Tile Grouted, Appliances Installed, Plumbing Complete

Friday we toured the house and we were pleased to find the toilets, faucets, towel bars, and other fixtures had been installed.  The grout in the master bath has been done.  It has a nice contrast with the Truffle Field tile we selected.  Down in the basement, the plumber was making all of the connections to the main water supply.  The bathroom rough-in was finished up.  Floor drain was put in.  Water heater was installed.  We now have running hot and cold water.

In the kitchen, the appliances were being installed.  The gas stove, dishwasher, and garbage disposal are all in and working.  They attempted to install the range hood, but the unit they had was white so they were re-ordering a black one.

Outside, the gutters were put up.  They look good but we may need to relocate one of the downspouts since it will likely interfere with our future driveway expansion.

Hose spigots were also installed in our selected locations.

This week the trim carpenters are coming back to fix some issues and the painters are coming to do some touch up and to paint the baseboards, casings, and doors.  There were several trim issues we are hoping are resolved.  Some of which include crooked window trim, stair railings that do not line up, and a half-wall cap that looks like they used a butter knife to create the edge detail.

Hopefully all of these things will be corrected.  We are nearing the end!

Listello Tile Update, Fireplace Complete, and Finish Electrical Started

For those who have been following the blog, you might recall that they installed the wrong listello in the owner's bathroom.  Apparently the listello we picked out is no longer available from the manufacturer, Dal Tile.  So we were given the option to go in and reselect our listello or our PM suggested we could go to Home Depot and pick out a new listello and he would go purchase it and have it installed.  We thought that was nice, but then we came up with another idea.  The glass shower enclosure comes in a chrome finish, unless you pay to upgrade it to bronze or nickel.  We were not crazy about the chrome finish, but their price to upgrade was quite high.  So we suggested to our PM that we could leave the installed listello in place and simply upgrade to the brushed nickel shower enclosure.  They agreed to it, so we are keeping the tile and getting brushed nickel.  Appears to be a win-win situation!

In other news our fireplace stonework has been completed.  We picked Bucks County Ledgestone and are very happy with the end result.

Finally the electrical trim-out has been started.  Recessed light trims are installed.  Doorbell is working.  Chandeliers in dining room and foyer are in and outside lighting installed.  Things are starting to come together.  Less than 1 month to go!

Cabinets, Columns, Doors, Floors, Driveway, Paint, Trim, and More

We were able to go thru the house today with the sales rep.  Lots of changes have occurred since our last visit.  There are still several issues inside and out that still exist.  Some things our PM has been responsive towards, others have been largely ignored.  We are going to create a separate post listing the problems that we have noted and will make updates as they are, or are not, dealt with.

The driveway has been installed.  Looks good.  Luckily we said something to our PM regarding the placement because we discussed the driveway in detail at the pre-construction meeting and, unfortunately, our request was not going to be honored.  Since RH installs an 18' wide driveway, that basically gives you 1 foot on either side of the garage door.  We want to expand the driveway by one whole additional lane so we requested that the driveway be shifted 1 foot to the right, which would have lined it up with the edge of the door on the left side and the edge of the wall on the right.  Before the driveway was installed, the outline was marked out and it was just going to be done with 1 foot on either side of the door.  They did correct it after we brought it up, but it is getting very frustrating knowing that simple requests we have made are being disregarded.

The metal roof has been started on the porch.  There are only two pieces of it up, but the rest of it is fabricated and in the garage waiting to be installed.

Porch columns have been installed.  Six of them in all.  They will need to be painted and a trim board under the front door still needs to be installed.

All of the doors and casings are in.  The kitchen cabinets and countertops are installed.  Looks like an endpanel still needs to be installed on the island, but it is BIG and overall there appears to be a ton of cabinet space.  We were pleasantly surprised with our cabinet and counter top selections.  There was an incentive on the maple cabinets, so we got them at no additional charge and they actually look pretty good.  The bench/cabinet is installed in the mudroom.  This will be handy for storage and putting on shoes.

Railings around the stairs are in.  They will need to be stained.  Hopefully it is done neatly.  That seems to be a common complaint amongst bloggers.  It would be nice if they came pre-stained and then were just touched up after installation. Some of the trim work is pretty sloppy but most of it looks good, at a casual glance.

The master bath has been tiled.  We like the tile but they installed the wrong listello.  Brought this to the PM's attention but it seems to have been ignored.  Basically he acted like we were wrong.  Said he would confirm it on the selection sheet.  Well they were wrong.  So we are still waiting to hear on this item.  The vanities in both baths are in and the absolute black granite tops work well with the Andover white in the hall bath and the Wyoming cherry in the master.

First coat of paint has been sprayed,  They cheated us out of the Kilim Beige that they advertise as a standard feature for the community.  We are not happy about this, but they would not budge and would have rather us walked away than paint it the color that they advertise.

Vinyl flooring has been laid in the kitchen, foyer, laundry room, powder room, and main bath.  We really are not crazy about it, but plan to install tile and hardwoods after settlement.  Apparently they are not planning to install shoe moulding or quarter round along the baseboards in the rooms with vinyl flooring.  This is pretty standard for resilient floors and we have seen several RH blogs that depict this type of trim, but, in our area, it looks like one more corner they can cut.