Finishing up!

The last two weeks of the process is the slowest. You visit your house almost daily and it looks just about move-in ready! You bug your builder daily asking if you can get in there and if not, when? Why?! This is where if you are an impatient person you need to just distract yourself with packing or whatever you can find to keep your builder from placing a restraining order on you!

During these last couple of weeks final touches are done to the house (touch up paint, minor adjustments, etc). There are also a handful of inspections for electrical, plumbing, etc. If something does pass (which didn't happen for us thankfully), then the problem must be addressed. Then the final inspection happens and the builder hands you the keys. Since this was a custom home building process and a construction loan was in place, there is no closing paperwork to do and the builder literally hands you the keys and says congratulations! You already closed at the beginning of the construction loan.

There is nothing quite like being handed the keys to your own custom built home. The past 4-5 months were long, but you got the house you wanted. You didn't settle for a market house that had "most of the things you wanted." You didn't have to settle for a predetermined floorplan offered by a "big builder." You designed this thing from the ground up just the way you wanted it. You just made a sound investment in a custom product that will have a very nice resale value when and if you decide to move.

Next step is either hiring a moving company or buying some pizza and beer and seeing if you can convince some friends to help out with the big move!

No pictures in this post as there is a whole section dedicated to our finished product. Check it out!

Cabinets, lights, doors, and driveway

Just when you thought things were really starting to look real with drywall, your mind is once again blown when the painting is done and cabinets start going in. It is amazing to see the plan that you made on paper with the kitchen designers comes together in real life. You start to become pretty impressed with yourself (and the designer)! We elected to go with espresso for color throughout the house (minus the basement where we lightened things up a bit). We had them do soft close drawers in the kitchen. They also installed the doors throughout the house and the lighting/ceiling fans.

Outside is about finished. They still need to put the stone around the base of the pillars 

Kitchen and the mini-chandeliers my wife picked for above the island

 Out towards the office and foyer

We chose an oak hardwood that was "charcoal" color

Basement bar area. I experimented with cork flooring for that small space. Would like to use it more in our next house!  

Towards the living room with the office to the right 

 The khaki color we picked for our master bedroom