Sunday May 28th

Just a few comparison shots of the interior! They finished all interior painting on Saturday. You can see the ceilings and all trim work is painted. The painters did a pretty good job! The interior is superb!






And this last image is of our car parked in the driveway. This was the first time we've ever parked there!

Week of May 20-27

First thing to notice is the house ABOVE, in the header, that is OUR house, I just tweaked this image...


...with the proper color door (taken from a neighbor's house with the same color scheme). I'm hoping the door is painted soon, but it actually may be a last minute thing as it could get dinged from moving things in and out, although I would think they'd use the garage door, mostly...but what do I know? I've been wrong about everything with this house! HAHA, they make all these mistakes and I catch most of them, but I never know WHEN they'll do things, that timing of the process and why/how certain things are done is still somewhat of a mystery to me!

Speaking of mistakes...the mistake this week is that they painted the garage doors the same color as the body of the house, not the lighter color seen in the picture. In actuality the color of the doors now is darker than it's SUPPOSED to be, because, as you know, a lighter color can not easily cover a darker color, so the color kind of shows through and we end up with this darker garage. Oh well, just another "problem" to deal with. Although, in a way, it's good. We'll be the ONLY house in the neighborhood with that color garage door AND we have more coats than others, so any scratch on the door will expose a dark green, instead of the white primer. Why is that good? Well, that white primer poking out from under a scratch is a lot more noticable than the dark green. So, I'll let that one go...although I wish they'd get the edges covered better, since they didn't mask it so well when they repainted it.

Anyway, here's the back of the house, too. Man, it's looking good!! (Please ignore the differing colors (it looks more like the front of the house picture)...I don't manually set the white balance and don't take the time to edit it properly in some post-processing to make everything match, so this second one is a bit color saturated.)


This exterior painting happened earlier in the week and at the same time they were also working inside! Last week they hung the drywall and got everything textured. This week they installed floor-moulding, windowsills, door trim, primed all that wood and PAINTED everything inside...Well, we didn't see the ceilings painted yet, but I'm guessing they put on second coats of things today and maybe did the ceilings...or that'll be next week. We'll see tomorrow when we go visit.

Here are some pictures from the week, relatively in order of time when happened.

Just the workers painting the exterior.


First they delivered the moulding and placed it around the house where needed...and it's needed in areas with carpeting...hardwood is installed and the moulding goes on top of that. Carpeting is streched under/by the moulding.


Then they start hanging it everywhere, like around the front door.


And here's the windowsills and floor moulding.


And the upstairs is all set, too!


After all the moulding is in, they spray a coat of primer over just about everything, it seemed, the moulding and the textured drywall, as can be seen on our master bedroom fireplace mantel.


As alluded to above, our ceilings will be a different color than the walls. They will match the moulding, actually. That is a Personal Modification Request (PMR, to those in the know). They normally, as a standard, paint all one color for walls and ceilings, but to pay for the additional paint color, and moreso for the masking of the walls while they paint the ceilings, they charge more...so, at the start they just overspray on the ceilings.


So, besides missing the flooring, this is what the inside of the house looks like. Again, the color isn't perfect, especially since everyone's lighting by their PC monitors is different and the difference in monitor's colors, etc...but this time I tried a bit to get the color right...The walls are called Whole Wheat and the moulding is painted Antique White.


Last pic for the week, here is that neighbor's door...this will be the color of our door. We liked the models darkish red, but this rich/vibrant orangey color (Sherwin Williams, Spicy Hue) will be pretty cool!


One last thing to mention, then I'm done. On Saturday we had our LAST appointment with The Style House to choose window coverings. Yeah, we went mostly with faux wood blinds and letting them do it for a few reasons, mostly to have all living spaces READY for the move in date! We don't want to be working on the house, except unpacking, those first few weeks, so we just want to be comfortable!

So, that's our last meeting to discuss options, so we got a stamp stating, "Final Puchase Pring" on the last signed contract...so we finally know our new home's final price! YAY!!! We're only 1200 over the budget we allowed ourselves, so that's not too bad, especially when we hear stories of people going 20-30k over budget!

May 20th - Textured

OK, it's the end of the week and they seem to have completed texturing everything. Maybe the drywallers have to return just to complete the garage and then the clock starts ticking on the internal finishing...45-60 days...So, assume get started on Wednesday...and takes 56 days (8 weeks) (Why I think they'd be done within the proper time is beyond me, but they say they are going to try to get our 6 homes done since they are all kind of behind)... That would make the closing date be July 19th... We'll just have to wait and see if they can get it done any sooner.

Anyway, as said, the texturing is done...here are some pics to prove it!




