Day Eleven: Foundation Walls (and checking out that darn hill of a backyard)

This morning I packed up the kids and we drove to the new house.  We made it in under an hour for the second time in a row.  So nice.  Though we saw some major traffic going that way on our way home, so we must have just lucked out with some good traffic times.  Saturday mornings are better than Saturday afternoons maybe.  Anyway, I drove into the neighborhood from a different entrance than we usually use so that I could see the progress from a distance AND also to check out the craziness that is our backyard hill.  Yikes!  

Back story:  I was texting my dad (he's a contractor) about the backyard worries and the hill and he told me to send him the plot photo so I did and he said that yeah the plans clearly state that the entire backyard is a hill.  Ugh!  Seriously?  How come it wasn't explained to us better before hand or ever at our Pre construction mtg?  :(  Nothing we can do about it now, but it does make me sad we paid so much money for a lot premium on a lot that had nothing premium about it.  :(  What are the chances they'd give us back that money off the contract?  Yeah... didn't think so.  Would be nice though.

Anyway, here is the view of our hill and the back of our house.  We are the one in the middle, with just the foundation walls up.

Close up

The four littles in front of THEIR house!

They were so excited, I was actually pleasantly surprised at how happy and thrilled they were with the progress so far.

Front of the house, where the front door will be.

Hanging out in their basement.

The morning room is missing the tiny little window it was suppose to have.  

The neighbor to our right, that is being framed right now has the little window in their morning room (they are a venice) but the house to our left (which is a Ravenna) doesn't have it.  I will need to check with our PM/SR about it.  At our Pre construction mtg. they said we wouldn't have the big window that was on our sheet but would instead have the small one.

Nope.  Not there.

Our {darn} view from "above"... lol!

Side yard to the left...

Side yard to the right...

Drove to the cul de sac in front of our street and got photos from up there of our street.  I was trying to figure out what all the different models were and are these three in a row all Milans?  Does anyone know?  I know the ones on the left and right are... and I'm pretty sure when we first came to the neighborhood our SR had us walk through the one in the middle so yeah, I'm pretty sure these are all Milans, and all the different elevations offered in our neighborhood.  

Ours will be  this elevation but without the stone on the front.  I love this house, when I look at the three in a row this one is the one that looks most like "us" and "home".  Just hope its not because the stone makes it look so good, since ours will be all siding.  

Anyway, it was a super fun trip with the kids today.   We will not come back up for a visit for two weeks.  Hopefully there will be some good progress to check on at that point.  :)

After our visit I got a text from my dad who took the time to draw us what our house and grade will look like from the side w/the slope and the hill in the backyard.  

Milan Model (Photos)

This is the Milan model we have been to  (three times so far).  I believe its an Elevation N, which isn't even offered in our community but its very similar to the Elevation L (I think) which is offered in our community.

The Office

The Dining Room

Looking out from inside the dining room 

The Family Room 

 The Hallway

The Kitchen

The Morning Room

Looking into kitchen from Morning Room (can see the pantry door open)

The Mud Room

Powder Room

View from Stairs

Bath 1

(Double Sinks)

Laundry Room

Bedroom 3

Bonus Bedroom

Bedroom 2

Linen Closet

Master bedroom

Master Bathroom

These two photos I took in a future neighbors house, don't have photos of the model for some reason.

Shower/Tub Upgrade

Part of  the master closet through the bathroom

Basement

Media Room

Looking from the Media Room out into the rest of the finished basement

Basement Bathroom

Unfinished part of basement (beneath morning room)

Day 6: Footers and Foundation Walls

This morning my husband received a text from our PM saying that they are forming and pouring our foundation this week.  This afternoon I received a text from our SR w/ the following photo and an update that the footers were in and they are working on forming the foundation walls.

Woo Hoo!!

That was my first reaction... upon further staring at the photo I noticed it looks like the house is pushed back further on our lot that I thought and like we seriously have ZERO backyard space.  Ugh.  My husband thinks the photo is probably just misleading and told me to "relax paranoid lady".  haha.  we shall see.  I hope he's right and I'm just paranoid.  I know we have a great deal of side yard space on both sides, so worst case scenario that's where the children will play, but I was really hoping to have much more of a yard in the back than the photo shows there to be.  I know we have some yard on the downside of the hill, but really didn't think the house was that close to the edge.  I don't know, what do you think?  Can the photo just be misleading?

Here is the amended soils plan they sent us a month or so ago.  I never really understood it, and maybe I should have had our PM explain it to us during our Pre-Construction meeting because then I would know exactly where the hill/slope/drop off is in approximation to our house.  I really was thinking we have a mostly flat backyard and then like 4 feet of space would be on the downside of the hill.  The photo above makes it seem like our entire backyard is down the drop off.

