WE HAVE CONCRETE SLAB IN GARAGE AND BASEMENT.

Because of some nasty weather over the weekend, nothing was done on the lot since Friday. But today when hubby stopped by the house they were pouring our basement concrete floors. Even after seeing the snaps he has taken, I couldn't stop myself from going there in the evening.


                                                       work in progress.

By the evening they completed garage and basement concrete slab.

Garage view from front.

Basement floor.

Basement and morning room slab from backyard.

 I noticed that a small area of the garage slab (on the lower right corner ) is not as smooth as the rest of it. Should I be concerned about this?

 Now we have concrete floors in the garage and basement,  Each step no matter how small it is, is getting  me closer to my dream home. And yes making me even  more impatient. :)  

Two PVC pipes from the basement plumbing are still missing those " pink caps ".  I will have to tell my PM again to care of this thing before they start our framing. 

OUR LUMBER IS HERE.

Hubby was eager to see the plumbing and everything as he was not able to visit the lot in this week. While we were on the lot our lumber truck arrived...

I noticed that out of the three piece rough in, one was missing the pink cap. I don't know the 'construction word' for that. Another pipe in the basement was also missing it.  PM is going to take care of it before framing starts.  The 'pink cap' has to be there on the pipes so that the workers accidently doesn't drop anything (like bolts etc.) into them and clog it.

 

Again missing a pink cap

Our basement is ready for concrete pouring.  But the garage is not. The driveway and basement garage will be poured tomorrow, if we are lucky and rain gives us a` break. Otherwise we will have to wait for framing to begin after next Monday. We are losing at least one day per week because of rainy weather. 

 

                                             Basement floor all prepped for concrete pouring.

                                                        

                                                             The lot has been regraded.

Again we discussed our 'microwave height issue' with PM. He is still not sure what he can do about this. But he will let us know soon. I am keeping my fingers crossed and really hoping they would be able to lower the microwave a little bit. Even shelves in the laundry room are a little too high for me. And thinking of requesting to install them four inches lower. By doing this I might be eliminating my option of buying top loading washer dryer. 

    While I know one can think that these too small things to worry about but  I really want to tackle these small irritants that I am aware NOW  instead of taking care of them LATER.

For those who are wondering , RH DOES provide the screens on windows. They don't have screens on any of their model homes (at least not in our NOVA area.)



p.s    RAIN STINKS !!!

 

PLUMBING.

Nothing much to report in last two days. Monday morning I stopped by our lot and saw two workers were putting our PVC pipes underground in the basement floor. I was thinking that they will continue to work on our lot and may be complete the underground plumbing. But by the time I walked around the lot and took some snaps, they had already left. It looked like all the crew workers were working on the town homes in front of us.

   May be my lack of patience is making me think that the work is going rather slow on my lot. :(  I can't wait to get settled in my own home very very soon. (And hopefully before January.) At our pre con meeting our PM tentatively set our closing date around first week of January. And I am so much tempted to add my closing countdown gadget....

       Construction for the town homes in front of our house is going in full speed. There is going to be a row of seven town homes in front of us. The lot next to ours is still not sold. I wish it gets sold soon so that there will be no more construction going on on our street.  :) And we all will be ready to enjoy our new neighborhood.

Here are some snaps of plumbing in the basement ground.  Hopefully our garage and basement floor will get poured in this week.

   

I didn't see our three piece rough inn in the basement. Will have to go back on the lot today and see if now they have put it in.  I doubt I will see anything had been done on the lot today as it's raining pretty hard here. :(

Slow but steady progress !!

We are on  the schedule so far. Yesterday we saw that our waterproofing is done.

  

There is no rain in the forecast till Wednesday. So hopefully they will be able to lay our drainage system under the foundation before that. Our PVC pipes and stuff is already delivered. If everything goes per schedule, we might complete the framing by the end of next week. here are some pics I took yesterday.

View from the front. garage and living room waterproofing.

Why are these waterproofing line slanted?

PVC pipes and concrete blocks ready for drainage system

I took this photo when the workers were doing the formwork and pouring the basement walls. They were working in the  light of the cement mixing truck head lights. Wow guys, thanks !!

Footers are in !!

Because of the rain last week, we didn't see any action on our lot until yesterday.  But now our footers are in.  How can anything that is so boring to the naked eye, can be so pleasing and make you happy in the heart !!

View from the road.

Front door porch.

                                                                                 

From the back side. Morning room on the lower  left corner.

Photo taken from side of the family room. Morning room footers on upper left corner. Also can be seen, pumping machine for footers that are being poured on Gina's lot. Kinda behind all the lumber.








This week will be framing, pouring, stripping the walls, along with plumbing going under the slab, drain line installation with water proofing. Looks like lots of  work is going to be done in this week. It's going to be a rainy day, Wednesday. I just hope this will not delay the work too much.


On the same note as  SCJ  , after footers, garage and all the rooms are looking painfully smaller than the actual size it is going to be.  But I am just going to trust ( building timelinewise) seniors Ravenna Ranter  and Noey on this one that I will be able to see the actual size once the sticks are up !! :)

Look at our hole !!!!

We broke the ground yesterday.  Look at our hole!!

    

  
We went to our lot yesterday. It was raining. Still we walked on the lot just to see our hole. hey it's mud, but it's OUR MUD !! It was the most beautiful mud
we have ever seen ...









 



Our driveway. It's going to be bigger than we expected.  I can't wait until they clear the bushes and grass from our lot. It will give us the exact idea of our lot boundaries.









