Pictures

Not sure but IE9 and this blog aren't working together.

Rough in work complete!

After a crazy weekend we managed to finish up the rough in work late last night. I ended up calling in some help (Larry) to help me with my 3-ways and hooking up to the panel. Other then those items I am very pleased on how everything turned out.

Drywall is up next and boy am I glad to have a small break. We had the installers stock everything yesterday afternoon. They are scheduled to start Wednesday and I was told it would only take them 5-7 days from start to finish! Tonight I will finish up the rest of the insulation and do a final walk through to make sure I have everything I want behind the walls.

Pictures are on the next post. Sorry for how dark they turned out but I don' have bulbs in all the lights.

Basement build has begun

I decided to finish this basement myself. The only thing I had Nies do was frame the rooms and run water lines to the bar and bathroom. The rest is now up to me to finish. Not to complain but my lovely wife has given me a very short deadline to have this project finished. I myself want it done also so that our 2 wild kids have a place to run around.

This past weekend we headed over to the HD to purchase all the lights, boxes, wire and other misc electrical supplies that we would need for the electrical part of this project. On Sunday I got most of the boxes in and a few of the lights laid out. Last night I had all the switch boxes, receptacle boxes and lights up. Over the next few nights I will pull wire and get everything wired up. I plan on having everything up and running by Saturday.

Once lights are up and going I will insulate all the walls. Lisa plans on ordering carpet this weekend while we are at the store buying insulation. Drywall may start next week if they have an opening for us.

Main basement area.

Looking at the two bedrooms. One is going to be a craft room and the other is a guest bedroom.

This will be the bar area.

We have closed.

With a few hiccups we have closed on our new home. We still have a few things left on the punch list but Nies is still working on them. I will do my best to add some photos of the finished landscape since that is now all done.

Fence is complete

The fence company came back Saturday afternoon and finished installing the panels. We are down to 5 days and we still need our patio finished and the landscape installed. The rain isn't helping but with a few nice days ahead we were told everything would be 100% by closing.

Walk Through

Today was our main walk through with our superintendent and the warranty company. Let's just say at some point I could tell I was getting on there nerves with how picky I was being. We ended up with 5.5 sheets of fixes. Just to be clear, not one fix was a major item. Most of the fixes ranged from paint touch ups to just miscellaneous cleaning. Nies Homes has done a GREAT job and I would recommend them to anyone who is looking to build a new home.
While we were doing our walk through our fencing contractor came out to start setting posts. They were able to set all the posts in one day. They plan on setting the panels either Friday or Saturday. While we are waiting for the panels the landscape contractor is going to start. They are going to need every dry day they can get before the 15th.
In the next couple of days I should have some more pictures of the outside of the home. I am going to wait until the patio is 100% complete before I post anymore pictures of it.

Here you can see all the fence posts are in.

10 days left

10 days and counting before we close on our new home. Today we finally got our shower glass installed. We are super excited to have it finished and we both can't wait to use it. The garage was painted and our new thermostat was installed. We thought we would have seen some work done on the fence but that didn't happen today. Still have a few small things to have finished up on the inside before our walk through on Wednesday.

Master bathroom mirror is now up.
Shower glass is looking good on the second try. First try the glass broke on the trip down from KC.
Just a picture to show the size of the shower length
New thermostat in flash picture.
New thermostat with no flash.
Garage is now painted. Have to double check paint tomorrow since Lisa thinks it looks purplish. Should be "lazy grey" but either way it is better then looking at drywall.

Closing March 15th

We are now set to close March 15th. All of the small details are coming together so we should see a complete interior by the end of Friday. Front door is now finished inside and out. The corbels were installed today along with the last of the cabinet doors. The book cases are now finished. For some reason we have two garage door openers even though I only wanted one. The coat rack is now complete since they installed 4 hooks today. The concrete guys poured the patio this afternoon but it not be finished until tomorrow morning. I am going to post a teaser picture of what the patio looked like this evening. Tomorrow we should see a refrigerator and some more final touch ups. Friday is mirrors and glass for the bathrooms.

Garage door openers installed. If I am lucky those walls will look different tomorrow.
Patio is poured. It will look quite different tomorrow morning. More pictures tomorrow.
Hooks are up and ready to be used.
View of the pantry doors.
Corbels on but need to be touched up and cleaned.Book cases now have doors on the lower cabinets.

First Cleaning

They started the final stages of our house today so with that the house got its fist major cleaning. We are now closing March 15th which isn't to far away. At this point we only have a few things left to do on the house. The 3 biggest items left are the patio, the landscape and the fence. We would have had a new patio today but some rain come through so the patio was put on hold until tomorrow. I hope to have a bunch of new pictures tomorrow for everyone to see.

