Closing in on target...

Yes, that's right: we have a closing date! The house should be completed on November 1, which is a Thursday. Then, on Monday, we have our new home orientation and walk-through. That's when we learn how to use the heater and stuff, and we get to point out any little things that need to be fixed, like scuffed walls (hopefully, only LITTLE things.) Then we close on our house on Wednesday, November 7. We give them a really big check, sign a lot of papers, and we get the key. We can start moving in then.


We locked in the terms and interest rate of our mortage today, which was really nerve-racking, because the interest rate kept changing throughout the day. We also cashed in our mutual fund, to pay for the down payment and the closing costs. (Thanks to Emilie's Mommy and Daddy, who gave it to us when we got married!) That was also a little scary, because we had to request it be cashed out BEFORE the stock market closed, but we wouldn't know exactly what the account was worth until AFTER the market closed. Does any of that make any sense? Anyway, it is all done now.


Our house is progessing nicely. Every day we see something new. Our walls are painted, the plastic is off the cabinets, and the doors are back up.


Today they started laying the vinyl flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms. We didn't actually see that part, but our builder e-mailed us to let us know. Next week they will finish the plumbing, install the toilets, sinks, and faucets. And, outside, they will pour the driveway. They actually build a little wooden trough for a mold, then pour the concrete, then smooth it out--but not too much. You apparently want little ridges in the concrete to improve traction, since the driveway is not totally level. They use what looks like a metal broom to achieve this. A bit like a rake in a Japanese sand garden, I think.


You can learn how to make your own relaxing zen garden here.

I just packed our 100th box. I can't believe how much junk we have! It is kind of scary to think we have to move in 5 weeks. There is so much left to do. I have packed most of the kitchen stuff we can live without, but the office still looks like the Abominable Paper Monster lives there. I can't just throw all the papers away without either looking at them or shredding them. We are in luck: the Staples (an office supply store) in Indianapolis is having a shredding day, where they will shred your mountains of papers for free. It will be November 6. I hope we can fit all the old bank papers and such in our car!

We also need to start all of our utilities, get insurance, change our address with about 50 companies, hire movers, and I fear we will need to give in and buy some packing paper and dish boxes. I worry all of our nice dishes will be broken if we don't. Actually, we don't have nice dishes. We have ordinary dishes and cheap dishes from Wal-Mart. But it is nice to have something other than paper to eat off of!

I wonder if the movers will charge extra when they find out about the card catalog? I plan to pack the contents in boxes, and take the individual drawers out. It will still weigh a ton. What do librarians do when they need to move one? Oh, wait, they have computers now, don't they? I actually sat in on a course at IU about the History of the Book. It was soooo coool! But all the library science majors who were required to take it were unappreciative. They said things like "Why do we need to preserve old books when we can just scan them?" and "Print is dead." I bet none of them have a card catalog in their dining room!

(This is a picture from our last Christmas party. You can see the card catalog in the background.)

As you can see, I am reaching a state of total panic about moving and buying a house. Any reassurance would be most welcome! Hugs and help also accepted. :-)

Painting started

I went by the house Friday evening, and guess what? They forgot to lock the door! So, I was able to sneak in and get some pictures. They have started painting, so I had to put up with some fumes. Our cabinets are all in place, but they are covered in plastic (to protect them from the paint). And although they had previously hung all of our doors, they have since taken them back down (apparently for the painting).

Here's a shot where you can see the color of the walls -- not white (like the trim), but a little cream

Our kitchen cabinets and island covered in plastic after the first coat of paint

All of our doors are stacked up in the living room

They've also mostly installed the motor for our garage door

Secured cabinets and fireplace

Well, all you budding criminals can cancel your plane tickets! I don't know if somebody tipped-off the developer, but for the past two days all of our doors have been locked. So our cabinets and wires are nice and secure. (I guess our dirt is still up for grabs, but from looking around the development there is plenty of that anyway, and it's not exactly what I would call "top soil" -- more like "dirt"). That also means two other things: (1) we have to resort to peering through windows to try and see everything that is going on, and (2) my pictures are much crappier. :(

Over the past few days, we have met our neighbors on both sides, as well as across the street. I think we are just about ready to have a block party, even though none of our houses are finished yet. By the way, the majority consensus among the neighbors is that the best way to access our homes now that they are all locked up is through a window -- some through the front bedroom window, others through one of the back windows. (Maybe my pictures will start to improve -- and then you will know exactly how I did it.)

