Lovin' us some concrete

Week 2 came to a close and onto week 3. The weather has been rough, so a little slow going at this point. Last week came the gravel and they dug out the sump pump.

 

A couple days later, came out to see the frame being put up!

 

 

Fortunately, we had a few days where the weather cooperated and they got the walls poured.

 

Yesterday, we climbed down into the basement and layed out the finished basement. The builder measured out where the stairs, the bathroom, etc would be so we could get a visual of sorts. After we layed out my initial plan, I decided that I did not like it and we completely redesigned everything on the spot. We found a much better layout in the basement that will allow it to be more open instead of chopped up. We are glad we climbed down and marked everything out with him instead of just going off of paper because it helped a ton. He had the walls water sealed today and the plumbing in the basement will go in tomorrow. Then, when we can get a string of dry days (and once we get the next money draw squared away), he can pour the basement and garage floors and start framing. He said he expects to start framing in 1.5-2 weeks.

 

That's all for now! And congrats to another blogger, Amy, and her family for completing their home and moving in this past week! Check their blog out at http://lot23blog.blogspot.com/ if you are looking for more insight into the building process. It has helped me out along the way so far!

 

Underway!

We are now officially 3 days in and seeing some progress. However, after tomorrow it is supposed to rain and he said next week could be slow going as far as progress goes. But hey, at least we are started! They dug the basement out, cleared out some of the brush/overgrowth from the back of the property, and poured the footers today. I know we aren't building a huge house for our first home, but when I saw the footers I was kind of suprised. We both thought it looked kind of small. When I talked with our builder today, I started with "So when we saw the..." and then he cut me off and he said, "I know exactly what you are about to say! And no, it isn't as small as it looks. This is the first thing almost every client says to a builder once this gets going...I promise." I believe him since I literally didn't even get to say that we thought it looked a little smaller than what we were thinking.

Here is a look at the progress:

Coolest hole in the ground I've ever seen...

There were a few of these trees near the back of the property that I requested they not take down...so far so good. The builders dad knows a lot about trees and thinks they are wild pears.

 



 

Footers are in

Tomorrow they will poor the gravel. Then he said if the weather does what it says it might, he probably won't get to the walls at least until Wednesday next week. Sucks, but I'd rather they do it right and not rush it.

On a side note, I've now met the couple that lives next door and a neighbor from across the street. They are all our age and very nice! I think we will get along great with them. We are all huge Reds and Bengals fans and are already planning for get togethers for the games and bonfires this summer! We could really use a few new friends and I hope these neighbors are the answer.

That's all for now!

Stake out

We drove by today to see the lot all staked out and to get a glimpse of where the house will sit. Pretty cool to see actually! The builder says he almost started digging yesterday, but said he opted not to because of a storm we are supposed to get Sunday. He said that we need to get going though and will be digging "no matter what" by Tuesday at the latest. He said a normal day of rain would be fine, but the storm we are supposed to get Sunday is supposed to be pretty heavy so he didn't want to dig it and have it full of water. Now time for some pictures:

That's right...we have signs. Almost as good as making it Facebook Official

 



 Me standing in the kitchen

 

 Jenny relaxing in the Great Room (or maybe the coat closet...)

 

 Looking at the back of the house

 

View from the front

 

 

That is all of the excitement for now. Hope to broadcast soon from deep inside our soon-to-be basement. Still trying to convince to builder to let me mess around in the excavator...I would probably cause a delay!

Closing complete!

We finally closed! It was actually quite short and painless...other than the whole putting down a crap ton of money! Never wrote a check that big and am not looking forward to seeing how that looks on my bank account tomorrow.

The builder says he will have the lot staked tomorrow or the next day and since the ground is so wet he would like to wait until next week to start digging. Can't believe how excited we are to just see the lot staked out and where the house is going to sit exactly.

Hopefully more exciting posts with pictures soon!

Hiatus...

So instead of me ranting about how I now feel about the banking industry, I will just say that I am going to take a break from posting on here until we close. Lord knows when that will be as I was informed today that it likely won't be this week. I don't want this blog to turn into a negative one, so I will just leave it with that and see you all down the road whenever they decide they can get to my file so we can close.

UPDATE: they have scheduled our closing date for Tuesday...lets hope it holds!

Let's get this week started!

