Building Our Bar: The Final Product

Our bar project is complete and it turned out great!

A couple weeks ago we had an electrician come by and split our electrical outlet so we could plug in our wine cooler in the bar and our new TV above the bar plus we moved our cable outlet up on the wall so it would be above the bar. I meant to post an update but work/life has been crazy. We ended up finding an electrician on yelp since the one that is working in our community wasn't calling us back. It cost about $200 but it was easy to schedule and only took about an hour. We also picked up our wine cooler from Home Depot and so far we're loving it. 

Daisy with the wine cooler and the adjusted outlets

On Friday we had Panda Kitchen come out and install the bar. They were great to work with and it only cost $1820 including the installation. They arrived on time and finished in about 2 hours, including the granite installation. It turned out beautiful!  They even added some of our flooring trim around the bar to make it look like it really belongs. 

The finished product!

After the installers left, we got our new TV from Costco. We went with a 70" TV since our sectional sits so far back from the bar. Although the TV is huge, it's narrow so it doesn't take up too much of the bar countertop. 

Our big TV

Watching the Terps win on our new TV

To finish off the space we extended our sectional and moved the chair piece around to the side. We've really enjoyed being able to use our basement more with this new setup.

New sofa piece added to the sectional

View of our basement from the front door

The entire sectional!

Our seating area (view from the garage entrance)

Daisy enjoying her big sectional

To finish up we're going to order a canvas set of the Philly skyline from Etsy for above the sectional. Then we're done with this room until we paint next year!

Construction Update - Week 9

We just received our weekly update from the PM on this snowy first day of spring.  It was another week full of progress. This week our house was inspected by PG county and Energy Star and insulated.  The crew started on drywall yesterday and will be working on that through early next week.  Around the middle of next week they will sand and paint. Then the trim carpenters will be starting to install interior doors, kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, and trim moldings.  

We're headed out of town for a week tomorrow and it sounds like we will come back to a lot of changes.  Can't wait to see everything in person next weekend!

Predrywall Inspection Issues Resolved

Yesterday morning we got our full home inspection report back from predrywall.  Our home inspector really understood the urgency to get this turned around to us quickly so RH would have a chance to resolve any issues before the drywall went up.  We also have a really good PM who addressed everything in the report line by line.  Since our home inspector said most of what he found is pretty typical at this stage, I'll list it out below along with what our PM did to resolve everything.

1. Gaps around the joist flashing for the cantilever deck - RH reattached the flashing saddles and added more sealant
2. Cantilever joists were pulling loose from the I-beams - RH added more nails and hammered everything together again
3. A couple of the I-beams were split below the living room floor (our inspector said this is the most common thing he finds at predrywall) - RH added metal straps to secure the split beams
4. Nails sticking out of the subfloor - RH already knew about this and will be removing these nails and sanding prior to flooring
5. Missing nail plates in a couple spots - RH added the missing nail plates
6. Kink in the bath exhaust - RH corrected this and it will also be inspected by Energy Star today
7. Bowed studs in a couple places - RH was already aware of these and corrected them yesterday
8. Tiedown straps weren't secured in the basement - RH was already aware of this and had planned to nail them in yesterday and they did

Overall, my husband and I really felt like the predrywall inspection was well worth the money since this is our chance to catch any structural issues.  We also felt like RH was aware of most of the issues and had plans to correct them already, which gave us a good piece of mind about the house.  We are still very pleased with RH and the work that has been done on our house, and we can't wait to start getting drywall this week.

Predrywall Meeting and Inspection Complete

We had our predrywall meeting with our PM this morning followed by our home inspector's predrywall inspection. Everything went really well. Our PM walked us through the whole house explaining what everything was and pointed out our prewires and cable/ internet hookups. Our home inspector only found a few things that he's putting in his report. They were mainly minor and our PM is going to go through the home inspection report as soon as he gets it.

We also went by the house yesterday to get some pictures with our puppy Daisy out front.

This is the current view of our community from the future park
Our house is in the block of townhomes in the middle

My husband and our puppy Daisy in front of the house

Daisy and I in front of the house

All of us in front of the house

Progress and a (Minor) Delay

We had a pretty bad snowstorm on Thursday, which closed a lot of schools and businesses in the area through Friday.  As a result the work on our house was delayed a couple days, so our pre-drywall meeting was pushed back until Monday 3/16.  This is completely understandable and overall our house is still on schedule for May, so we don't really mind the delay.  

Anyway, we ventured out to the house on Saturday to walk through.  We weren't expecting to see much progress, but we were pleasantly surprised to see our windows had trim and our bathtubs were in.  The crew was working when we were there.  It seems like they end up working every Saturday.

Daisy and I in front of the house

Living room looking into the kitchen

Living Room

Tub in the Master Bath

Shower in the Master Bath

Laundry Room looking through to the tub in the Hall Bathroom

Guest Bedrooms

Morning Room (our dining room)

Back of the house

Construction Update - Week 7

We got our weekly construction update this morning, and despite some snow, the crew made good progress on our home this week. They installed both layers of house wrap on the exterior, and the rough duct work and plumbing are just about complete. Electricians, gas pipe mechanic, sprinkler technicians, and Guardian are all scheduled for early next week.  Our pre-drywall walk through is on Wednesday along with our home inspector's pre-drywall inspection.  