We also got to meet one of the fellow RH blogger and most importantly our soon to be neighbor Gina and her lovely family. They were at lot 187 and we instantly knew  that she must be Gina. Our girls were happy to see their future friends. I see lot of play dates in future. :)   I soooo much wanted to compare notes with Gina, but rain wouldn't allow us. :(

Was wondering.  Does everybody's  PM give weekly update as a precedure? Or this is something we should request him to do? We live quite far from our soon to be home and it's difficult to go there on a daily basis. If we can get some updates, at least  twice a week, that way we will know in advance when we HAVE to go there and see the progress we are making.




   

Pre-construction meeting.

Yesterday we had our pre-con meeting. Our PM went over and finalized all our selections and options, just to make sure we all are on the same page. Our PM  surely seems very knowledgeable. And most importantly doesn't seem to mind all my (some of them silly..) questions.

I am very happy as we are going to break ground TOMORROW !!! This is so exciting !!! Now let the game begin !  They will start by clearing of bushes and trees on our lot.  Our pre drywall meeting is in mid Nov. We are taking our home inspector for pre drywall meeting. And our PM is cool with this.

          If everything goes well ( you know weather, holidays N' all ...) we will be closing in mid January. It's a bit disappointing coz we were really hoping that we will close in last week of December like our sales rep was guessing.  Oh well , I think they might be playing it safe and we might close in December. Lets see.

       We were surprised to see another Rome (first to be built in our row of five Romes. we have only 5 single family homes on our street & they all are Romes.) has already almost finished framing just in 4-5 days. We have small stones in and as our driveway. So does Gina K. We are going to break ground on the same day. YAY for us!!!

Things I still  have to finalize are :-

 Decide location of  flat screen pre-wire in family room.
Finalize locations with Trinity before pre-drywall inspection.

Some special requests to the PM

While I know, as per the county code our microwave has to be installed at certain height from the cooking range, I asked the PM while not breaking the county code, if they have some wiggle room , ( may be 2-3 inches) to install it lower than where it is going to be.  But he said that they already install it at the lowest height from the county code permissible height range. I am going to need a step stool every time I am going to put big or heavy bowl in the microwave. Here I have confess that I am 5'3"  LOL

I was just assuming  that my front door will have peeping hole. That is not the case.  I asked our PM if they can install it. But he said no. I will install it later. No biggie.

A question for fellow bloggers, exactly how many trees, shrubs does RH plant on the lot ? What kind of trees? PM showed us the blue prints for landscaping that shows a row of trees that developer is going to plant.  but don't know exactly how many. We are thinking of requesting the developer to plant then off the property so that we can plant trees on our lot later. That will give us two rows of trees. What do you all think? Good / Bad idea?

Carpet selections pics. Pre Con tomorrow!!!

Yesterday was our flooring appointment at CTI.  It took almost two hours to make all the selections for carpet, hardwood and vinyl in laundry room and mud room. Overall we are happy about our choices.

       On the main level we upgraded carpet to level C (Wild Straw) and  upgraded level A carpet pad. 
       










  

Laundry room vinyl with upper level carpet, Redbud Putty with upgraded level A carpet pad.

Mud room vinyl with Gunstock hardwood.

Gunstock hardwood on main level.

All the selections together, (Ceramic tiles in kitchen and morning room, Wild Straw Carpet (Level C), Andover maple spice cabinets, tan brown granite, maple colored banisters.). We are loving it.








In the basement we got standard carpet with upgraded  level C carpet pad.  Level C carpet pad has extra plastic lining to absorb water seepage.  Carpet color is Redbud Putty, same as upper level carpet in the picture.

Gunstock hardwood floor with ceramic tiles in kitchen and morning room. As everybody knows, picture doesn't do the justice.  It looks better in person.








Tomorrow is our pre construction meeting at 2 pm.  Let's see how it goes. I am sure I am going to have so many questions for our PM that after some days he is going to think "Man! she is some crazy lady"  LOL  I have my own list of questions for the PM.

Changes in Trinity selections. And some curious questions.

In our second meeting with Trinity Wiring, we cancelled Trinity value surround package in basement. We might do a dedicated media room in the basement in future. In that case this surround package in REC room  will not be necessary.

Everything else that was previously decided, we kept ( key FOBS, extra keypad, extra door contacts, cell back up etc.)  Oh and also added multimedia outlet in the loft.

I read on some blogs that some got 6 months free monitoring with Guardian. Anybody got this with Trinity? I should have asked this  at Trinity meeting.

Going back and forth with some petty changes like upgraded kitchen faucet etc, our sales rep. finally told us that they will not accommodate any more changes after this point(that was last week.) as they are about to order everything for our house. And more change orders will affect our closing.  ha ha ... Looks like I am one of those customers who can't make their mind on anything in first meeting. That makes me wonder, should I even try and ask to see if they will accept to lay my ceramic tiles in kitchen and morning room in 45 degree angle? Will they look good? If anybody has done this , may I request some input/pictures? TIA.

Tomorrow we are making our hardwood, carpet and vinyl (mudroom) selections. Will post pictures. We already upgraded the carpet  (level C) on main level while signing the contract. We are definitely going to upgrade carpet pad on all levels. Not sure if I should go for upgraded carpet on upper level.  Any suggestion?

While visiting our lot yesterday, construction on another Rome in our row was going rather slow. Workers were about to stop the work and go home. It was already kinda dark around 7.30 pm. Day is getting shorter......bad weather possibilities........ holiday season approaching.......All this makes me think  if we will be able to close our house in Dec.

Our precon in on Monday. Will surely post updates on that. 

Have a wonderful weekend !!!