Anyway, so happy for an update today!  Its suppose to rain all week long so I'm not sure what that means for the foundation being poured but I will be happy for another update when they send one.  :)

Groundbreaking!!!! (Day one)

Tonight we received this picture from our SR.  I was SO excited. I cannot tell you how much I've been checking my phone all week long just hoping for a text or an email.  The weather on Monday and Tuesday had me pretty sure that they hadn't done anything on our lot yet but Wednesday seemed more hopeful but as the day went by I kind of just gave up, also knowing our SR is usually off on Thursdays and Fridays I thought I'd have to wait til Saturday for an update.  So grateful he sent us this photo.  My husband is leaving tomorrow for a three week long business trip to Ireland so I was happy to get the photo and news that they had started while I was sitting with my husband.  We (read: I) had this fun (cheesy) celebration plan to do as a family once we broke ground so I was happy we were able to do that tonight while my husband is still in town. :)

I have never been so happy in life to stare at a photo of dirt being pushed around!

Starting Next Week!!

We are SO excited to know that our build will start NEXT week!  Our SR texted a couple days ago and let us know that we are still on schedule to start next week, of course I have no idea if that means Monday (or Tuesday because of Presidents day?)... or it could even mean Saturday I suppose but hopefully earlier in the week than later.  With our new home being so far away from our current home we will rely pretty heavily on the photos our SR and PM will send to us from time to time.  Hopefully I will get some photos to share next week.

In the meantime, I did take my youngest sister to the nearby Milan model home to let her see what our home will be like.  So far she is the only person we have taken to see the model and so far no one for our family has gone to see our future home site just yet.  I will probably take my dad up with me once the house is up with the roof on and everything.  (And anyone else who expresses an interest in going I will gladly take to the model or the neighborhood as well.)

Every time I go to the model (or walk through a neighbor's almost ready to close home) I am always blown away by the size of it.  Its like I keep picturing it a certain way in my head and from looking at the plans on paper, or pictures I"ve taken or seen online but nothing really compares to being there and walking through it.  It makes me so excited every time I get to walk through one.  Last Saturday I literally left the model more excited than I've been during this whole process.  

I actually wanted to go to the model because I have been looking at the floor plans, trying to figure out how I will put the beds in the kids rooms.  The boys, unfortunately will still have to share a room for the time being.  They will be in the largest of the 3 kids bedrooms however, the window placement had me worried that there isn't really a good spot to put the two twin sized beds (and bunk beds are not options because that is one of the main reasons we need MORE space than what we currently have.  The bunk bed situation is just too hard to deal with when it comes to little boys making their beds and keeping their room clean).  Anyway, my sweet sister with tape measure in hand came and helped me measure out a twin sized mattress on the floor of the boys will-be room.  It actually will work perfectly to have a twin bed on each side of the window and I one of them will just have to have the small window off to the side.  Which my sister pointed out she had that set up as a child in the room she shared with our other sister and she actually loved having the window next to her and she could keep a drink there or a book to read or something, like a little shelf. Anyway, now it'll be a fight to see which brother gets the extra window. lol.  I am seriously so excited to get in there and start living... and start decorating!  ;)

We are coming from a tiny (very old) townhouse with one full bathroom and maybe about 1300-1400 square feet.  Our kitchen now is so tiny and there are very few cabinets, almost no counter top space, and the tiniest pantry ever.  Most of our food is kept on shelves in the basement and we have some little target cube shelf thing off to the side where we keep our microwave and as many other small appliances and bowls, etc. that we can keep on it.  It has been a struggle to downsize to this little space with our large family but it was a means to an end and allowed us to live in a nice area, my hometown actually and be close to family, most importantly my mom during these past couple of years.  It also helped us realize that we don't want to buy an older home with all the maintenance issues and with the high energy costs associated with old windows, doors, and poorly insulated walls.

This morning our SR sent over an addendum to our deposit schedule, saying that because they are starting construction they will no longer be able to collect money from us, so we no longer have the March deposit due on the 7th and all remaining money will be now due at settlement.  I had no idea this would be the case, so I just thought I'd put it on here in case someone down the road comes across the same thing.  Our community has actually been better than others I've seen as far as how much down payment they need to start construction, and maybe it has to do with the type of loan we are getting too but we really have had to put down very little money to get started.  Which is probably a big reason in why we've been able to go ahead with this process.  If we needed to put down a lot more money then it just wouldn't have been possible for us and we'd have to continue renting this horrible townhouse we live in now.

Anyway, next post will hopefully have photos of them starting our build next week!!  Fingers Crossed!!!