Well, we’re all unpacked here at the apartment and life is pretty normal. Volleyball has started for Brittany and today is the first day of school. Everything is starting to be routine again. But this isn’t going to last for long…

Last Friday Brittany had a volleyball game over in the area of town where the new house is, so I thought it was a good time to go check out the progress of construction. I spoke to our salesperson about 10 days ago on Sunday and she said there are 12 phases of the construction and on that day, August 7th, we were on phase one. Judging from the drive-by I did the Friday prior, that meant the foundation was poured and they had started framing.

WELL, when I drove by last Friday, the outer walls were up, the roof was on, including the shingles, all the plumbing was in and so were the gas lines. It was amazing how much they had done in ONE week. I stopped by the office to talk with our salesperson and she said they were now on phase 6!!!! Wow!!! Anyway, the next thing they would be doing is the electrical and then the sheetrock would go in.

I couldn’t believe it. This thing is moving so quickly. Ever since we signed the contract we thought we’d close in mid-October, but now things are a bit different. Our salesperson told me she felt SURE we would close in September. Wow. That’s not really good for us, it was totally different from our original plan. You see, we have a three month lease at the apartment which ends at the end of October. We were considering keeping the apartment through November so Brittany could get closer to the end of the semester and we wouldn’t have to worry about finding her a place to stay that’s near her school. Now we have to consider that if we keep the apartment for another month we will have to make both an apartment payment and the mortgage payment and I’m not sure we can afford to do that. So now, we’re just a bit bewieldered about what we’re going to do for November and where Brittany will live.

I’m sure everything will turn out fine, and we still have a little time to figure everything out. It was just a little shocking how our timetable shrunk. On the other hand, it’s really exciting that we’ll be moving again very soon. Now we can start thinking about painting, decorating and making the new house our own. Brent and I have been shopping around for things we know we will need or want. We sold a bunch of our furniture before we moved and the $900 we made from that is earmarked for an armoire for the bedroom TV. We’d also like to consider an entertainment center for the living room amoung other things.

Yesterday we went down to the kitchen cabinet distributor to see how our cabinets will look and see if there are upgrades we can make to them. I was really disappointed, the cabinet our builder uses is the cheapest cabinet in the showroom. It looked so puney next to all the other beautiful cabinetry. We talked with a salesperson and she told us what was available for upgrading and it wasn’t much. On the other hand, the upgrades we want to do, won’t cost as much as if we had one of the expensive cabinets. We want to put our fridge in a wrap-around panel and we want to add molding to the tops and bottoms. The top molding will make it look like better cabinets and the bottom molding will allow room for under mounted task lighting. The lady told us we could build up some sections so they are taller than other sections and give it a more custom look. She also showed us how we can cut the middle out of a cabinet door (cost $65) and glue in a glass front. We have to do this because the cabinet line doesn’t offer any glass front cabinets. There was an example on the show floor and it looked really nice, we’ll probably use that on a couple of the door fronts.

The other thing we had to arrange this week was a pre-sheetrock inspection. I didn’t even know that we could do a pre-sheetrock inspection, but our salesperson told us that most people who do inspections, do the pre-sheetrock one and the one when the house is finished but not yet closed. Our salesperson called Monday and said all the electrical would be in by Friday and it’s scheduled to be sheetrocked on Monday, so Friday would be the very best time to do the inspection. So, I got a referral from a friend and I now have an appointment at 2:00 p.m. on Friday for the inspection. The cost will be $200. I asked what the charge for the final inspection will be and he said $200 as well, so the total cost for all the inspections will be $400. I think that is a fair price for piece of mind, especially since we now know they are using cheap materials (i.e., cabinets).

I’ll report back after Friday and tell you everything he finds wrong and everything he finds right. Heck, maybe everything will be perfect (I’m wishing, right?).