the future!

He has a story book on how to build a house that shows all the steps, so pretty soon he can start overseeing the jobsite for us!

Enough Rain Already

I'd like to report that my Richmond spy has seen progress on the job site. However, since it rained all the end of last week, I am afraid no news, is just that, no news. It's not like my spy has nothing else to do, only chase after two kids, one husband, laundry, groceries, etc. Not to mention diapers .... no wonder she can't set up an undercover surveillance from across the street. Her car is bright red, it makes it impossible to be incognito. Maybe I need to pay her more!

Anyhow, there has been no verbal reports of any visual sightings of action at 4126 Cole's Point Wy. The Henrico County online building permit (link below), on the other hand, does show two permits issued in the last week, one for electical and one for plumbing. So, someone is at least pushing papers around, even if no one is pushing dirt!

Finally - the Building Permit

Building Permit for OUR HOUSE!!!!!

The wheels of progress start to turn! If you click on the link above in today’s post you will be taken to the Henrico County Building Permit for the house. See the address!! Yea!!! Not earth shattering information, but what is most important is that we now have a permit number BLD-2005-02051 and even more telling in the scheme of things, an issue date 05-27-05! Up until a few days ago we were not in the system, then last Wednesday, low and behold, there we were, a number, but no date. We had surmised in the last few weeks of trying to locate our permit that permits are applied for in advance, but until they are actually active, they have no date, just a lot of 00-00-0000’s where the date goes. So, now we are official. So if you bookmark that link, you can actually follow along as work progresses. Another wonderful aspect of the computer age. From our boat we can keep tabs of what is going on!

Sunday New Flash - Dumpster is Gone What does this mean?

I’m sure you are all wondering if I have given up blogging ! Might seem like I dropped off the blog roll – but not really true. I just didn’t feel like I had too much to say or show all of you. But, tonight I really looked at the pictures I took last weekend in Richmond, and decided maybe I would bore you after all. So, if you aren’t into looking at dirt or trees, then just ignore everything that follows! OK?

The first of the two pictures below are taken from the street (I'm at the front stake) and show Eric standing at the back of the lot. In the first he is lined up with the back left (as you will face the house) rear stake – it is behind him and down the incline, not where he is standing. As you can see the dumpster is still there. The second picture is taken from the street and shows him lined up with the right rear stake. Again it is behind him down the incline. Ok, so do you all follow me so far?



From the pictures above, taken at the street, I moved to the back of the lot. These are taken standing at the stakes for the back of the house pad, and looking towards the trees and view, and will attempt to show you the back corners. The first picture is of the left corner (even if the stake is on the right side of the first picture) and the second is the right corner. I think I even have these labeled! Note, the stakes are not in the bare ground, they are behind the black barrier in the woods. This means the lot goes further back than we thought originaly.



Ok, one of the final two pictures shows Eric looking up the hill toward the pad for our future house. The house next door is just past him to the left of the picture. He is not standing on a stake, but is more towards the middle of our lot. The last picture is taken from behind the house next door (to out left) and across the back of the lots. You can tell ( maybe), that our lot is deeper than where this house is, and ours widens towards the back right corner. I think this picture also shows, that the house being built has a pretty steep drop off, (they will have no patio or Florida room) and our lot actually slopes away much more gradually than his as you move away from where the picture was taken. The trees almost wrap around our lot to the right, and we think that because we are in the deepest part of the curve, we may actually not see the house(s) that will go to the right of us (not built yet) because they will be closer to where the street angle changes. We should see more woods when we look to the right from out back yard than houses. Clear as mud? If you’re still with me – read on!


I know these shots are not really large, but I think you can get the idea. We are much happier now that we can see how many trees there are and what the coverage is like. In the fifth picture you'll notice a tree out in the dirt, this is behind the house next door. If you look at the ground you'll see where this tree split and a section is on the ground. They did clean up all the limbs from that tree that were in out lot. That’s why in the last picture the undergrowth is sparce, I think this will fill in now that they have removed all the debris from the fallen tree. This was a tree downed in the hurricane 2 years ago.


And the biggest news, I talked to Rebecca Saturday morning and the big red dumpster is gone! So, does this mean we get a foundation this week? We've been checking the building permits online, and so far have not found ours, however the other 10 or 11 houses in our section are underway, so we are bound to be soon!

I guess the last thing I need to point out is that we do own some of the trees that you can see – our line extends behind the black environmental shield they have staked out. Of course, we don’t know if we will actually be able to do anything with this area, as they whole area behind the houses on this side of the street is a watershed and is protected. We didn’t really realize before that our lot actually extended into this area so didn't guestion what our rights might be. The developers will also landscape back there, so we expect more trees eventually if they follow suite to what they have done in other sections of the development.