Week 20 - Pre-Drywall Meeting

We began this week with our Pre-Drywall Meeting - our first look INSIDE the house!  Our PM walked us through the entire house, pointing out what had been done so far, what was happening next, and where everything would be.  It was very exciting to stand inside each room of our home.  We took a LOT of pictures (we made separate page for them since this post ended up being really long already) and got a lot of good info.  Our PM was very very patient and really let us take our time picturing our family in each room.

We also ended up with an unexpected second walkthrough in the middle of the week.  We had been told when we first met with our Guardian rep (who we loved) at the beginning of the selection process that he would join us at our pre-drywall walkthrough to mark out the placements of all of the Guardian stuff (for us, just a few cable and data outlets and the security system).  We hadn't heard from him in a while, but we assumed this was still the plan.  Just to be sure, we reached out to him about a week before the pre-drywall meeting - no response.  We called the Guardian main office and had to leave a message - also no response.  We went to the pre-drywall meeting and our PM asked us if we had already figured out all of the placements with Guardian.  We said we had expected our guy that day, so he said he'd call him and figure it out - except he used a name we didn't recognize.  Turns out our guy quit, which is why we never heard back, though we're not sure why the Guardian main office didn't call us back.  Anyway, we got a call from the new guy around 3pm midweek telling us they'd be installing the Guardian stuff by Friday, so we had to come by around 8pm that night (?!?) to mark out the placement.  We found the short notice really stressful and honestly really aggravating given our schedule and young child, but he was clear that it was the only time that would really work.  (Apparently new guy has had to take over for 3 different people who've quit recently and is currently covering 3 states worth of Ryan clients.)  We showed up at our meeting - scheduled on a dark rainy night around 8pm, ready to be pretty annoyed, but the guy was so nice and so friendly (and so clearly overworked) that we couldn't really be upset.  We had a flashlight tour of the house to decide where all of the Guardian stuff would go.  We had already decided on everything but where the cable would go in the entry level fourth bedroom, and that we knew would be our hardest decision since we hadn't decided on the layout of the room and had had trouble really picturing it since there have never been any completed ones to look at anywhere near us.  While walking around we also got to see all of the progress made just in the two days since our pre-drywall meeting.  Most noticeable was some significant plumbing work, two bathtubs in place, and the third bathtub sitting in the middle of the 4th bedroom.  Once all of our decisions were made, new Guardian guy suggested we get a video of the interior and acted as the "lighting guy" using his phone as a flashlight/spotlight.  It was pretty hilarious and pretty cool.  All in all, the fun and the extra night time walkthrough were well worth the inconvenience.

When it came time for our regular weekly visit, we found we couldn't get too close because workers were actively working on our house.  The outside doesn't look too different from last week except that the weatherproofing is complete.  We could see through the windows that there was someone on a ladder inside our son's bedroom working on something, which was pretty cool.  We got an update from our PM on Friday telling us that there has really been a parade of workers in this week: plumbers, electricians, the Guardian guys, and the HVAC team.  Our PM would like to have the rough plumbing inspection at the beginning of this coming week and the final plumbing inspection about a week after that.  He also told us that plan for the upcoming week was to begin installing the shingles outside while beginning to put up the drywall inside.

One final update - we've been dealing with a lot of confusion both personally and with NVR regarding our closing date.  NVR was never contacted that we were even delayed, so we got our 60-day notice when we knew we weren't there yet.  It also meant we started receiving the daily rate-lock options but didn't actually know if we were close enough to lock yet or not.  We couldn't get anyone to commit to a date or even a range really beyond "almost definitely" not after July 15, which would have been two months after our initially scheduled closing date.  Luckily, we were able to speak with the building manager ourselves (at the advice of our underwriter) the morning of the pre-drywall meeting.  Not only was she extremely friendly and helpful, she also had a date for us!  She told us we are in the books for build completion and pre-settlement during the last week of May and closing on June 6th, but that since that is a Saturday, it would most likely actually be during the week sometime between June 1st and 5th.  She said that all of the expected June settlement families in our neighborhood would receive our official dates and official letters regarding this by the end of April.  She also told us that we were definitely safe to lock in our rates (since we were now safely actually about 60 days out and the lock agreement is for 90 days), which was very exciting news since just that day we had best rates available since we had begun tracking the daily rates.  So, we have also locked our rate, and it's a great one!  We are very excited to have crossed one more item off of the to-do list and to be one step closer to our home!  (Interestingly, at the end of our pre-drywall meeting, our PM said he didn't have an official date, but he thought we'd probably see build completion and our pre-settlement meeting during the first week of June with our closing likely being held the second week of June, and that he'd check with the building manager to be sure.  We told him we had actually just spoken with her and she had said all of that would be about a week earlier.  Either way, we are happy with the timeline since it is less of a delay than we had been warned about, and we felt good that the PM's estimate based on his work schedule was pretty close to what the main office was expecting and we'll know for sure in a few weeks anyway.

Finally, as of Monday of this coming week, we are also one week from our due date with our second child, so we've got a lot to look forward to coming very soon!