Weekly Construction Update

The phone call went as planned with the following updates:

• Tile will continue to be installed this week.
• Installing tile is estimated to take 3 weeks total and this includes flooring in the foyer, powder room and all other baths, showers and tub surrounds, laundry room floor and tile backsplash
• Next week countertops should be in placed :-) I do not have a really good mental picture of my counters but I look forward to seeing the kitchen counters installed.

Weekly Lot Visit

The visit today was a little interesting. It was great seeing the crown moulding painted, cabinets in place and tile starting to be put down, BUT  I noticed some issues. I have not discussed these issues yet with the construction manager so I am not sure about how things will be handled.  As I just mentioned, the crown moulding is in place and one coat of paint has been applied - or at least I hope they aren't going to leave it the way it is. They put up most of the exterior trim and plastered the columns in the front of the house. The cabinets in the kitchen, laundry room, powder room, and all bedrooms have been installed. They started on the tile in the foyer which is 8"x8" tile with a mosaic insert. HOWEVER, the tile for the foyer was installed in the wrong pattern!!!!! I asked that it be installed in a diagonal pattern, not straight pattern. I feel like the diagonal pattern feels more elegant - and it costs more for that pattern. Instead of THIS pattern:

 

It was installed in THIS pattern:

Believe it or not, it makes a big difference!

ALSO, I believe that the floor cabinet in the laundry room that will have the sink, was installed in the wrong place. There is an area to the left of the cabinet that is left for the washer and dryer. Unless they start making washers and dryers smaller between now and when we move in, we will have a problem.  Unfortunately, I did not have a tape measure with me but I am pretty sure that front loaders will not fit in that space. You be the judge...or you can just trust me. :-)

The lighter area on the bottom is the baseboard

 

I left feeling very unhappy, even though I spotted a rainbow. I looked over the Buyer Selections Report and it clearly shows diagrams of how the tile will be installed in the foyer so hopefully they won't give me any problems. Regardless, THEY made an error not me, so the floor will be fixed.

Here are the pictures I took today. 

Front from the street

Foyer tile - in the WRONG pattern

My kitchen cabinets!!!!

My range hood

Laundry room

Dining room with crown moulding and chair rail painted

Downstairs guestroom with tile flooring and cabinets

Upstairs bathroom vanity

Jack & Jill bath vanity - both rooms have the same vanity

Weekly Lot Visit

Hip hip hooray!!!!  We actually have stucco on some portions of our house!!! Though it does not look like the color we chose, we like it better than what we chose. The way we chose our house color was by driving around looking at completed Toll Brothers homes and telling the sales manager the address. She then looked up the stucco color and put that down for us as well. The sales manager is the person who told us to do it this way because she said it is hard to visualize the stucco color on paper. The stucco color had to be chosen within 1 week of contract signing. Why so early? I have no clue.

We chose the stucco color Balanced beige, with accent color Aesthetic White, and paint-trim color Sarsaparilla.  Our garage doors and gutters will also be Sarsaparilla.

Our selected exterior colors

There was a lot to notice at the house today. We usually visit the lot on Saturdays but we showed up Friday evening this time after a pretty good rainshower.  The interior walls were painted (sprayed) the color Keratin by Kwal paint. I suppose they will paint the trim by hand. Both handrails for the stairs had been installed. At this point the stair rails have not been stained. We chose a dark stain to match the hardwood floors that will be installed.

Of note, the cabinets have been delivered and are in the garages and in the laundry room!!! They should be installed next week.

Here are the pictures taken of the exterior today.

Exterior from street - stucco color applied to top part of house

Stucco application makes a complete mess

Foyer from catwalk

Closer view of stucco and trim color

Staircase and railing (covered in plastic to protect from paint)

Secondary staircase and railing (covered in plastic)

Dining room (now moulding is painted wall color)

Great room windows from backyard

More picture of the back of the house

Better picture of the whole back of the house

Great room with catwalk now with railing

Weekly Construction Update

Quick update -

• Interior paint will be started and completed this week :-)
• Application of stucco to the exterior will continue
• Next week CABINETS and exterior should be finish

I cannot wait until this weekend so I can see how the paint color we chose looks on the walls.
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A little news from the Riverstone website - http://www.riverstone.com/news/1429/builders-debut-array-of-new-models-in-riverstone

Weekly Lot Visit

After my son's birthday party we made a stop past the house to look at the progress. Well, the changes are definitely noticeable and excitement is building! The exterior was noticeably different and they have completed another step in the stucco application process.  Inside the texture has been applied to the walls, the baseboards, crown moulding and trim around doors and windows have been installed as well. We opted for the stain package for the staircases and they have started applying the wood trim that will be stained. They started the process for curving the stair rails and it looks pretty interesting. They use bending brackets to curve the wooden railing to the same degree as the stairs. The closets are almost complete as well though the master closet is as basic as it gets. Somewhere down the road I will have to upgrade to a closet system.

Regarding the stucco, they appear to be at the 'brown coat' stage meaning that there is only one stage left and that is the 'finish coat and paint' application. Here's the picture again as a reminder.

And the pictures taken today...

Exterior from the street

Garage

Downstairs guest room

Dining room with two stage crown moulding

A storage closet - they put 8" moulding there too :-)

Pantry

Picture showing wall texture

Single stage crown moulding in breakfast room

Picture of catwalk from great room

Great room

View from great room to kitchen and breakfast room

Storage under the main staircase - I love storage!

Master bedroom

Partial view of master closet

Study

Main staircase

Main staircase showing the wood trim

Game room

Secondary walk-in closet

Secondary staircase showing the railing in the  bending bracket

Look through the Jack & Jill bathroom (shared between two bedrooms with separate sinks)

View of great room from catwalk

My favorite - the laundry room

Front door and plant ledge

Media room