The devil is in the details

In case it sounded petty that I said the caulking was messy, this is what I am talking about: 

The FM dinged our wood-capped half walls putting in our second countertop. 

Does it look messy and unprofessional to you? Because it does to us, so we are asking them to fix it. It looks like the job we did ourselves in our first house as newlyweds. 

In better news, these are a few updated shots if our great room:

Foyer and office doors. Love!

Sunroom into great room with our sofa and loveseat

From the great room 

I am Slightly obsessed with these doors. :) 

The carpenters were here today and they finally installed this long lost part of our porch:

The third column is finally here!! There are some crazy nail holes in the middle of the top two sides facing the house, so we will ask that they be filled in the spring. Our exterior looks normal now! 

The trim people also installed "crown molding" on our deck posts to cover some of the fascia. It is interesting to say the least... But closer to being done. :) I will post a picture of it sometime. 

Here is our fixed cracked Great Wall seam that is a much bigger pain to fix than anticipated. They are supposed to be priming today but no one has showed up yet. Because of that, we are putting in appliances. Hopefully round two is more successful than round one. :) 

The boys are so excited that they ask everyday when we can move their beds in. We can't wait either, love bugs. We can't wait either. <3 

Feeling Hopeful

The cleaning lady stayed until late last night and we haven't been in the house yet. This morning, there was a truck there bright and early and I think the painter's wife (who works for him as well). The FM showed up as I was about to leave. This was promising. 

My husband talked with the FM and it looks like some issues have been addressed. I know it's been a roller coaster since 1/17 and we have supposed to be "Moved in" by now, but I think...just MAYBE it will happen next weekend. Per our discussion today:

1. Walkout excavating – possibly today, if not Monday
2. Trim guys there today finishing up. Teric fired our old trim guys since they didn't ever show up.
3. Teric will look at/fix counter seam. He "seemed" - pun - to know about this already.
4. Painters there today and maybe tomorrow if needed. They will at least prime the great room wall today.
5. Soffit repair has been called in
6. Window is in, will be installed when temps get up a little higher…maybe next week
7. Island countertop is in and will be installed – today maybe? Monday? Can’t remember for sure.        *They sent wrong end piece – they are supposed to overnight it and get it Monday. For the record, almost every single side piece has been the "wrong one."

        8. Probably close mid-late next week contingent on the rest of the backfill. 

On our end, our garage door openers, key pad & carriage house hardware will be installed Monday and blinds will go in on Wednesday. 

Cleaning

The cleaning lady is here currently working and she seems super nice. She had a long drive and the roads aren't very friendly. 

Some tiny trim pieces were cut for the master porch. Nothing else measurable was done today. 

Snow one

Snow one came yesterday which was actually a good thing for many reasons, safety being number one. We don't really know what to expect at the moment, which also may be a good thing so we aren't consistently disappointed. What I do know is this: 

1. The trim carpenters have been AWOL for weeks. We are missing our 3rd porch column and need our kitchen floor braced so it doesn't feel and sound like an earthquake every time someone is in the kitchen. I am not sure if this is a common Montgomery Plan issue, or if it's because our island bracing had to be cut to accommodate our HVAC. We don't really care why. We just want it fixed. 

2. Our window is still broken over the bath. WH wants to close with the contingency that they will fix this in the spring. November. NOVEMBER people! I don't know any job in really life that you can put off addressing for 4 months and potentially longer and think it's not a big deal. Except for Anderson Silverline Windows and their partnership with Wayne Homes. 

3. Our countertop isn't in and our island isn't finished. We don't really want to put our things away only to have the counter ripped off and a big mess mad in/on our dishes and kitchen stuff. 

4. The 5ft seam on the great room wall needs painted (so the entire wall actually gets painted...eeek)   still as do a few other places in the house. The caulking right behind our sink is messy and not smooth (it actually had a few areas where there are spikes). I don't think the same person this did the caulking the first time when it looked great did it this time. 

5. Our garage door is dinged in two areas. I'm pretty sure I watched the super careless Carter 84 guy do it, but obviously he won't be admitting to it. 

6. The basement. Ehhhh not sure when the rough grade will be done with these snow days but if we have to scrape and clean the mud out of our basement again, It's going to be very ugly. I said earlier my hubby won't even go out to the house because his anxiety over stupid crap that should be finished and stupid mistakes that keep setting us back is through the roof. 

7. I have said before when praise is deserved I am the first to give it. My acknowledgement of our home consultant's hard work getting our plan the way we want it earned her "Hero of The Week" on Facebook. She rocked. Recently, my acknowledgement of Jack from Barrington Floors also earned him "Hero of the Week." Awesome. Glad the "good parts" of our build are getting noticed. We just wish the "bad parts" would have been addressed the same way! Then we wouldn't still be dealing with them and writing about them over and over and over! 

8. Cleaning lady. I am fine if she holds off even longer because there are still several crews that have to be in the house. 

Until tomorrow...

It is what it is!

The painters came today and did a lot of detail work, but still have to come back because we had a 5 ft seam crack vertically in our great room and it still looks like crap. There are still a few areas that need attention as well, like our island that won't be finished until our new counter is installed. 

The trim guy didn't show up for the bazillionth time. I don't have anything nice to say. 

The excavators didn't show up today either to take care of the basement issue. They said they will be here tomorrow even if it snows. This seems absolutely stupid and dangerous, which is why it should have been done a long time ago. In the mean time, we are cleaning this mess for the fourth time: 

Water and mud drying from this weekend. 

Water and mud. It is drying up. 

The brown stuff is mud and this is a lot better than it was this weekend. 

Word to the wise: DO NOT TAKE THE SERVEPRO CREDIT if this happens to you. We were given $275 to clean the basement the first time and $0 to clean it the second, third, and fourth. I can't tell you how many bad words were exchanged during these cleanings. 

Fill in the blanks. 

P_ _ A _ T _ V _    VS. R E _ _ T I V E

As of this afternoon, our FM said the cleaning lady (who was supposed to be here Saturday, then Monday, then Tuesday) was going to be here tonight. 

Didn't happen. 

Our fm told us that they didn't want to install the new transom over the bath until it warms up since it was broken badly. Also.. Should have been done a long time ago. 

My husband is so angry he won't even go out to the house until we are closer to having this over. 

In better news, our couch and loveseat got delivered.

No one...

No one was here yesterday despite the promise of carpenter and possibly painter/cleaning lady. Hopefully today is better. 

Basement & Other Updates

Our basement got water in it again this week. I would say "Flooded," but there is a very negative connotation with that word. There was about an inch to an inch and a half of water covering over half of the basement floor. They haven't backfilled yet, so water just comes right in. It's getting old, and our FM said he was calling the excavators today. We really hope this gets taken care of STAT.

We went to install our dishwasher this weekend and the end of our cabinet wall was not attached to anything. So that made husband go on a tirade and I think he's finally calmed down. All of this AFTER we discovered the drywallers dinged up one of our doors and walked on our new carpet in muddy shoes so we had to sweep & spray the brown stains on our new carpet. Thanks, jerks. Even our kids know their shoes get left at the door!

Painters & Carpenters are supposed to be there today tying up loose ends.  I'm not sure if the cleaning lady is coming today or not, but I kind of hope she waits until tomorrow to clean up after everyone else.

We are contemplating holding off closing until every single thing is fixed in our house and outside, including the rough grade and second broken counter that won't be here until 2/12. Since we've cleaned a wet basement going on three times, we really don't want to take any risks.

Can you say anticlimactic? All of the excitement that we should be experiencing has been replaced with disappointment and exhaustion.