Every Dame needs a castle, Part 7

The house is finished! Lord willing, we close tomorrow.

 

We were to close on the 12th of October, then October 30th, then November 6th, then November 12th, then November 25th, then finally November 30th.  There was an issue where the township, the builder and our bank were duking it out over hydro-seed that we though was going to push back closing until early December, but they finally worked it out.

 

Life got a bit crazy between now and my last house post, but in that time we had more set backs (reasons we still do not know) we had to call in the 'big guns' AKA our project manager's boss in order to get anything done and moving.  Since then we have had our New Home Owners Orientation, two walk through and more phone calls and emails than I have ever dealt with in my life.  Really, one day they were coming in so fast the Knight and I couldn't keep up with what was said and by who. 

 

At the New Home Owners Orientation we met with our Project Manager at the house where he went over all details of our house; water tank, furnace, gas lines, ect. We also went over the warranty. For one year the whole house is covered by this warranty, there is very little not covered. We were really happy to get the details on this because it is the reason we went with a new build, the safety net of at least one year everything being covered. The most exciting of the Orientation was we got to walk through the whole house and point out things we were not happy with or that needed to be fixed; Wow, there were a lot!

At first glance the house was stunning! But once we looked deeper we saw so many issues.  Honestly though, many of these issues we had seen for weeks, but they were never fixed (again, why we called the "big Guns" in)  This was our list we emailed after the 1st walk through-

 

• 1. The walls were a mess.  Lots of dents, poor sanding, chips, rough edges on some corners, thin paint, lack of paint under ledges and simply dirty (lots of black smudges) all over the house.   Also, dirty window frames in the basement. 
• 2. The kitchen sink was leaking. We were not sure if the water spot on the cabinet floor would come out.
• 3. The kitchen cabinets were dirty or scuffed? The edges looked rough too. We couldn't quite tell, but I believe we marked all the bad spots. Also, one cabinet came down when they were trying to fix it.
• 4. The carpet in front of the main bath has a really bad 'squeak', you can feel the floor board move.
• 5. The garage door (3rd stall) is dented near the bottom, as is the framing of the main garage.
• 6. Main bathroom drawer's track is no aligned correctly?
• 7. Different places around the siding were loose? There is also a spot above the 3rd stall that was cut too short (the white sections under the gutters? The railing on the porch also had black scuff marks.  

• 8. The front door seemed hastily stained.  Very thin in spots and scratched and scuffed, around the door handle and window.  It looks terrible. 
•  9. In the basement, the wall of the bathroom (by the shower head) is very bowed, you can look down the basement hall and see it as well, not as badly though.

• 10. Basement bathroom, there is a lot of dirt coming out of the wall of the tub when the shower runs.  We saw after they removed the flood damage that they did not clean out this area around and behind the tub and think it may be from that? In addition to that, there was a lot of dirt left over in general when the dry wall was re-installed.  Will this cause other issues like this in the future, dirt seeping out of places?
• 11. Dirty caulking around basement bathtub from flood damage.
• 12. Lots of dried mud around hot water tank.  Tray is very muddy and beat up.
• 13. Microwave fan is making a strange noise when you turn it off. 
• 14. Small hole in Master bath ceiling by the fan.
• 15. Hole or something in the framing of the Master bath mirror, lower right side.
• 16. In the utility closet the insulation behind the furnace and hot water tank is falling down.
• 17. Large chip (7inches)  in the front porch.     

When I emailed all this to Mr. Big Guns I was worried about how vast the list was and if I was being ridiculous on most of it, maybe new houses come with a lot of damage? But he wrote back and said he had all these things and a few more on his lists and assured me that this was not the quality he would allow us to close with.  Seriously, he is awesome! Also, he ordered a second mold test, just to be sure... It came back perfect!

By our second walk through almost 2 weeks later the list had dropped to four things-

• 1. Chip in the front porch is still there.  And the railing is still badly scratched.  
• 2. There are new holes drilled in the garage doors near the bottom.  Also, the garage door opener in the wall is loose and has a wire sticking out, it's also dirty?
• 3. The front door still has staining on the window and parts around the window that were chipped down to the base.   
• 4. Microwave fan is still making a noise.  

