Mar 12 2006
They made a good attempt to fix / level our yard. They took about 2 feet off the top, then sloped it down from there. That leaves the black tar showing on the foundation, but our deck will cover one side, and we’re going to plant shrubs on the other side, so you won’t see any of the tar.
Check out the befores (left) and afters (right):
Check out the old pictures: here
Check out the new pictures: here
Mar 10 2006
We had our walk-through today with the building supervisor, Rick. We were very impressed at the cleanliness of the house, and Rick’s pickiness to details. He actually caught a lot of things that we didn’t see.
Overall, the walk-through went great. We have a re-walk-through next Thursday at check that everything was fixed, then we close next Friday the 17th.
We also got landscaping today too. Cute tree and shrubs outside, tastefully done. We’re happy.
Also while we were there, the bulldozer was backfilling the house next to us and started working on leveling our yard. By the time we left it was looking a lot better. We have high hopes that it will end up looking just fine.
Mar 09 2006
I’m starting a new thread about the yard since that one was getting so long…
As I posted in the last thread, we spoke with the constuction supervisor who understood our complaints / concerns about our yard. I still haven’t gotten new pictures of the yard since the ones in our gallery from the 4th. Basically, as our yard is now, the only place our yard is flat is straight across from the jut-out to the left side of the house (toward the living room window). You can kind of see the top of the flat part in the picture below, then the yard slopes straight down from there. As it stands now, we’d have our future deck over the flat area, which leaves us with no level yard extending past the deck. The slope starts from the tip of the jut-out area down to the back. The picture doesn’t do justice to the amount of sloping, but it’ll give you an idea anyway.
What they will/can do:
The construction supervisor said that they will cut down 1-2 feet of dirt from the top of the yard. This will bring the dirt against the back of the house from right under the siding line, to about 2 feet below it. Then, they will flatten out the yard 15-18 feet past the point of the jut-out of the kitchen. This will leave the rest of the back of the yard with a slight slope (less than or equal to the slope currently). This will give us 15-18 feet of usable yard for hang-out, yard games, picnic table, swingset, etc, etc…Sound good so far to us.
They plan to do all this in the next week or so, when they backfill the foundation of the house next to us.
Mar 05 2006
Well, problems have moved from one area of the house to another. Luckily, the inside of our house is looking great! Maple Street has really impressed us with how many little things they are noticing and fixing in the last week of cleanup before the walk-through. I’d say about 35+ of the things on my list of 43 concerns are already fixed and there’s still a week to go before the walk-through.
Our concern now is the backyard. We were told that it wouldn’t be graded and seeded until the spring. That was fine with us, and we understood the weather conditions that were the best for the backyard project. However, late last week, they did add manure to the dirt, mix it all in, and pretty much grade it to what it looks like, is the final “layout” of the backyard. I had a meeting with LJ at the house and told him my concerns about the yard.
When we bought our lot, it was for the most part, a flat lot. The last 10 feet or so on the back right corner sloped down a bit (maybe 2-3 feet) but the rest was flat. We paid a premium on this lot (we thought, because it was flat). Now…the lot is very sloped.
If you remember my conerns from December…when they were doing the basement, how they only dug 5-6 feet down and built the house up from there. Well, that has really affected the lot. Now that the house was essentially built 2-4 feet above the sidewalk/lot level, they have to compensate that with dirt. So, where we thought they would dig down for the whole basement, they dug about 2/3 of the way down, and then built up. So, they have to push all of the extra dirt up against the house, making the yard very sloped. It’s really bad.
We went from dreams of putting swing sets, and having bocce and cornhole games in our yard, to a point where we are already dreading mowing it because it’s so steep. Yes, it’s that bad.
I’m going to have to get better pictures tonight of the yard, I was out there yesterday at a bad time of day and the pictures are all wierd. When I get those I’ll put comparative pictures up.
LJ is going to talk with the building supervisor and construction manager about this. We’ll see what comes of that.
Mar 01 2006
With a vote for March 17, Lary (Paul’s dad) wins the challenge!
Our walk-through is scheduled for Friday March 10, with our closing on Friday March 17.
Hopefully it won’t change…guess it’ll depend on how quickly they get things fixed from our list. They should be able to finish on time.
Yay!
Feb 28 2006
LJ (sales counselor) called me tonight, I guess the lady I spoke with at the central office told him I had called her asking questions about the repairs I want done. He wants to do a pre-walk-through with me Friday. He seemed extremely shocked that I had 42 items on my “still needs to be fixed” list. We’ll see how that goes on Friday. Hopefully, in the process of cleaning and finalizing things this week they’ll notice some of my minor complaints themselves and fix them so I don’t have to complain about as much. Most are very easy fixes, but things I don’t want to do, especially b/c I’m paying for them to do it right the first time!! Hmph!
I can’t wait until we’re in…things are perfect, and life settles down…
Feb 27 2006
Our front door was painted today; maroon to match the shutters.
Also, I give a thumbs up to Maple Street. They finally are fixing the drywall in the guest bathroom. They ripped out that extremely crooked wall, and put new drywall in. They still have to mud and sand it, but I’m glad they did it before the walk-through. It gives me hope that they are actually going to fix things before we move in, since that wall was our biggest concern.
Feb 26 2006
We went to Best Buy tonight and bought our refrigerator, washer and dryer. They had some really good deals going on, plus Paul had almost $150 in rewards coupons, so we got a great deal on them! They’ll be delivered, installed and checked over all for free! Can’t beat that!
Check out what we got!
Fridge: Click here (we added the ice-maker)
Washer: Click here
Dryer: Click here
We’ve been looking for these appliances for a few months now, and are really excited that we have one more thing checked off the list for the house. We are ready to move in now!!
All that’s left is buying the blinds and paint from Home Depot.
Feb 24 2006
Paul and I have decided to have a little fun in our last few weeks before we move. We’ve decided to have a contest to see who can guess the closing date of our house. The person that comes the closest will get a cool prize…we’ll have to think about what it will be 🙂 All we know is that it’ll be sometime in March. Guesses must be submitted by Sunday, March 5th to count!
If anyone thinks of a good prize for the winner, let us know. We were thinking about taking the winner out to dinner, or cooking dinner for them at the new house…but what if the winner lives far away? Hmm….maybe a “coupon” for a dinner at the house?? Dunno, we’ll be thinking about it; we’ll finalize the prize by March 5th. In the meantime, let the games begin!
Happy guessing!
Feb 24 2006
The carpet and doorknobs are installed! Looks like the only thing left to do is clean, clean, clean!
I talked with LJ (sales counselor) and he said that the exterior paint (garage door, front door and front door molding) will not be painted until spring. They have to wait until the weather warms to a consistent 50 degrees so that the materials can get warmer and accept the paint. Also, the yard won’t be graded and seeded until around the same time. Kinda disappointing that we’re moving into an unfinished house, but…at least we’ll be in!