Anyway, they have our cabinets mostly in place, as well as our fireplace.

Here's our nice, tall kitchen cabinets (and you can also see that they've installed the baseboards)

Our fireplace is coming along (it is should be stained to a more medium oak when it is finished, and also will have glass doors).

(By the way, for you digital camera enthusiasts -- I love my Fujifilm camera. This picture was taken at dusk, through the deadbolt hole in our front door, with no flash -- and the fireplace is about 30 feet away! It is blurry when it is blown up, but from this small image it looks pretty darn good.)

A locked door (and an electric meter)

So we went by the homesite tonight, and we got to chat with our new neighbors again (there house is scheduled to be completed about a month before ours). However, while we were there, Emilie was very disappointed to find out that the front door was locked...

...So Emilie had to resort to peering through the hole where our deadbolt will be. Fortunately for Emilie, we went around to the back of the house and found out that the sliding glass door was still unlocked. (In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't be mentioning these kinds of details on our blog -- we wouldn't want somebody to break into our house -- but then again, apparently our most loyal readers are in Branson, Seattle, Tallahassee, or busy touring around Europe!). You can also see in this picture that they have added the wiring for our door bell.

They have also installed our electric meter, so now we can exactly how much work they are actually doing on our house. Thus far they are up to 14 KWh of work (so to speak)...

A busy couple of days

They have been busy working on our house over the past few days, and we have been busy working with Beazer as well. By Thursday evening, they started putting the siding on our house...


By Saturday morning, the siding was all done...and the outside of our house really looks like a house!


Late last week we got a call from Tia, who works for Beazer Mortgage. She wanted to see if we had heard anything about all of the changes that have been going on in the mortgage industry over the past few months (apparently a lot of homebuyers are still unaware of the sub-prime mortgage crisis and its spillover effect on the rest of the mortgage industry). So we went into Indianapolis and met with Tia yesterday and talked about our options. It looks like everything is just fine, we may have to structure our loan somewhat differently, but it really should not be much of a problem.

We also got an e-mail message from Steve, the project manager, yesterday. He indicated that our home is now ready for the prime paint. He also said that our cabinets have been delivered. And sure enough, when we stopped by the house this morning, the boxes with our cabinets were sitting in the garage.


Then later in the day, we got another e-mail from Steve. He told us that our estimated completion date is November 1! So, figure another week or two before closing (we get to have an "orientation" and another chance to inspect the house before closing), and we should be in our house before Thanksgiving!!! We can't wait!

More progress

They continue making progress on the inside of our house. It appears that the drywall is all in place and they are starting to add the spackle (that makes the walls have that textured look). They have also put in our garage door (not the motor or anything, literally just the garage door). Finally, they have done some more grading and have installed the retaining wall between our house and our neighbor's.

Time to go shopping!

I am so excited by our new walls!!! I have been told that drywalling is a very slow process and that it is an art, not just a skill. (Okay, some of those drywallers take their work pretty seriously!) It also looks like a big mess, even more so than painting. They put up big sheets of wallboard (which are not wood at all, but look like a cross between styrofoam and plaster of Paris, if such cross were possible.) These are slightly gray. Then they nail them to the wooden studs underneath the insulation. Then they put special tape over the seams between each piece of wallboard. Then someone else (the artist?) comes along and spackles over the seams and tape and nails. Those are the nails that stick out sometimes in your house, making little bubbles or "wall pops" and generally looking bad. Apparently, they are one reason why you want a really good drywaller.

You can see the white spackle in the pictures of our walls. The little short stripes in between are where the nails into the studs are. I think the effect is sort of visually pleasing. Not that I want to leave it that way or anything, it is just interesting. The next step is to sand the spackle completely smooth, but only after it is completely dry. Then they spackle again, a thinner and even smoother coat, and sand again. This may be repeated a third time. Steve told us that our drywall will take 5 or 6 days. (I guess you don't rush an artist!) When that is finished, he will give us an estimate of when the whole thing will be finished. We are sort of guessing the middle of November. As a totally ignorant new homeowner, I am having trouble seeing what is left to do and why it will take so long. I guess I will soon learn.

