The outside

I realized that I've never taken the time to publish any photos of the outside of the house, so voila!

Dry wall is up...

Oh my gosh, I can't believe in two weeks my future house has gone from a concrete foundation to a fully framed house with inspected/signed off electrical, plumbing, HVAC, insulation, and now dry wall hung, tapped, sealed, and ready to be sanded/primed/painted! Oh yeah, they also poured the foundation floor, and garage floor. It is scary how fast this whole thing has progressed.

I suppose by the end of next week, the house will be primed and painted, floors buffed out, resilient laid down, and cabinets/bath fixtures in.  It amazes me how fast this all goes.

From what I can tell things look good.  I put my hands on the dry wall in the areas I was concerned about insulation (which I didn't get to inspect due to the lightning fast progress).  What I found was that most of the areas felt warm like the walls where I know the insulation was well installed.  However, there are a couple areas that I felt probably weren't well insulated and indeed, those sections of wall are cooler to the touch so the insulation quality is definitely affected.  I'm not sure what to do, but Ryan homes does pay to have the house independently performance tested so I will receive a report and pictures of where the house leaks heat.  I think I will wait for those results.

In any case, I'm so excited about all the progress, and I really like the house, though it does look a lot smaller with the drywall up.  Enjoy the pictures!

60 Day Lock

I made my 60 day interest rate lock last week and I'm very happy.  I originally planned on using my negotiated points toward lowering the mortgage rate down to 4%.  But I was able to lock in at 3.75% without using points.  I would have liked to lower the rate even further with my points, but NVR said this was as low as they would go; so the bonus is that I get to use my points to lower closing costs.  That's about 1.5K savings for me which really helps out.  With the lower rate, and points toward closing costs, I'm able to wrap my closing costs into the mortgage and keep the monthly rate at what was first estimated.  That gives me an extra $4,500 to keep in the bank as a cushion, or for a nice deck/patio, or even a future finished basement!

Friday visit

I was supposed to stop by today to check out the insulation before the drywall went up.  After my pre-drywall meeting earlier this week, I was informed that the basement and garage floors would be poured Thursday, insulation would go in on Friday, and sheet rock would be delivered with drywalling begining next week.  When I called to stop by and visit, my PM asked if I recieved his message informing me that the sheetrock was already finished because they were running ahead of schedule. 

I'm a bit disappointed, I was looking forward to inspecting the insulation work, especially the corners, and areas where framing made proper insulation difficult.  Now I get to guess what really lies under the drywall.  I have to say, my PM sent me 6 photos showing corners and hard-to-reach places so I could see the insulation, which was nice of him.  Most of it looks good, but some of the work lookes 'so-so'.  Again, I'm sure it will be acceptable for code, but I would rather pay a little more and get a really well insulated house.  One of the only values in building a new house is the opportunity to really make sure it is well insulated, I hope my house IS well insulated.

Here are the pictures:

Pre-Drywall meeting

I met with my PM this past Wednesday and he took me through the house to see what it looks like before the drywall goes up.  All and all, it looks ok- they call it rough-framing for a reason.  I really like the house, it is small, but open, with plenty of space for a small family.  I'm tired of everyone living in a McMansion-definetly not my style. 

I have some issues with the framing.  Ryan homes hired an Amish group to frame the house and I thought I would be more impressed with their workmanship.  The framing is fine, but I would have thought more attention was paid to detail, there were quite a few areas where the framing was truly acceptable, but could have been done better. 

On a postive note, I like that Ryan homes caulks all the double headers, double joists, etc. to prevent air infiltration.  Of course, the caulking should be done on the outside, not the inside, but it does show some attention to detail that I appreciate.  The electrical looked good, again every joist with electrical was sealed with foam- a nice detail.    The heating also looked good, nice attention to detail sealing all the heat exchanges, and spraying foam into any openings between floors.  My architect friend said the plumbing was well done too.  Overall impression: Nice job so far.

One thing I really like is that the floors feel very level, and the walls look square.  On the downside, Ryan homes designs a dropped ceiling along the middle of the house to run heating, electrical, etc.  But the only thing in a huge part of this run is electrical which could have been re-routed so a huge section didn't have to go in.  I really don't mind, but it would have been nice if my dining room didn't have this dropped section since the only thing running through it is a couple electrical lines.  On the plus side, my PM did offer to scale the drop back since we don't need to add HVAC in it hear in the northeast (our furnaces are in the basement not the attic space).  I asked him to keep it the way it was for uniformity, I thought a smaller section in the dining room would look weirder than keeping it the way it is. Of course, not having it at all would have looked nice. 

I was happy to see that my PM had the construction heater on, heating the basement in preparation for pouring the concrete slab.  That was a nice bit of attention to detail!  So far things are going smoothly.  I can't wait to see the finished house!

Sneak Peak

I stopped by to take a closer look at the house the other day.  Here's what I saw:  generally the framing looks good, there are some issues that need to be addressed tomorrow in my pre-drywall meeting with my PM. 

                                                                   Ceiling Trusses

Bathroom Framing

Second floor bathroom drains

Framing began

My PM called to let me know framing began on my house so I dropped by to take a look. Here are some pictures. Overall, things look good, a few 'different' things need to be looked at, but it is early on so it is easy to correct now. Enjoy! I stopped by on Friday and a friend dropped by today, but I'm sick as a dog so expect to wait a while for an update.  P.S.  Nasal infections really suck!

                                                                     Kitchen Window

                                                                  Back Hall/Lavatory

                                                            Back hall door to garage

                                                                 First floor framing