AW: house progress

[Deleted]

We went to check out our house today and they had poured the driveway, textured the walls and installed the cabinets.





Although, are the island cabinets supposed to be all the way in? They were screwed in. Is it normal for them to screw them in and move them outward once the countertop gets delivered?

Trim and paint should be done by Friday. Interior doors get installed neek and tile goes in the week after.

[mrspez07]

Was that island a sit-at island? Looks like they put the wall in the wrong place and then cabinet guys just attached per usual, which of course is way too deep. Although the side wall is really long too.

[Deleted]

Sept 11, 2014 8:40:12 GMT -5 mrspez07 said:

Was that island a sit-at island? Looks like they put the wall in the wrong place and then cabinet guys just attached per usual, which of course is way too deep. Although the side wall is really long too.

Yes.  It's supposed to be a sit at island.  Counter stools would be on the side of the wall with an overhang.  Cabinets are supposed to be flush with the end of the the shorter wall.  DH will be sending them an e-mail because we also noticed some damage to one of the cabinets above where the sink is going to be.  We told ourselves we wouldn't be THOSE homebuyers that come and check in everyday but we seriously see something wrong every time we visit.  

[salsaverde]

I really like the exterior of your house.

[Deleted]

Sept 11, 2014 11:37:13 GMT -5 salsaverde said:

I really like the exterior of your house.

Thank you!  

[Deleted]

Sept 11, 2014 12:00:41 GMT -5 @juno said:

Sept 11, 2014 9:05:49 GMT -5 ditzydi said:

Yes.  It's supposed to be a sit at island.  Counter stools would be on the side of the wall with an overhang.  Cabinets are supposed to be flush with the end of the the shorter wall.  DH will be sending them an e-mail because we also noticed some damage to one of the cabinets above where the sink is going to be.  We told ourselves we wouldn't be THOSE homebuyers that come and check in everyday but we seriously see something wrong every time we visit.  

IME that's exactly what you need to do.  I don't think it makes you a bad client to stay on top of things.

I just feel like we're being pests.  But we want the house to be correct.  Luckily our sales guy has been really accommodating. 

[Deleted]

Sept 11, 2014 12:57:26 GMT -5 @juno said:

Sept 11, 2014 12:52:26 GMT -5 ditzydi said:

I just feel like we're being pests.  But we want the house to be correct.  Luckily our sales guy has been really accommodating. 

yeah, but the longer something goes without correction, the more expensive it is to fix.  For instance, my contractor framed one wall something like 10 inches in the wrong direction and it made a huge difference in layout.  If it had gone all the way through drywall finishing that way before we saw it, it would have been a much bigger deal and we'd have been back to demo.  Much better to catch things early.

Good point.  And at the speed these guys are going, sometimes it only takes a day before they're onto the next step and it's too late or we'd have to deal with a demo headache.

[jillybean222]

we just finished a reno and H and i were at the house every single day (at different times!) and there was often something to talk about/fix/change/etc. if the builders don't want you there they probably have something to hide.

[Deleted]

That's definitely installed wrong. (And hello cabinet installers, you didn't stop to question installing them that deep?)

[Deleted]

Sept 11, 2014 13:10:33 GMT -5 jillybean222 said:

we just finished a reno and H and i were at the house every single day (at different times!) and there was often something to talk about/fix/change/etc. if the builders don't want you there they probably have something to hide.

I wouldn't say they don't want us there but we usually have to e-mail them w/a list of questions which then leads to them realizing they did something incorrectly. Ha

[Deleted]

Sept 11, 2014 14:17:36 GMT -5 @ksta said:

That's definitely installed wrong. (And hello cabinet installers, you didn't stop to question installing them that deep?)

Figures. We were kind of thinking they did that to secure it as opposed to letting them grow legs until the countertop was delivered for install. We'll see what they say when we e-mail them

[jloww]

Gorgeous!  Good eye on the island.

[Ramz-ee]

Sept 11, 2014 12:00:41 GMT -5 @juno said:

Sept 11, 2014 9:05:49 GMT -5 ditzydi said:

Yes.  It's supposed to be a sit at island.  Counter stools would be on the side of the wall with an overhang.  Cabinets are supposed to be flush with the end of the the shorter wall.  DH will be sending them an e-mail because we also noticed some damage to one of the cabinets above where the sink is going to be.  We told ourselves we wouldn't be THOSE homebuyers that come and check in everyday but we seriously see something wrong every time we visit.  

IME that's exactly what you need to do.  I don't think it makes you a bad client to stay on top of things.

