We're in!!! We had our final walkthrough with our field manager on Friday, January 23, 2015. We were given a shiny new set of keys, and we've been moving in ever since. There are still a few things that Wayne Homes needs to address, many of them have been done this week. And we're noticing things as we go, and Brant has been great about making sure they get addressed, too. For example, our plumbing hot and cold were flip flopped, and our shower isn't working exactly like it should- neither of which we noticed before we moved in. My husband has been off this entire week so that he could be at the house when the plumber, stone mason, well guy, painters, appliance deliveries all arrive. The exterior of our home still has some things that will need to be finished by Wayne Homes in the spring and A TON that we'll need to do. Anyone want to help plant grass? Right now we've got enough to juggle with getting settled in on the inside.
Although our landscaper is coming today to map out our property and create a blueprint of what our yard will look like in the spring... This is a slow season for him, so we scooped him up now so we can be prepared as soon as it's warm enough to plant grass/plants/trees. I can't wait to see what he suggests!
Right now, I'm in the process of mid-year report cards for my students, wrapping up a grad class, and moving in all at the same time, so it might be a little while before I can post pictures, but I definitely will. This blog is our "scrapbook" of our build, and it wouldn't be complete without photos of the finished product. More to come soon...
It's been a little bit of a rollercoaster, but now that we're in I can honestly say
I LOVE MY NEW HOUSE!!!!!!
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Carpet, Flooring, Electric, Touch Ups, Almost There
Since my last post, we've now been told we should expect to close on January 23rd. We're keeping our fingers crossed.
The mantle is going to be replaced, big sigh of relief. It will be stained to match the cabinets and will look the way it is supposed to. Can't wait to see it!
Last week the carpeting was installed, the flooring is almost done. They still have to lay the flooring in the sunroom. We changed our minds on the sunroom flooring and decided not to do carpeting there. Wayne Homes changed it, we paid a little extra, and now we're waiting on the correct flooring. We're throwing the carpeting that would have gone in the sunroom in the basement, even though it's unfinished, it'll warm up the gameroom space down there.
My husband and I installed drawer pulls on all of our kitchen and bathroom cabinets and we hung lighting in the kitchen and sun room. If we could do it all over again, we'd tell Wayne Homes to leave off the lighting fixtures (other than the dome lights that go everywhere,) but that we'd install our own. We ended up replacing the lighting in the kitchen above the sink, foyer light, and we really want to change the exterior lanterns. They look exactly like they did in the picture, but they are sooooo small!! They look kind of silly.
We're in the process of installing a mailbox. It's kind of hard with the ground frozen, though, so we might have to pick up our mail at the local post office until land thaws.
We also are going to have to wait until spring to do the final grading, painting of the exposed block, painting our front door white, and our door from our garage to our house, too, and installation of the walkway to the front steps and driveway, and deck. The only part of everything I just mentioned that Wayne Homes takes care of is $400 of the grading and painting the block and doors. Basically, everything on the inside will be done when we close, but we'll have quite a bit of work to do on the exterior in the spring.
The electrician is finishing up next week, and the painter will be back to touch up, too. We decided to have him paint the walls going down the steps into the basement and stain the railing there, too. We didn't realize how unfinished it would look from the first floor, not sue how we missed that, but regardless, it was $125 extra, but the hallway going down the steps to the basement will be finished, and the view from the first floor will look a little nicer when the door to the basement is open.
We are still on top of things. We are realizing that part of building is taking on the responsibility of being "co-project managers" along with the field manger. With how much we're responsible for on our own to begin with, it makes sense. We've found that it pays to go to the house every day to check on things. We catch a lot of the things that need to be addressed and fill in our field manager since he's not there every day to monitor the progress. I think it's kept things moving more quickly, and my husband feels like as long as he is looking at every step of the way he'll catch things the field manager might have missed. I think our field manager is amazing, but it's a shame that Wayne Homes has him working on 9 or 10 houses at a time. I could never juggle that many projects and catch all the mistakes.
Right now we're waiting on more mistakes the drywallers made. In addition to cutting holes too big for many of the outlets and switches, they also covered up our vent in our main bathroom and the vent for the dryer in the laundry room (although technically that might not be their fault since the guys who hung the siding never installed the vents.
Next steps are to schedule installation of appliances, blinds, cable, internet, phone, moving van and movers, and wait...
It's getting close, but it still feels like we're never going to get in!!!
The mantle is going to be replaced, big sigh of relief. It will be stained to match the cabinets and will look the way it is supposed to. Can't wait to see it!
Last week the carpeting was installed, the flooring is almost done. They still have to lay the flooring in the sunroom. We changed our minds on the sunroom flooring and decided not to do carpeting there. Wayne Homes changed it, we paid a little extra, and now we're waiting on the correct flooring. We're throwing the carpeting that would have gone in the sunroom in the basement, even though it's unfinished, it'll warm up the gameroom space down there.
My husband and I installed drawer pulls on all of our kitchen and bathroom cabinets and we hung lighting in the kitchen and sun room. If we could do it all over again, we'd tell Wayne Homes to leave off the lighting fixtures (other than the dome lights that go everywhere,) but that we'd install our own. We ended up replacing the lighting in the kitchen above the sink, foyer light, and we really want to change the exterior lanterns. They look exactly like they did in the picture, but they are sooooo small!! They look kind of silly.
We're in the process of installing a mailbox. It's kind of hard with the ground frozen, though, so we might have to pick up our mail at the local post office until land thaws.
