Brick, Electrical, and Plumbing Oh My!

We took a drive over to the house today and they have started the brick!  We are very happy with our brick choice and can't wait to see how the stone turns out with it.  There are other homes in our community with our brick but none of them have done the stone so we are a little nervous to see how it comes together.  Fingers crossed it will look awesome!
On the inside it looks like they have the plumbing done, hvac done, and good bit of the electrical underway.  Insulation has been sprayed and the wall for our basement media room was completed.
Every time I walk through the home I get more and more excited, I love the flow of everything and the layout is going to work perfectly for my family!

And we have stairs ... Finally!!

After having to cancel 2 appointments with guardian due to the delay of our steps beig put in, they are finally in and we had our appointment. We are very excited about the way the house is looking, I can't wait till some of our finishes get put in. We finally got it ok'd to have a different edge put on our island and to have a different sink put in rather then the standard stainless. We are dealing directly with Troy Granite for that and they tell me they should be going to measure for the granite after the first of the year so it seems it's moving along nicely!  Here are some pics of the inside framework...

Entryway Stairs

Looking into the kitchen from the family room (the pillar was removed to make room for the non standard island)

Master Sitting Room

Master (from sitting room)

Looking into the master bath from the master / with the closet doorways on each side

Master Bath!

Part of the media room (frame not finished, will be walled off) and the playroom framed

Full media room except for the wall closing it off from the rest of the finished area

Completed Frame!

Front of our home - elevation "C"

Frame Status Update...

Friday they completed the frame of our house.  The roof is ready to be shingled and everything.  It is looking so nice and we are so excited!  I didn't get to take pictures this weekend but we will be there Wednesday for our Guardian meeting so I will take some then!  The basement opening was covered with heaters going so we are thinking that means the concrete was poured for the basement.

I guess my only frustration at this point is with the paint topic right now.  We were quoted a price for Ryan's painters to paint the whole home a custom color of our choosing, we then realized we didn't want our children's rooms and their playroom painted the same as the rest of the home so we had them remove those from the quote ... and guess what??!!  The price didn't change!!  I would net anything if we added the 3 rooms later the price would have increased at LEAST $300.  Typical I guess, we shouldn't have been surprised especially since we aren't having them put any mirrors in the home since we want to do custom mirrors and they didn't even take $1 off the bill!!

I guess that is it for now, hopefully Wednesday I will have some good news and pictures to post!

Onto the second floor....

We got to drive out to the house this evening and everything is coming along nicely thus far. The only question we will have to ask about is a non load bearing pillar we were supposed to have removed from the kitchen area so the non standard island fits with enough walkway room around it. They have the frame in looking like the pillar is going in so we will have to see about that. Other then that we were excited to see all the windows we will have on the rear and side of the house.

Corner of house with the kitchen and morning room

Rear side of house with the sun room and office, egress moved to side instead of rear so we didn't have to worry about the well for it being in the back yard where the kids would be playing

Frame progress....

With all the Thanksgiving preparations I made I didn't have a chance to post this earlier....  We took a drive over last night to see what had been done... We were excited to see the frame of the first floor was complete with the windows in place!!  Only took the one picture for obvious reasons in addition to it being freezing out, thanks to our lovely western pa weather. I'm sure we will head over again Saturday to snoop around during the day so hopefully there will be more progress and better pictures I can take!  Hope everyone had a happy and safe thanksgiving!!

Selection Samples!!

I found our selection sheet from Rite Rug today, here are some sample pictures of some selections we made...

Wet Bar Cabinets, Granite, and Layout

Basement Wet Bar Backsplash

Kitchen Backsplash in 3x5 brick lay subway tile

Kitchen Cabinets

Kitchen Granite

 

Hardwood throughout Foyer, Hall (up & downstairs), Kitchen, Dining Room, Family Room,
Master,Morning Room,Sun Room, Powder Room,

Master Bath accent wall and accent band

Master Bath 12x24 tile-shower straight lay & floor brick lay / 12x12 straight lay for tub surround

Laundry Room tile 12x12

Both our Office areas

The only flooring selection I could not find a sample of was our carpet for the bedrooms and basement area ... it called "Enviro Supreme Color 882"

Non Standard Kitchen Island

Here is a look at what our island will resemble minus the sink ... it is from the Heartland Homes Remington Place model ...

Why we chose the Avalon over the Waverly....

     We decided to go with the Avalon over the Waverly for several reasons, one of which was just to do something different.  Since moving into our Waverly there were several things we would discuss under the topic of "things we would do differently".  To start with ... the open family room with the fireplace.  When the fireplace is in use due to it being open the heat escapes the family room and goes straight upstairs.  In addition to that, having the open family room also causes the 4th bedroom to be very small.  The last family room reason is the rear staircase, we love having it however, having it cuts down the usable space in the living room because you have to leave a walkway between furniture and the staircase for optimal "flow".
     One of the oddest placements on the Waverly is the powder room.  Never thought anything of it till we moved in and entertained for the first time in our new home.  If you've not see then Waverly floor plan, the powder room is right off the kitchen.  Which if you utilize the open floor plan to entertain using the family room, kitchen, and morning room ... that gives anyone in the powder room ZERO privacy.
     Then there is the living room.  For us, it is the biggest waste of space ever.  The only thing we currently use it for is our Christmas tree every year.  Basically, for us, it is just a room that is nicely decorated with furniture.  We didn't like the idea of making this a playroom for our kids since it is in the from of the house and would be the first thing people see when they come in, not to mention that it is in the opposite corner of where we typically are and my kids are bother little and can not be unattended.
     The one thing I will miss about my Waverly is the laundry room, we did the extended laundry room.
     So when it came down to it, with the "tweaks" we were able to do to the Avalon, it just made better sense for our family.  The layout to us seems more functional and to flow better.  We love that we are both going to have our separate work spaces, that the family room is in the center of the home, the staircase, the separate master closets, and the size of all the bedrooms!

Frame!! Has begun...

House rear

Garage side

Front

Foundation progress

View from our rear yard

Side yard looking into the back yard