Week 18 - We Have a Roof!

This weekend was the first time we've come and seen an active construction site.  We couldn't get too close because workers were actively tossing wood off of our roof!  Our framing is complete up to the third floor now, and, aside from the bay window and the window from the kitchen overlooking the deck, all of our windows have been installed.  Our front door has also been installed.  It seems like things are really moving quickly now after all of those weeks of delays, and we are really excited about this!  We could recognize the outline of the bedroom and bathroom on the first ("basement") floor, and we could see that the main stairs have been installed (at least between the first two floors).

We were also very happy to hear from our PM on Friday afternoon with some updates.  He told us that if the weather holds, they will put up the trusses for the roof early this coming week and shingles will follow soon after that.  The next step will apparently be the house wrap and HVAC installation and duct work.

We are still working on getting a revised settlement date, particularly because the delays may have pushed us into a time frame that will make if very hard for us both to get time off of work at the same time and because NVR still is going by our original May 15th date and says no one has notified them that it might have changed, so they've already sent us a 60-day notice and are waiting for us to lock our rate (which we may not actually be eligible to do given the possible new timeline).  Our PM is going to try to talk to the builder's main office during the upcoming week to hopefully get us a revised date.  He also told us we were probably appropriately within the 90-day lock period, but that he couldn't actually guarantee that, though if we aren't yet, he says we are definitely within a week or two of it.  So, we are obviously still in limbo on that front.

One big move forward, however, is that our PM is ready to set our Pre-Drywall meeting!  We are looking at a little over a week if the date we prefer from his options works out.  We are very excited to actually walk through our home!

Week 17 - Two Floors Framed

There has been a lot of progress this week!  Some of the units in our row have already begun their third floor framing, and other units now have doors and windows.  We could also see the fireproofing going up between the units.  Our home has the first and second floors framed, and we were able to get a good look (in person - not so much in pictures due to lighting) at the layout of the first floor bedroom (4th bedroom option for the "basement" floor, comes with a walk in closet and a full bath).  We were also excited to see the framing for the bay window.  In addition to the good view, we were happy to meet one of our neighbors who was there taking pictures of his home, too.

Week 16 - Foundation Complete

This week we finally had some good weather, and we finally have some really progress!  The foundation has been completed, and framing has begun on every other house in our row (i.e. A-C-E-G, which does not include ours).  We expect our framing to begin next week.  We also had a long talk with our PM this week to figure out what to do about our lease.  As of now, due to weather, the current build timeline has us about a month behind on build completion and closing.  So, we're now looking at a closing date closer to June 15th than May 15th.  Though not as ideal timing-wise, we are ok with this and will make it work.  Since we finally got as close as we could get to an official word on this (the PM seemed very reluctant to commit to anything, and, while we understand why and don't blame him, it is a bit frustrating), we went ahead and extended our apartment lease 1 month to accommodate the changed timeline.  Good weather is expected again this coming week, so we are excited to see even more progress next weekend!

Week 15 - Snow Foundation

This week we had even more snow!  This meant yet another week of what appears to be no progress at all.  (Unless you count a newly completed foundation of snow, that is.)  We are now officially getting nervous about the delays.  When we chose our lot, one of the main factors in our decision was the closing date (since we are in a very fast-selling townhome community that is building in phases, the closing dates of each phase are pre-scheduled).  Our planned closing date coincides very nicely with the end of our apartment lease, giving us a little buffer room to get settled in our new home while saving us money by not leaving us with an overlap month of rent plus mortgage or with a lease-breaking fee.  Unfortunately, the start of the real winter weather this year coincided with our planned breaking ground week.  We've been repeatedly told that all of this sort of thing is built in to the planned building time frame, but now we are down to one week until we have to give our official notice not to renew the lease at our apartment.  We are faced with a difficult decision.  We were originally scheduled (and have repeatedly been reassured despite any possible weather issues that we remain on schedule) to close on May 15th.  However, we are now hearing from our PM that given all of the delays, closing may be pushed backed until "late May or early June."  Particularly from reading other blogs, we realize this isn't much of a delay, especially given the weather, but our lease ends June 14th, and, again, we have to give notice by this coming Friday as to whether we are renewing for any length of time or not.  We liked the "buffer month" afforded by the May 15th closing because we will also have a newborn along with our soon to be 1-year-old by that time (we are due at the end of April), so a little extra time to take care of a few things like getting blinds installed and getting everything moved in without a rush would be helpful.  We aren't sure if we can risk a possible "early June" closing given that "early" would need to be early enough to allow us to move out of our apartment on time (completely out and cleaned by June 14th).  We also aren't sure of who's information we can trust - we have also been told that our PM's estimate is really a worst-case-scenario number to be safe, and that we will likely still close on May 15th as they have been known to make up the time and as a much worse winter was actually expected when the timelines of the phases were originally scheduled.  We hope to speak to our PM and SR tomorrow to get a better idea of what to expect so that we can best make our apartment lease decision by the end of the week as we must.  Hopefully we'll have much better news to report next week!

Week 14 - Snow Progress

During the past week we had very cold weather, ice, and snow.  This mix meant another week of very little progress.  Since things just started to thaw out this weekend, that is understandable.  The biggest change this week wasn't actually anything to do with our home; the biggest change is that there has been a large delivery of wood.  So, I guess at least we're all set up for whenever things are able to really get moving.  Hopefully that will be soon!  We also reached out to our PM this week since we hadn't received our expected update last week.  As we expected, it was because there was not much of anything to report due to the weather.  He again reassured us that once they can get the roof up, weather isn't really a factor anymore, so we are just hoping that that time comes soon.