We also are going to have to wait until spring to do the final grading, painting of the exposed block, painting our front door white, and our door from our garage to our house, too, and installation of the walkway to the front steps and driveway, and deck. The only part of everything I just mentioned that Wayne Homes takes care of is $400 of the grading and painting the block and doors. Basically, everything on the inside will be done when we close, but we'll have quite a bit of work to do on the exterior in the spring.
The electrician is finishing up next week, and the painter will be back to touch up, too. We decided to have him paint the walls going down the steps into the basement and stain the railing there, too. We didn't realize how unfinished it would look from the first floor, not sue how we missed that, but regardless, it was $125 extra, but the hallway going down the steps to the basement will be finished, and the view from the first floor will look a little nicer when the door to the basement is open.
We are still on top of things. We are realizing that part of building is taking on the responsibility of being "co-project managers" along with the field manger. With how much we're responsible for on our own to begin with, it makes sense. We've found that it pays to go to the house every day to check on things. We catch a lot of the things that need to be addressed and fill in our field manager since he's not there every day to monitor the progress. I think it's kept things moving more quickly, and my husband feels like as long as he is looking at every step of the way he'll catch things the field manager might have missed. I think our field manager is amazing, but it's a shame that Wayne Homes has him working on 9 or 10 houses at a time. I could never juggle that many projects and catch all the mistakes.
Right now we're waiting on more mistakes the drywallers made. In addition to cutting holes too big for many of the outlets and switches, they also covered up our vent in our main bathroom and the vent for the dryer in the laundry room (although technically that might not be their fault since the guys who hung the siding never installed the vents.
Next steps are to schedule installation of appliances, blinds, cable, internet, phone, moving van and movers, and wait...
It's getting close, but it still feels like we're never going to get in!!!
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Cabinets, Countertops, Doors, Paint, Trim
Progress! Since our last post, they've installed the
cabinets, countertops, doors, trim work, and are about to start painting and staining! It’s looking so good!!!
After that will be flooring and light fixtures...
We are still hoping we'll be in by January 5th. That was the tentative date our field manager gave us.
Friday, January 2, 2015
Update after Meeting with Field Manager
Master Bedroom- Andor will fix closets after we move in.
Master Bathroom-The towel bar was never ordered. (will be ordered)
Loft- Crack in wall must be repaired (will be)
Sun Room- Crack runs along entire length of cathedral ceiling (waiting to hear how Wayne Homes will address this.) We're beginning to wonder how Wayne Homes even justified paying the drywall guys. Look at next issue.
Outlets- drywall guys cut out the outlet boxes in the drywall and over cut with the rotozip about half of them. Holes are visible outside of outlet covers and need to be fixed (circled each one with a pencil on the wall and will be fixed)
Paint- Splatters (will be touched up)
Basement- Cracks galore (to be expected, all too small in width currently to be addressed keep an eye on them)
Entryway closet- drywall guys- surprise!!- covered up electric wire for light in closet (electrician will come and fix their mistake)
Front Door- dents (will be fixed)
Entry door from garage to house- same issue
Dining Room- thermostat wired in middle of wall- wrong place (they will move to correct spot and painter will patch and paint hole even though it wasn't his mistake)
Kitchen- cabinet door stained unevenly (will be replaced, field manager ordered two just in case)
Kitchen- cabinet nicks and dents from installation-minor but there nonetheless (field manger will touch up with wax marker) hope this works as they cost us over $2,500 in an upgrade!
Island- electric outlet never installed (electrician will cut it out and install)
Phone Line- we forgot to put one in! (electrician will install one where we choose along with an outlet there for an answering machine for about $75) Update: Electrician never came out to do this. He quit working for Wayne Homes. Our cable provider took care of phone- it runs through our internet.
Ceiling Fans- paid for 5, only 1 was shipped. (Field manager looked at prints, they were on there. He still wasn't sure though. We were! They were on the prints!! He texted us back that night and said they were paid for but accidentally left off of the order. We'd be getting $84 credit per fan and could go buy ones from Home Depot. We like the ones we ended up buying more, but they were more than $84!!!)
Living Room- fireplace mantle stained wrong color (field manager checking into this...) he agrees about color, but not sure what his boss will tell him to do about it due to next issue
Fireplace Mantle- wrong size. On our paperwork it said "custom built mantle on site" but clearly it's too small for the stonework that had to cover the width of the hearth. (Field manager tried to say this was standard for Wayne homes but after showing him several pictures from Wayne Homes' flickr albums, it was clear this is not the case and is a mistake that needs to be fixed, yet he still made no guarantees and told me he'd get back to me sometime today, even said it could cost us $$. Still waiting for a response as of 5:00PM, texted him, too, guess we won't hear today since business day is officially over...)
Here is a picture of our mantle and below it are some from Wayne Homes Flickr albums. What do you think? We think it's pretty clear. See how ours has the stonework going up the sides of the mantle to the top of the mantle? If the mantle were wider, like it should have been, the stonework would have stopped at the bottom of the mantle. We measured the stonework, and the mason had to go beyond the original dimensions from our contract (6'8'' x 4'8'') to accommodate the stone going up the sides of the mantle. It's just frustrating that we even have to argue this.
On a side note, I hate that our walls look yellow in the pictures I've taken. They are so much warmer in person. They are a warm taupe/beige that I love, not at all how it looks in the picture.
Our Fireplace
Here are some Wayne Homes fireplaces from their flickr page.
They all look the way ours is supposed to look.
Notice how the mantle is wider than the stone work.
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