With the walls up, I have much more of a feeling for how big each room will be. I see-saw between thinking "Oh, my lord, this place is huge. How will we ever fill it up with furniture? Will it look like a cave? How can we afford to heat this thing?" to "Oh, maybe this isn't going to be big enough. Will the dining table fit? Where will all our books go?" I hope that means we picked a good size, since I swing from one extreme to the other.

The more it looks like a real house, the more I want to go shopping. I am trying to think of things we will need, rather than things I just want. THAT would be far too long a list! And we are going to be pretty broke at first, with just buying the house. Here is my list so far. Why don't you all suggest some important things that we are forgetting?

1. A big ladder for inside the house
2. An outdoor ladder
3. Bedroom curtains (our old ones might work)
4. Bathroom curtain (the old ones might work, or maybe that frosted-glass window cling stuff)
5. Lawn mower (no, our tiny yard does not justify the lawn tractors Derek is admiring at Sears!)
6. Hose and sprinkler
7. Carbon monoxide detector, battery operated (you really don't want one without a battery backup, because when the power goes out in winter you will want to use your fireplace!)
8. Larger fire extinguisher for garage
9. New fire extinguishers and smoke alarms (ours are all about 10 years old, which is about as long as you can rely on them to work. Very bad to grab an extinguisher and have nothing come out!)
10. Plastic carpet protector to go under office chair (is there a name for these things?)
11. Treadmill for Derek to jog on (yeah, Derek, keep up the good work!!!)
12. Snow shovel (ah, the joys of owning a home!)
13. Bathmat for second tub (the kind that keeps you from falling, that is)
14. Grab bars for tubs, showers, toilets, both bathrooms (ditto)
15. Contact paper for cabinets (has anyone noticed how expensive this has gotten? It used to be a cheap craft item. We may spend $50 on it for our new house! Is there a good substitute?)
16. Lever doorknobs for inside and out (us old people have trouble with our hands)
17. House numbers for front of house (I think 4 inches tall is required by our neighborhood)
18. Stencils to paint our house number on the curb (you really don't want the ambulance driver to have any trouble finding your house!)
19. Rake for leaves
20. Recycling bins? (I am trying to figure out if these are provide or purchased from the city. There are many arcane recycling rules in which I have yet to be initiated)
21. Big trash bin? (Do you rent this from the trash company? I don't know!)
22. Long-handled duster for ceiling fans and high ceilings
23. Hoe and rake for weeds (we may have weeds before we have a yard, since you can't really sod in the winter!)

Of course, there are lots more things I just want to have, like a brass door knocker and a coat tree for the entryway. But, tell me, what am I forgetting that we will need? Oh, it is so hard not to start buying stuff for the house now, but I really don't want more stuff to move.

Moving report: 90 boxes packed, including lots of kitchen gadgets and dishes for entertaining.

The next packing hurdle is our office. It is so full of papers that we can't really even work in there, we usually take the computer into the dining room. I thought about posting a picture of the disaster zone, but it might frighten the innocent and impressionable among you. My mother saw it, and I think she was pretty appalled. Sorry, Mom, we tried to get the door shut, but we couldn't. It doesn't just need to be cleaned, but all those papers need to be gone through, many recycled, many more shredded. Only then can we even start packing. Derek seriously suggested that we just put all the old receipts and paid bills and canceled checks into boxes and not look at them, just take them with us. It might come to that. I am really dreading shredding mountains of paper, too. Especially those little yellow credit card slips that aren't really paper, but are sort of shiny tissue paper, and are really hard to shred. I just hate those. Could we just close all of our accounts and open new ones, so we don't have to worry if anyone gets our account numbers? Then we could throw away all of these papers without fear.

Speaking of accounts, I spoke with our mortgage counselor (no, not a psycho-therapist, but more like a salesperson!) She said that we will probably need a down payment (duh!) and that we will probably have to pay for mortgage insurance (duh!) Sorry, I don't totally understand what the big deal is with that insurance. It is not as expensive as I feared, since so many people gripe about having to pay it. It's like $120 a year. Am I missing something? I mentioned that we had been working hard to pay off our credit card balances and she told me not to. (Boy, did I not expect to hear that!) She said paying them down is good, but not too far. Better to have $100 or so on each card than to have nothing. And she said the important thing is not to have a low balance relative to your credit limit (our credit limits are all absurdly high. It's like they think we have money or something!), but rather to have a balance that is below half of the highest balance you have ever had on that card. Does that make any sense to you?