I forgot to get pictures of the first walk though, wish I had because they gave us blue and green tape to place on all the areas that needed attention.  When we left the house looked like something out of Dr. Sues because of all the dots.

The pictures below are from the second walk through.

I promise, tomorrow I will get a photo of the outside.  I cant believe I keep forgetting!

Kitchen

Living room

Entry

Living Room & Kitchen

Master Bath

Garage

Mudroom

Kitchen

Great News!

Wonderful News!

Our appraisal came back good!!!

It's not completely finished yet, so we don't know the actual numbers. Our loan officer got it back though and said its right on point. This was the last official thing that could stop this process and it is so, so good to have the weight of it lifted.

Every Dame Needs A Castle, Part 6

Step 9:

Trim

Trim was started last week and continues this week. The house is really taking shape now that the doors and windows are framed out and the wainscoting is up.   

We did not know 'Trim" included the cabinets, but they were a very welcome surprise.

Do you see what I see?

You have to be kidding! I don't think anyone is smoking in the house... but com'on!

Mudroom Bench

Master Bath

So much storage!

Main Bath (Or The Little Prince's Bath)

This is also the only room so far with a counter.

Not sure why, but I was glad to see it, it's lovely.  It looks and feels like marble, but trust me... it's not.

Basement Bath

(this counter was added a day later...)

This week is also paint. We have stopped by a few times and so far... no paint.

Every Dame Needs A Castle, Part 5

And... We are back on track.

Quick follow up to last week; electric is on, we have a shiny new water heater (furnace and purifier still to come) and electric sockets are scrapped free of mud, and finally the basement is fully dry walled and sanded. The floor is a dried muddy mess, but its a start.

Step 8:Flooring & Primer

Last week we stopped by the house to show it to my mother, who lives out of town and had only seen pictures.  I had just warned her that nothing had happened in weeks and not to expect much, when I opened the door to find flooring had been started.

The floors are very, very dirty, I was dying to clean them. In fact, I left dreaming of mops! I'm so excited to clean these floors... MY floors! Also, I hear Shark makes a very nice steam mop...

There are more rooms with flooring, but honestly, I was so excited I just kept running from room to room and forgot to take pictures.

It wasn't even until we were about to leave that we noticed that the walls were starting to be primed too!

The garage is where they seem to store everything for the next phase and sure enough, when we looked we found this. Step 9 will be trim (this week).

Look at all those doors! I had no idea our house had so many doors.

Hello October!

We can officially say that next month we will be moving into our new home!

We still have a November 10th closing date (Lord willing no other mishaps).

No real updates on the house. 

Electric is supposed to be hooked up this week so we can stop syphoning our neighbors.

 Still waiting for the hot water tank/furnace/purifier to be removed and the new ones installed. Not sure why they were not removed before the new drywall went in, there is still mud everywhere around them and water in the crevasses.  

The basement is fully dry walled again and the mudding and sanding is nearly finished.  Yes, the rest of the basement and wood were 100% dry, I was very thorough on that.  

I wish I would have taken a photo of the mud that is still in our electric outlets.  I asked our project manager about it and said I was really unhappy it was there.  I didn't want to forever be sweeping my new house because there was mud left in there that would dry and fall out on to my brand new floors.  He said he would personally scrap it out, I'll check on that this week.  If not.. I am temped to go do it myself.  I wonder if they would take an hourly rate off our bill for having to work on my own house? 

It's a house! A real house

We did a quick stop at the house the other day to check on the basement and found it sided! 

It looks beautiful! 

I was so worried about the colors, the Knight picked them and of course he wanted all the neighbors to know he bleeds Green and White.

I was so distracted by the siding that I forgot to take any pictures of the basement. It is currently gutted and drying out.  Should be ready for repairs the end of the week or early next week.  

An interruption for siding

Not a lot to report today, except that the siding has started to go up!

 

Actually, a lot is being done at the house. They are not stopping work on the main floor or the up stairs, they are still mudding and sanding and prepping for prime. The basement will just have to catch up later.

 

We gave up hope on the siding still happening though, we didn't even notice it at first.  We were walking around the house checking out the broken egress window when we finally noticed strip of green. 

Its not very much yet, but you can really see the color and it looks great! I was so nervous about the color, but in the sunlight it looks wonderful .

 

Look at all that white trim!