Also of note is that of the 6 houses sold in December ours is the ONLY one without exterior paint. They are finishing up the trim on a couple of them, but 4 are totally done being painted and ours hasn't even started...WHY IS OURS THE ABSOLUTE SLOWEST HOUSE?!?! Argh and sigh...at least the house is progressing and it's looking good, overall! We're getting excited!

Anyway, Erika was visiting, so we got these nice pics of the family in front of the house!




Lastly, here is a pic of Summer in the model home...she loves the tub in the master bath since she can turn the water on and off.


Well, that's it for the weekend, Sunday they take off. I hope they finish the texturing and have the interior workers scheduled to start next week! We don't want bad timing/scheduling such that the interior workers don't get in there until the following for some reason and push us ever closer to a LATE JULY delivery date. We just need to be patient and wait until the counters are delivered...that's the nearly for sure 30 day out sign.

Frustration...

OK, John Laing Homes... The finished homes are great, from what we've seen...but the building process is a nightmare! We're told other builders would be worse, but who knows who to believe? We sure don't know. Every builder would say that to their clients, right? Whatever. That's why it's been a month since I've posted any words to go with these pictures. To us it feels like not much has happened in a month compared to what we see going on around us.

Also, I really wanted to go back and put words to all of those pictures from the last two posts, but I just CAN NOT do it...too frustrating. That was a big reason not to post at all. The framers took WAY TOO LONG, then it took longer than expected to do the other mechanicals...heating, electrical (they put our Air Conditioner in our neighbor's...so that isn't even in yet).

There are so many problems. It stinks not being the foreman on your own home. Having to fill out Customer Concern forms (it feels like every week) to tell them of issues that are problems that would slow down the next step, or cause a "bad" repair that would make us unhappy...like the way the drain for the wet-bar rough-in in the basement ended up going in. A huge communication problem on their part. The sliding windows are all installed backwards to plan, except a facing slider in the bedroom, which by default HAS to be OK and the windows in the Family Room which are SUPPOSED to be symmetric, but not a single home is built per plan in the entire neighborhood. Lights were wrongly installed, one by type the other by location. Lastly the studs in a few walls were cut to be replaced and they weren't and they've now hung drywall up on cut studs...wonder if/how that'll all be fixed?

For the windows we got an "oh, too bad" type response. The lights have been fixed, and since the drywall is not taped/plastered/textured, they SHOULD be able to repair the holes cleanly...one can only hope... Lastly the wall studs? They SAY they were replaced, but I truly have my doubts, but am not ready to go pull down the drywall MYSELF to prove my point...but don't think it hasn't crossed my mind. And the customer service is shoddy. I already mentioned the bad communication which caused the wet bar rough-in issue. Now the superintendent doesn't reply within 2 business days, AS IS CONTRACTED on the customer concern forms. I've had to CALL THEM 3 days later to see what the &@%# is going on for the last two concerns. I had to call and try to set up the NHO2 (New Home Owner #2) meeting a few times, as the scheduling person wasn't doing their job, so that meeting happened probably 3 or 4 days later than it SHOULD have happed

OK, so that's that...We already KNOW we aren't going to get in by June 5th, the original date on the contract. The contract gives about a year leeway, so they can do whatever they want. We've been told numerous times that this home (along with all 6 that were sold on Dec 5th) WILL BE A JUNE delivery. "I'll eat my hat," as the saying goes, if that were to happen. I'd hate to be a pessimist and say it'll be August 5th....To me it looked like maybe early/mid July...but who knows, really?

We'll supposedly have a better feel for the dates after texture. They say 45-60 days after texture...which could be next Friday, but I doubt that. Looks like the drywall may take longer the the alloted two weeks, also...and I find it hard to believe they'd come in on the shorter 45 day end of the estimate the way it's been going.

Wow, what a rant...You can tell I've been frustrated. OK, on with the latest pics. I complain, sure, but the house IS making some progress. They stocked the drywall and the rock fascia last thursday and got started, so that would be the beginning of the two weeks for drywall. Here are some pictures from that first few days, pics taken Sunday the 7th.

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During this week they finished hanging the sheetrock and got on the bullnose.


Hey, it's starting to look like a real house!


We have a nice bench, should be open underneath when done to hide some shoes, right when we walk in from the garage.


And, a nice thing about John Laing homes is that they partially finish the garage. The drywall is hung, taped (a single coat) and sanded, basically ready for me to texture and paint.

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This is how the house is today, Saturday May 13th. In addition to the drywall they put in the driveway and hung the stone fascia.


Here's a better look at the front door! Where you can note, what I THINK is the wrong stone from what we ordered. It looks OK, though...so, I'll bring it up as a question, but it seems like another problem. Wonder what if anything they'll do about it? Either way, the stone looks fine, but it wasn't what we ordered.


And this is where we're at. I'll keep posting, but I won't promise any quick posts or anything, once a week, maybe... I'll try my best!

Up to May 4th