I am seriously starting to think that the credit rating business is a form of voodoo. How do they arrive at a credit score? Do they throw dice, or do they cut open a chicken and examine its entrails? It amuses me that my credit score is higher than Derek's (nyah-nyah-nyah!), because he makes about ten times what I do. And he has a real, permanent, full-time job, and I am hired by the semester. But, apparently, it is more important that I had my first credit card before he did. Yeah, teenagers with credit cards are SUCH a GREAT idea! Honestly, it is a form of voodoo. Or haruspicy (a term meaning telling the future by killing an animal and then looking at its liver for spots or a funny shape, the ancient Romans did this.) A friend of mine has a t-shirt that says (in Latin) "When I want your opinion, I will cut you open and examine your entrails to find it." How much of a market could there possibly be for shirts like this? Very odd.

Walls! We have walls!!!

So we had our "pre-drywall walk through" Friday morning with Steve. It basically amounted to Steve saying "See, here's insulation. Here's some power outlets;" and us saying "Yep, that looks like insulation to me. Yep, that appears to be an outlet of some type." We also were supposed to make sure that all of the options we selected were in place so far--which they all were, except for the hole to vent the range hood to the outside and the extra faucet outside the house. Steve assured that was all stuff that was supposed to be done in the finishing stages. Steve said the drywall was the next step, and that it would take about 5 days, and then he would e-mail us with his estimated completion date. So we said everything looks good and went on our way after about 10 minutes.

When I came home early Friday evening, there was a van in our "driveway" and they were hanging the drywall in the garage! As I drove on by I was able to see through the front door that they had drywall up in the front room, too! We tried to go by later that evening (while it was still light so I could get some pictures--that house gets awfully dark at night with no lights), and they were still working. We drove by a couple of times on Saturday while running various errands, but they were there working again (not that I'm complaining about them working, I just wanted to get in and get some shots of the in-between stages).

But here we are now, we finally have walls!!!

A shot of the living room/dining room towards to front door (and boy do I love that cathedral ceiling!)

A shot of the kitchen area (with the hole in the wall for venting the range hood to the outside)

Besides the walls (or more likely, perhaps because of the walls), we also have a our first fly. Perhaps we should give him a name and make him our mascot, since he is apparently the first thing to actually live in our house? (Although we have also seen a cat skulking around in the evenings.)

Insulation! (And an inspection report)

After a few days of nothing happening, things have once again picked up.

We had our house inspected yesterday by the private inspector we hired. Of course, we didn't know that the inspection had actually occurred until this morning, when we got up and Emilie checked her e-mail. We had been hoping to attend the inspection, so we could walk through the house with the inspector and learn a little bit about what he was looking for. But, alas, the inspector apparently forget to let us know when he was doing the inspection. The inspection only noted a few minor issues like a hole in the styrofoam insulation that needed to be taped, a missing vertical wall stud that needed to be replaced, and some Simpson header and rafter ties that needed to be installed in the office. No, I didn't have any idea what a Simpson tie was until I went by the homesite this evening (see the silver T-shaped brackets where the wall meets the ceiling on the right)...


But perhaps even more exciting than our inspection report was what we saw when we went by the house tonight. They've installed our insulation!


Now it is really starting to feel like our house is coming together. I do mean feel, because it sure was a lot warmer in the house this evening since all of the insulation has been installed. They also have all of our sheet rock in the house and ready to be installed.

The next step is for our "pre-drywall" meeting with Steve, the project supervisor for Beazer. He will walk us (well, Emilie, because I will probably be at work) through the house and show us everything that has been done. We will also verify that all of our construction options and that type of stuff that we selected at the Design Studio have been put in place. From looking around, it looks they've done everything they are supposed to, except for installing the second external faucet on the other side of the house.

Back in step

Not a lot of progress yesterday, but they did put our vent and ductwork back in place!


They've also installed the ductwork for the exhaust fans in the bathrooms and the lights that we had installed over the showers.


They have installed two of the hose faucets (the one on the east side of the house and the one in the garage, but we are still missing the additional one that we paid to have installed on the west side of the house). And no, we really haven't figured out why the default is to have only one external faucet on the house, and the second one inside the garage. I mean, why do we really need a faucet inside the garage -- so that we'll be able to hose off the garage? In the future, I guess we can install a wash sink out there, but we don't have any plans to do that any time soon. (You can see the faucet in the lower left-hand corner of this picture.)