Set Backs and Failures

Sometimes a little heartbreak is a lesson, and the best thing to do is just learn the lesson.
Jon Voight

 

 

We were making excellent progress, first stage of drywall was complete, siding had arrived, and the house was looking beautiful.  Should have known it couldn't last.

 

We had been concerned for weeks about a moat that had been left behind our house.  Our Production Manager said he left it this way to ensure the dirt dried out before he backfilled the foundation.
(See my very first post to read all about the foundation issues)

 But he assured us everything was ok, it was not hurting anything and that it was scheduled to be backfilled.

Well.....

Over the Labor Day weekend, Michigan got a lot of rain...

And the moat had not yet been dealt with. The rain water flooded the moat, which then flowed into our egress window and busted it.  This allowed all the water to have free access to our newly dry walled basement. And with the water came the mud.

So. Much. Mud.

 

 

I was actually up north driving home from a funeral when I got the phone call about the basement followed by the photo below.

 

I called our Project Manager who explained exactly what happened.  He was honest, that he waited too long and this was his fault.  While there was some solaice in that, it didn't fix my basement.

We took the next two days and talked it over with many people and we were encouraged by all to get ourselves out of our contract.  We could be looking at a really big mold problem. 

To say I was heartbroken would be a very poor word choice because I was crushed.  This was my house and now I had to give it up and possibly pay a lot of money to do so because someone made a huge mistake, again.

We decided it was time to call in the big guns.  We have a wonderful, wonderful real estate agent, who is really like a mother hen to us.  ( We didn't bring her in on this project sooner because we didn't know we could) but after so many issues and now this HUGE mistake we called her and told her everything.   While she is no fan of Allen Edwin, she did say we would be fine.  She gave us the exact verbiage to use when we spoke to them and gave us contacts to numerous people to help us should we feel we were not being adequately taken care of.  Armed with her guidance, The Knight sent a very well worded and stern email to our production manager covering all the issues to this point and the lack of communication and urgency in our project and explained that they no longer had our trust.  Then we waited. It was the longest 24 hours of my life.

The next day we got a phone call and spent over an hour being profusely apologized too and  hashing out all the details of what was going to happen and how we were going to get our house back on track.  Allen Edwin brought in a professional team that handles flood restoration and  assured us they would fix everything. They are gutting the whole basement.  Drywall, insulation, mechanicals, furnace, hot water tank, its all coming out.

 

A day later, we went to see the damages.   At first we were very angry, who wouldn't be once you see the damage in person.  But then the team that was pumping the water out came up from the basement and talked to us for a long time.  They were amazing!  They reassured us and promised us that this house would be beautiful and safe for our family. 

After the water was drained.

Finally backfilled.  This was hard to see.  While we were so happy to see it finally done, we couldn't stop thinking that if this was done right to start with, this never would have happened.

Our Heroes at work.

After I shot this photo they came and told us that not only was it worse then they thought (far more mud than expected) but it blew the motor in their van and if we wanted we could even speak with the owner of their company as he was on his way out to help out. Seriously! That's a great company if the owner is still that hands on.

Stairs to the basement.

So much mud.

Hoses and pumps everywhere. 

I wish I got a photo a bit later, they dumped 3 large trash cans of mud out the patio in the 20 minutes after I took this photo.

 

There was a silver lining in this mess though, we also go to meet our neighbor.  The restoration company had to ask to borrow his electricity to get the pumps going.  We went to thank him and ended up talking for about an hour.  He seems great and he had a lot of advise on the build process and the following year of warranty work. He also gave us the low down on the other neighbors. Good news, they all get along and are friends.  After meeting him and hearing about everyone else, I really cant wait for this to be our home and our community.

Please Lord, let it be smooth sailing from here on.

Every Dame Needs A Castle, Part 4

Step 7:

Drywall

I am a bit behind, but about two weeks ago our drywall was hung and mudding and sanding started.  This part of the process went very smoothly for the first week (Drywall was a 2 week process). By the end of week one we had this;

 

Don't pay too much attention to the basement... It no longer looks like this. My next post will explain why.

 

 
 There was also another delivery that week, our siding and porch railings arrived! We were told that it should start going up the next week.

 

We noticed that the garage also has half covered insulation and half uncovered... Also, only half of the garage is insulated.  I need to remember to ask about this.