Hopefully this week will live up to the excitement that didn't occur last week. Last week we were supposed to close on the construction loan on Monday and start digging on Wednesday. Come Wednesday, still no word on the construction loan. The lender throughout the entire week was constantly being bombarded by myself, my realtor, our builder, and the realtor for the land (since we are packaging together our land and construction loan together). I guess that didn't phase him because we had no answer going into Friday (which happened to be the only day I worked last week since it was my off week). Then Friday as soon as I get to work I start getting slammed with emails and phone calls saying that the processor needed this and that. The lender keeps stating that the sooner I can get this additional information turned in, the faster things will move along! Let's slow this down a little and rewind; I had been on these people all week and stated multiple times that I really need to get this stuff done. I repeatedly stated that I only worked Friday of last week and that the rest of the week I was available at any moment for any reason and urged them to get to work and inform me ASAP of anything extra they need. I also repeatedly said that under no circumstances can I take off a day that I am scheduled to work. I work in an ER...your schedule is set. It doesn't matter if you are sick, your car broke down, you want a day off, your leg fell off, nothing. If you can't get someone to cover your shift, you go in. I have worked very sick many times...that's the nature of the job and you know this going in. So no, I can't take a day off to close or meet for any reason. My builder gets this, my realtor gets this, but apparently you don't go through enough training/schooling when you do whatever it is you do to become a construction loan/mortgage lender to comprehend this.
Anyways, I kid you not, 5 minutes after I get to the hospital on Friday I get several emails and calls stating they need this additional information. Fortunately, we weren't terribly busy, so after seeing some patients and ordering some tests, I was able to fax them the information they needed while waiting for the test results to come back. This is a rarity for me to be able to do this and I am grateful I was able to. The lender called me after that to give me a status update and seemed very excited like everything was fine. He questioned my lack of enthusiasm that things were moving along and that was enough to finally set me off. He got an earful on how aggravated that I was getting all of these requests on the only day of the week that I am working and that no, I was not excited to be 1-2 weeks behind. I threw in some (I'm sure not so life changing) comments on how in my line or work as well as most other peoples jobs, it is not acceptable to set deadlines and run this far behind. I told him that most people if they say something will be done will stay after and get it done because that is common courtesy and respect to your clients. I am sure if it was only pushed back 1-3 days I would have been much less irritated, but my realtor got me fired up when she said "there is no excuse for a closing being delayed more than a couple of days." To be fair, I made sure he understood that I was not at all upset with him because he had been pushing his processing department all week and they are the ones that kept pushing things off. But he is an extension of his company and if he wanted to, could pass on the message.

Moral of the story is 1) I should have went into mortgage processing where apparently you can work at your own pace and do things as slowly as you desire, 2) It's amazing how fast they are working now that I unleashed on them and 3) I am grumpy at work.

So the weekend has gone by and I am much more relaxed and not quite as mean. I have aspirations of great things happening this week! On my last discussion with the lender (which was much more calm and cheerful), he said that we are through underwriting and processing with the bank and they just had to forward it on to the mortgage insurance underwriters. He said they are much more easy going and have to respond within 48 hours. He said although they got it all turned over to them in the afternoon on Friday to probably expect any requests for additional information on Tuesday. We are hoping for a closing date on Wednesday or Thursday...otherwise I won't be able to schedule it until the following Monday due to my schedule. Our builder has all of the building permits and final blue prints and is just waiting for the go ahead. After tomorrow, the weather is supposed to be pretty decent the rest of the week, so hopefully no set backs! Of course, I don't take too much stock in the weather forecast since they can't seem to get the weather right 12 hours from now.

Hoping my next post is either good news on a closing or a post with pictures of the staked out property, which means we have closed!

Never knew how impatient we were!

Nothing exciting to report right now...just filling some time while we continue waiting! Our builder called yesterday and the lender who originally said "March 11th will be the latest closing date for the construction loan " has pushed it back." We do not know when yet. We hope to know more Monday. Supposedly they still think we will get it done this coming week. The appraiser is backed up and seems to be taking his sweet time! The builder and our realtor said that I shouldn't be surprised because closing is almost always pushed back. Doesn't make waiting any easier though!

The builder says he still has things scheduled to be delivered this coming Wednesday and that they will have it surveyed and staked out "early this coming week." We got about 5" of snow this past Wednesday, which for Northern Kentucky is a moderate sized snow storm. You should see the way these people panic around here at the mention of a flurry...it is kind of sad! Fortunately, yesterday and today have been near 50 degrees and it is all gone. Now we just need it not to rain for the forseeable future so things dry up!

In the mean time, I've been dreaming up my "man cave" in the basement. I've decided that I will most likely be getting a projector and having a nice, big screen down there for sporting events/movies. We are pretty excited about that and hope it will attract some of our friends to come over more. We also look forward to having a better space to have family over more. We've noticed over the past few years that everyone (our friends and us) seems to be going their own way and we rarely hang out with people anymore.  This growing up thing and having big kid jobs is not cool.

Hope to have more news on Monday. Have a great weekend everyone!