Moving
May 3rd, 2009
I’m a bit late on posting this. Two weeks ago, after signing our names a few hundred times, we finished with the initial batch of contracts for our new house:
… at least, that’s what it will look like when it’s actually built (exact model, orientation, side car garage, and siding/shutters). For now, however, this is what we actually own:
A big pile of dirt. More accurately, an expensive pile of dirt. I’m pretty sure somewhere on the land where the house should be is a pile of dog shit.
Once it’s actually built, it will be a 4 bedroom, living room, family room, dining room, study, basement, gourmet kitchen, and two car garage full of pure awesome.
The process sounds like it’s going to be… long. Really long. We’re past the phase of selecting options and just today selected the colors for the granite counter tops, outside siding and shutters, carpets, hardwood floors… and so on. If it sounds intimidating, it is. Thankfully, my wife and I have virtually identical tastes, so we literally didn’t run into a single problem selecting any of those details.
Amazingly, this is still just the beginning. We haven’t even had our “pre-build orientation” yet. I’m not sure what that is, but if it involves any ice breakers or having to learn goofy songs (a la Villanova’s orientation), I’ll be downright creeped out. After that, we have a bunch of walkthroughs at various points. The one I’m most interested in is when the frame is set up but without drywall, at which time I’m going to show up with about 500 feet of CAT5 and wire up pretty much every square foot of the house with internet access (including the toilet, thereby fulfilling one life goal of one day taking a dump on a toilet with an IP address).
Outside of the house itself, the location is freaking great. We’re in a cul-de-sac (I’d love to know why I actually know how to spell that). Across the street — er, circle — they are putting a park with a “tot lot”, so assuming my daughter doesn’t inherit my allergies to everything outside, she’ll have the opportunity to spend a lot of time outside. We’re number 144 in the development layout:
Now we just need to decide if we’re going to sell our current house or rent it out. Anyone want a place in scenic NJ?
dgoodwin
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Wow congrats, looks like it’ll be quite the spot. What’s kind of timeframe are you looking at till it’s finished?
Professor Jay
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Somewhere between October and December. We asked them to push it off until later in the timeframe to give us more of a chance to sell our house.
Regardless, it’s going to be smack in the middle of my fall semester. My students are going to really luck out since my free time will be pretty damn thin
John Mazz
May 3rd, 2009 at 10:23 pm
J – I’ve been through this exact process myself, albeit 11 years ago… I have two pieces of advice that come to mind quick:
1) be VERY sure your builder will allow you to get into the house prior to drywall going up for you to do any wiring yourself. Builders are very paranoid and don’t want homeowners coming on site at all (I’m betting their insurer would not allow it). My builder hated it when we showed up (of course, my builder Quaker Group was the absolute worst company to do business with – so YMMV). In this economy, I’ll bet you can negotiate anything, but be very sure you tell them what you want to do and remind them OVER AND OVER until the day you show up to do the work what you are going to do. And don’t be surprised if they tell you no.
2) Regardless whether your builder will allow you or not, it is a must that you get into your house when it is fully framed, WIRED and WITH PLUMBING, then take as many still pictures as your camera can hold and video as much as you can of the entire house, from attic to basement. I can’t tell you how many times this has saved me when I need to do work on my house since then. “I need to install a ceiling fan – what’s behind this wall? Where’s the wiring go? Where’s the framing? What directions do the beams go? Is there a pipe behind this wall?”… or… “I have a leak stain on my ceiling! Damn! What pipes are up there and where do they lead?”…or…”I need to drill a hole in this wall, there isn’t a sewer PVC pipe behind there is there?”. You get the idea. Make a photo album with all your pictures and/or put every thing on a DVD – I guarantee you will use it, probably more than once.
Professor Jay
May 4th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Mazz – That’s freaking awesome advice. I know there is a pre-dry wall walkthrough scheduled as a standard practice they do, so that part is at least done.
As for the pictures, that’s a great idea I’d have never thought of. It makes total sense to take advantage of the fact that I actually get to see the guts of my house, but I don’t think I’ve given proper thought to how to best use that. Glad you mentioned it now so I can give some thought as to how to catalog all of that.