You are definitely doing the right thing. Our construction manager was getting annoyed with us going everyday, but we didn't care. We found quite a few issues. For example, we wanted insulation added to some interior rooms. Had we not been there everyday, we wouldn't have known they didn't do every room we paid for. Also I discovered they mixed up the plumbing fixtures in every bathroom. Faucets weren't that big of deal, but toilets! They put in the wrong toilets!!!

So I say go everyday. It's your house. 

[Ramz-ee]

Oh! And I love it so far!!!

[Deleted]

Sept 11, 2014 21:51:57 GMT -5 nursecramer said:

Sept 11, 2014 12:52:26 GMT -5 ditzydi said:

I just feel like we're being pests.  But we want the house to be correct.  Luckily our sales guy has been really accommodating. 

He should be more than accommodating, he should be apologetic! And if I found things wrong every time I went, I would probably find myself going more frequently, just to make sure I wasn't missing anything. :-P

Don't be afraid to ask for exactly what you're paying for.

Yeah. I will say that we threw a curveball at them when framing began and realized the elevation we were building was not the one we fell in love with and told them from day one we wanted to replicate. So when we realized that, we had to tweak the exterior to make it look similar.

Top is what we wanted. Bottom is what we're getting because the top elevation is not offered in our subdivision. Originally the entry arch only had stone going up three feetbut we wanted the whole thing in stone. Also the whole entry had stone going in but our elevation did not. So we had to add additional stone.

[Deleted]

Heard back from our builder and turns out the island cabinets were installed incorrectly. They're going to get moved asap so they can get measurements for our slab.

[lb2006]

speaking from experience and a whole house renovation - it's best to go over there every day. We were here every day making notes, talking with our GC, and ensuring everything was correct according to our architect plans. When you are spending a lot of money on a house, you want it completed CORRECTLY

It's looking nice! Glad you contacted the builder.

[moolarkey]

Go over there every day, take pictures, take video. We've had friends "order" their house with 1/2 a basement, they got a full basement - bonus.

Friends saw the opening cut for their french doors, air conditioning brackets were hung right in the opening - fail

Helped friends move in to a top of the line, high $ house. She asked me to hook up their kitchen phone, couldn't find the outlet. Called the builder, man came over, used a hammer and broke out a straight line of brand new tile until he found the jack. About 3 weeks later the builder replaced the tile.

They had a big "garden tub" with jets in their bedroom over the family room. They let their kids use it like a bathtub...until it landed in their family room, the drain had never been hooked up, when they drained the tub it was going in to their ceiling.



Friend's garage door wouldn't close right, 3 doors later they figured out the trails for the door were slightly twisted. Had to be replaced.

Friends and big 2 story with 3 bedrooms down the side, middle room was under the roof peak. When it rained water ran down the walls, dead of winter (Central Ohio) the builder ripped off the roof and walls on that end of the house, it hadn't been built correctly.

Friends would go check their under construction house and find trash in vents, etc that would have been covered up and they would never have known.

Also take pictures and video of where all the wiring and plumbing are before the dry wall goes up, you never know when you'll want to know this stuff.

Make sure if blueprints are available that you get them. We are 2nd owner of our house, a full set of blueprints were in the house when we bought it, they've been very helpful.

It's your largest investment - BE A PEST. You are paying them to build what you want, build it correctly and not do a shoddy job.

[moolarkey]

BTW, I like the bottom elevation MUCH better than the top.

[Deleted]

Sept 15, 2014 15:58:56 GMT -5 moolarkey said:

BTW, I like the bottom elevation MUCH better than the top.

Wow.  Your poor friends.  The new elevation is growing on me.  Except I will always hate the slope/cut off of the brick over the garage. 

[caddywompus]

When my house was being built, I went to see it every day, and took pictures. Definitely take pics of the wiring and plumbing, before they put the drywall up. I caught several mistakes- the biggest one was that they didn't do the volume ceilings in the hallway and 2 other rooms, in the middle of the house. So they had to rip out the rafters and ceilings in the whole middle section of the house to redo it. I took a picture and it looked like sonmething had come and taken a big bite out of the top of my house!

[Deleted]

Sept 16, 2014 12:32:54 GMT -5 caddywompus said:

When my house was being built, I went to see it every day, and took pictures. Definitely take pics of the wiring and plumbing, before they put the drywall up. I caught several mistakes- the biggest one was that they didn't do the volume ceilings in the hallway and 2 other rooms, in the middle of the house. So they had to rip out the rafters and ceilings in the whole middle section of the house to redo it. I took a picture and it looked like sonmething had come and taken a big bite out of the top of my house!

DH has been advised by co-workers who have built to take pictures.  Only problem is I sent him to do it solo and he came back with horrible pictures and then the dry wall went up right after.  We have caught things here and there and we hired an independent inspector to check as well before the drywall went up.