1/18/2013 Digging Day is Here!

Yesterday, Brandon shot me and email, saying that they had finally received the permit and will commence digging today.   Yea for Ryan keeping abreast of the situation, boo for the permit jerks at Washington Township for holding this up. 

Standing in our Basement

The Ravenna that broke ground 3 weeks ago

We went out to the site and saw that they had neatly dug a 4-6 foot hole the size of the house (and finished it).  Figuring it's not dangerous at this point, I went down into the hole and stood in my basement for the very first time.   This was the first time you get the feel of how big your home's footprint  is going to be.  Looking across to the neighbors house, they were just past the framing stage and you could tell it was going to be a Ravenna.   We can't wait to see the face of our house in the next few weeks.   It's kinda like seeing your child on ultrasound for the very first time.  With the MLK holiday coming up and dropping temperatures, we're not going to see too much next week.

1/22/2013  Coldness Sets In
Since  Monday was MLK day, we took a break from our natural committment to see the house and it's progress everyday.   Today, we were back on track and went out to see the site after work.  With the temps being sub freezing, we weren't expecting them to do too much (and that's a good thing).  But we did see that the area of the basement was covered with tarp to protect the earth underneath.   Though we are always happy with progress, we are more happy when things are done right, even when it takes a little time.   Hope that this attention to detail and care continues.

All Tarped Up Due to Cold Weather.

We finally made our Guardian selections and sent them late to Ron.   Following the mixup with my email address, poor Ron had to wait a total of a week and a half for us to make a decision.   Though it took alot of thought, it's done and we locked in our following selections:

- Basic Security System package.
- Basic Home wiring package
- Essential Monitoring System
- HDTV Prewire over the FP

We wanted so much more than this but the costs were really expensive, especially with the Audio Speaker Systems and the IT wiring.   After doing countless years of both for the Govies, I figured that we could better justify the costs by doing what I want ourselves.   With systems like Surround Sound and Computers well into the wireless realm, there was no justification on spending thousands for those systems.  Return on investment for those items would be minimal.

We currently have chrome faucets in our house in an attempt to cut costs.  Orignally, Amy wanted Bronze and I wanted Brushed Nickel and I fought it, noting that like brass faucets of the 1980's, Bronze will look horrible in 10 years and Bronze is a passing fad.   I think we are going to go for the Brushed Nickel and pay for the upgrade.  Thank goodness that these change orders aren't so earth shaking.   I will be getting with Kelly soon to make the change order.  Of course, like with everything else, it's going to require additional dinhero.  *SIGH* and again, the cost of this house creeps up yet a little more.

Groundbreaking Week (or not)

So Monday, we're expecting a ground breaking as the clouds cleared on Monday as Brandon has predicted.  I couldn't make it to the site this week, so I had Amy go out and take pictures as they were excavating.  Amy reported that they didn't and were awaiting permits to excavate.  Really?   I guess the weather wasn't to blame for this delay but it was the permits.  At the same time, Amy was having heartache with the orientation of the fireplace.  Somehow in the planning/pricing meetings we did not have the choice but to put it on the back wall of the family room and it did not pose to be a problem then.   Now she wanted it on the side wall of the living room--after the production release had been signed!  So, we asked if we can have this change in fireplace arrangement and though the answer was never no, it was going to cost us in time and money to rerun the permits.   Kinda miffed right now at Brandon for leaving out this permit thing and Amy for not making an issue of this until now.  Brandon and I are going to have a talk about this when I get out there and Amy has let the fireplace issue rest--for now.  Sometimes I wonder if all of these customizations are worth the headache.   In a pre-existing house, at least we can just suck it up and accept it--end of story

Guardian, surprisingly has been MIA and so I emailed Ron yesterday.  Turns out he got the wrong email address and did get the estimates to me in a timely fashion.  But, going to review his proposals and decide whether they are worth the money.

Hopefully, the permit people get off their keesters so we can start on this house.   We'll see.

1/10/2013 A Day Before Groundbreaking

Last week, during our meeting with Brandon, our Project Manager, we were told that the initial excavation of the home would not be until Monday the 14, due to the rainy forecast this weekend.   With the closing prediction on April 2 and my lease on the rental ending on May 31st, a delay such as this wouldn't pose any problems to my arrangements given that this is the ONLY delay.   Only time will tell.

1/11/2013 Meeting With Guardian

After a cancelled meeting a little under a month ago, we finally met with Ron from Guardian Home Technologies.   This is one of the last things to add to the bottom line of this house as the  price of the house keeps rising the more things we add to it. 

For those who didn't know, Guardian handles most of the low-voltage connections through the house.  Phone lines, coax lines, security, and sound systems among other things.  The do have great offerings as far as product and services go, but always as we have experienced on this journey, at an additional cost.

On this particular day, I had a bit of business to do at the Benham Estates Model.  For one, since the last pre-construction meeting, I have been promising Kelly, our SR, our final selections for elective electric outlets and lights since last week but I've been a total schlub and haven't done it until now.   No excuses, but a very full week at work.   So we arrived about 30 minutes early to take care of that to the tune of an additional 1300 bucks--ugh.   Kelly had to pour through the floorplans in order to document the particular feature so it ended up taking about a hour.  Luckily, Ron had left us a message saying he was going to be half-an hour late so the timing was perfect.

Ron, is one hilarious dude.  I'm not sure if it was because he was slaphappy at the end of the day or that is the way he really is.  It made for one fun meeting though.   Because the Guardian meeting has been know to run over 2 hours, I told him we had an hour fifteen so that we can have the condensed version.    

Ron gave us the condensed versions of his communications, audio, and security schpeel.   He was very respectful of our time and really cut to the chase about the offerings.  Being forwarned about hard-sell techniques such as looking at the wife during the security schpeels, were looked for but didn't happen.   This was testament of Ron's integrity for if he had done any of that, it would have had an opposite effect.   

So we looked at having a CAT5 /Coax package, surround sound in two of the rooms, and a security package priced.  We concluded the meeting feeling good and relieved that it did not take two hours as some home owners have mentioned in their blogs.   There was a bit of urgency though, since we are in construction, this is technically a late meeting and I assured Ron that the turnaround after his pricing quote should be quick as well.