Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Closed and Moved In

We closed on our home on June 19th as expected.  The closing went pretty well.  Probably about 45 minutes or so.  They tried to slip their survey in at the end and wanted us to fill it out at closing.  Since we had not spent any time in the finished house other than with the PM, we declined to fill it out on the spot.  The settlement agent made a joke that we would be put on the "uncooperative list" and our attorney recounted an episode of Seinfeld where Elaine was blacklisted by all of the local doctors.  At any rate things were pretty good in our new home at the time of closing.  There were a few very minor things, but most items were resolved prior to settlement.

There are some floor squeaks here and there, a bent window screen, scratched transom over the front door, the garage door tracks need to be aligned, some little paint touch-ups, etc.  The big item on the fix list is the whirlpool bath tub.  It leaked the first time we used it.  That was on a Saturday.  Sunday morning when we got up the kitchen ceiling was wet.  We emailed the PM and 9am Monday morning he was at our door with a plumber.  Turns out one of the air intake lines was hanging down below the level of the jets and drain so it was leaking water.  The PM corrected it and brought over a high volume air mover to dry things out.  He was going to have a plumber, tile guy, and sheetrock guy all come this week to fix things, but with our schedules we decided it would be best to let things dry out completely and then just let them deal with it on Monday at the post-settlement (30 day) follow up.

Other than the aforementioned issues, we have been very happy.  We installed some ceiling fans, pendant lights, a cable outlet in the study, an over-the-range microwave, and a garage door opener.  The flat panel TV is mounted to the wall in the master bedroom.  We also added some plants to the landscape and over-seeded the front lawn.  One big disappointment is the "topsoil" they used.  It is unscreened garbage and LOADED with rocks.  I raked most of them out of the front lawn but I think we are going to see how the back does with them, since it is a lot of work to remove them all.

We signed a contract with a paving company to add a third lane (12') onto the width of our driveway and extend it back alongside the garage just past the service door.  We have three vehicles and do not want to be jockeying cars all the time.  Besides the 18' they give you for a driveway is very narrow and does not leave much room once you've parked two vehicles side by side.

One other project that we hope to complete very soon is the addition of a deck off the morning room.  The "safety rail" they install in front of the slider is a little ridiculous.

There has been so much to do since we have moved in and we are nowhere near being done, but we will try to post some pictures once we have the time to take them, lol.