Front of the house is almost complete. We are still missing the shutters but they have been stained and are waiting in the garage to be installed.

Front entry way. The inside of the door will be painted trim white tomorrow.
Informal dining room is finished.
Living room is almost complete. The base cabinet doors are finished and waiting to be installed. The stone has a few touch ups and then we can check that off.
Kitchen is getting there. Missing upper cabinet doors above pantry. We still need some corbels installed underneath the island overhand. The refrigerator will be installed on Thursday.

Took a week off.

I'm back after spending most of last week in Houston, TX. I haven't posted in some time and boy has there been some changes. I hope that all the pictures below will help show what has happened since I last posted.
Sunday I went back over to the house and worked for 4 hours cutting all my small pieces of glass tile. My fingers hurt for days afterwards because of all the little cuts I got from the glass. Lisa and my Mom loved it and my cheap ass can't be happier. I paid less then $40 in materials and I put roughly 6 hours of time into it.
Monday and Tuesday came and went with nothing major happening. I did have to look at one of the hearth stones they installed because it wasn't to Lisa's liking. Sure enough she got her way and they replaced the stone with a "better" replacement one.
Before I left on Wednesday, Lisa and I, meet with our superintendent to discuss our concrete patio idea. He wanted to get all the details before I left town just in case they decided to pour the patio while I was gone. The carpet was installed and I got to see it before I left town. Now it just needs to stay clean until we move in.
Lisa informed me on Thursday they formed up the patio and that it was ready to be poured. She wasn't able to get into the house since they had already locked up and went home for the day and I happened to have the house key with me in Texas. Guessing by the pictures I took today they might have installed the mirror frames in the bathrooms.
The only sure thing that would have happened on Friday was that the hardwood floors got the final coat of finish applied. Walking through the house today we can see some minor things that have been worked on but they are not finished yet. Almost looks like they started in the morning and when the hardwood floor guys showed up they had to leave everything and wait until Monday.
I was told they are going to do the first clean on the house on Monday but not sure they are far enough along to do that. Heck I might even be holding them up since I haven't finished up the tile back splash in the kitchen. I still need to grout and clean up and then I will be done. I know it won't take that much time but it was way to beautiful outside today to not spend it outside with the kids.

Here is what the tile back splash looks like minus the grout. Yes that is our exhaust fan laying on top of our stove/oven/range.

Master bedroom now has carpet.
Winter's room has carpet.Front door was stained. God I love that brass knob!

Master bathroom now has a mirror frame. This one looks a tad better then the first one they installed.
Weston's mirror frame.
Winter's mirror frame.
Winter and Weston posing for the camera. They are super excited about there new patio. 13' x 29' should give them plenty of room to install a kiddie pool. Stay tuned since we are going to do something fun with this.
Picture from the deck.
Floors finished and man they look good.

Fireplace

The tile guys came back today to work on the fireplace. All they lack is some grouting and then it will be done. Appliances were installed today besides the refrigerator which will go in a day or two before closing. Some of the cabinet hardware was installed today. They told us that this coming Wednesday they are going to have the carpet installed. If that is the case we may end up closing the first week in March.

Fireplace stone is up but still needs a little grout.
Slide in stove.
Microwave.
Dishwasher installed in island.
Drawer pulls and door knobs installed.
Pantry uses a motion light switch. The kids thought it was pretty cool.

Little Stuff

Lots of little stuff happened today. The master shower floor was grouted but it still needs a final cleaning before it is finished. The raised hearth was built for the living room fireplace. Most of the door hardware was installed and they even got the trash bin cabinet fixed today.

Door hardware installed.
Trash bin is now fixed.
Raised hearth built and ready for some stone.
Shower floor grouted. Once cleaned we might see more of the river rock that we used.

Day 3 of lighting

I was wrong in thinking it was only going to be one more day before all the lights were installed. He did get the bathroom lights up and one cabinet outlet installed today. The masons came back and installed our address stone and finished cleaning up their left over material that was left on site. I forgot to write about the laundry room floor which was installed over the weekend.

Laundry room floor finished.
Weston's light installed.
Winter's light installed.
Dishwasher waiting to be installed.
Hand held shower was installed today. Still waiting on main shower head to be replaced.
Half bath light up.
Kitchen outlet installed on side of cabinet. We got pretty lucky and found some pre-stained outlet covers that matched our cabinets.
Address block installed and a picture of one of the garage lights.
A up close picture of the dining room light.