I'm very excited to get back out to the house this Saturday to walk through again!

Our first time inside our house

After being gone on work travel all last week, I was so happy to get our weekly update on Friday telling us that we would be able to go inside our house this weekend.  Last week they finished framing, put the shingles on the roof, and put in all of the windows and doors.  It was awesome progress!  We even had a little snow on Thursday and they still didn't lose a day.  

After getting such a great update, we couldn't wait to get out to the house, so we went on Saturday instead of our usual Sunday.  We showed up and the crew was wrapping the front of the houses, but luckily they had already wrapped our house.  So we had a SR escort us through the house.  I can't even begin to describe how wonderful it felt to walk inside our own house for the first time!  Sure it's just framed at this point, but it was so cool to look around and think this is all going to be ours in a couple months.  Now that we can start going inside, our weekly trips out to the house just got more exciting.  Anyway onto the fun part, the pictures!

Front view of our block

Back view of our block

Back view of our house

Front view of our house

Future kitchen

Open rec room looking at garage

Rec room looking at front door

Morning room windows and doors

Kitchen and living room

Two smaller bedrooms (guest bedroom and office)

Walk in closet

Master bath

Us out front

View of the houses from the future path to metro

Construction Update - Week 5

We received our weekly construction update this morning.  We have been having horrible weather in this area, so I wasn't really expecting anything to get done.  Although the weather has cause some delays, they are almost done framing with most of the roof structure complete.  We should be getting shingles early next week and we may even get HVAC by the end of next week.  It's great to see some progress on the house and our PM is even nice enough to include a picture in his updates.  We can't wait for our drive out to the site this weekend to see everything in person!

Here's a picture of our block.  Our house is the second from the left.

Week 5 Progress

Our First DIY Project for the New House

My husband and I inherited a dining set from my grandparents that we knew we wanted to take with us to our new house.  The only problem was that it is a bit outdated and doesn't really fit with our style.  To fix this we decided to reupholster the chairs. We will also redo the china cabinet but that's a bigger project that we won't do until we have a garage to work in.  To reupholster the chairs, I purchased some fabric and a staple gun, then followed the simple tutorial here: http://www.hgtv.com/design/rooms/living-and-dining-rooms/how-to-re-cover-a-dining-room-chair

So far I've only finished 4 of the 6 chairs, but they are looking really nice.

Here's the before picture:

And here's the after:

Our Update from Valentine's Day

We drove out to look at the progress on the house for Valentine's Day.  When we pulled up, we were pleasantly surprised to see that they had started framing our third floor.  We were only expecting to see the second floor framed.  They seem to be moving along quickly although I'm sure the snow stopped work for today.  

The front of our house

View of the back

Our garage

Daisy and I in front of the house

Construction Update - Week 4

We received our weekly construction update from our PM last night.  They are framing away on the house, and are currently working on the second floor walls.  Our PM expects that they will be framing all next week and build the roof by the end of the week.  It's exciting to hear that our house is taking shape so quickly!  

We will probably do our weekly drive out to the homesite on Monday, so I'll post progress pics then.

Daydreaming about design (lighting)

I have been daydreaming about decorating our future home since the minute we walked into the model.  Lately, I have been mainly thinking about lighting options since this will be one of our first projects.  

Bedroom Lighting

We selected ceiling fan prewires in all three bedrooms.  Initially I thought we would put a ceiling fan there, but now I am debating whether we should put up a nice light fixture instead.  I admit that I have been watching too much HGTV, which is causing me to think more about this.  

What type of overhead lighting did you put in your bedrooms, especially the master bedroom?  Are you happy with it?

Main Floor Lighting

For our main floor we want the lighting to flow well since it's all open.  We added prewires in the morning room (our dining room area) and the living room.  We also plan to convert the two recessed lights above our island to pendants.  Here are some of the options we are currently leaning towards.

Morning room light fixture for above our table

Living room light fixture

Option 1 for the kitchen island

Option 2 for the kitchen island

I won't be buying any of these until after we close, so I could end up changing my mind. 

Framing is Started!

My husband and I received our weekly update from our PM on Friday.  We were expecting that the concrete slab would be complete, but we were pleasantly surprised that the slab was completed and the crew had started framing!  We were so excited that we did our weekly drive-by on Saturday instead of Sunday.   To our surprise, the crew was there working on our house.  Seeing the house make it to the framing stage is making this all so much more real.  We can't wait to move into our first home together in May!

Here are some pictures of the progress:

Driving up to our block

Our house!

The crew working

Back view of our house
We're the second one in

Our pup, Daisy, with the house in the background

Daisy supervising the work

In addition to all the work on the house this week, our puppy, Daisy, gained a pound.  She's almost halfway to her full-grown weight now.  

It's fun to see our puppy growing while our house is being built.