Almost Finished

We stopped by the house last weekend to discover that exterior lights and front porch railing had been installed along with the yard being graded. The front sidewalk had also been poured for the third time.

And then this afternoon I talked with the project manager on the phone and he mentioned that something big had happened but he would let it be a surprise. So when went by there I discovered landscaping. Sod across the front yard, shrubs, mulch, and a tree. 

The backyard has been seeded with straw overtop. It doesn't look like much though and along with the over seeding I've already been told I will probably need to do I'm probably going to have to get more straw too.

In other news I submitted the request with the Homeowners Association to get approval to put up a fence. I'll save the full story for another post but simply tracking down how to do this was a tremendous ordeal and one of the most irritating parts of this whole process. What I expected would be a simple question with a simple answer (What is the phone number and name of the person I contact for this?) turned into multiple emails, phone calls, misinformation, and whole lot of wasted time. But it's been submitted and the plan is to get it put up as soon as possible after we close on the house and move in.

Drywall and Primer

I've been a little behind on updates on here. The day after my last post on Week 6 progress we had the dreaded stomach virus make it's miserable way through our house starting with our youngest son. It delayed the drywall walkthrough as the day I was originally supposed to meet with the project manager I was feeling half dead and had to postpone it with him a few days.

When I finally met with last week not only was the drywall up but the first coat of primer had been put on the walls as well. He explained to me that painting is a multistep process done over the course of a week or so with primer, patching, paint, more patching, and another layer of paint added before it's finished. The kitchen and bathroom cabinetry had also been added with everything covered in plastic to keep it protected from stray paint.

On the outside the driveway was in the final stages of paving when I arrived for the walkthrough. Gutters had also been installed. With a lack of trees in our yard leaves won't be much of an issue but at some point I plan to get some sort of cover installed on those. Getting up on a ladder to clean the gutters on my existing one story house has been difficult enough and I definitely won't be climbing high enough to reach the second story on this one.

The project manager asked me not to include a picture of it but he was also going to be tearing up the sidewalk and getting it re-poured for the third time. I mention this because I've really appreciated his attention to detail and it seems like everything Jenny and I have noted as potential issues during construction he's already seen and made note of. The previous two pours of the sidewalk looked fine to us and we never would have thought to ask about it. But clearly he saw a problem both times warranting redoing it. I've also really appreciated his constant communication throughout the build. He's called at least once if not twice a week and always been willing to meet me for a walkthrough. As I've noted before Jenny and I have read through numerous other Ryan Homes building blogs and at least some of them have noted a lack of communication from the project manager but this has certainly not been an issue for us. 

On to photos:

Paved driveway.

Rear of house. Note the safety railing covering the sliding door. After we move in my brother-in-law is going to add a simple set of steps for us until we can build a deck. We opted not to one built during initial construction as our sales rep told us that their cost was around twice as much as what we could have it added for later. We're also probably going to add a patio of some sort too.

More photos behind the cut here.