It’s been a whirlwind of activity these last few weeks as everyone worked really hard to try and get our certificate of occupancy by the end of June.
The plumbers and electricians were back installing all of the fixtures throughout the house. It was great to see some of the items that we picked out months before finally being put to use. We ordered all of our lighting online during Black Friday sales and stored it away until now. We also got some of our sinks and the copper tub for the master bathroom online because we were able to get better pricing. The only issues that came up during installation were the downrod extensions for the great room ceiling fans and the lack of light bulbs. Both issues were easily rectified and well worth the money we saved by ordering online.
Countertops and appliances were installed in a couple of days and they all look great. We have discovered an issue with the dishwasher starting and running on it’s own, but we are working with Specialty Appliance to get it fixed or replaced. I guess we’ll have to wash some dishes by hand until then!
The painters have been great about working through the weekends and around the other contractors to get everything finished. They started outside by staining all of the timbers and worked their way inside to stain the interior timbers, trim, windows, and doors. Our chosen paint colors for the walls and ceilings really complement the warm wood tones and natural moss rock.
The framing team also came back to install the TimberTech decking and Cinch railing. They also fixed the garage corbels to adhere to the original design. With all of the major work done, the cleaners came in and did a thorough cleaning and the window washers made sure the view looked great.
Everything came right down to the wire, but we weren’t able to get our final inspection completed before the end of June. Our rental lease was up on June 30th and we couldn’t extend it any further. By this time, we had already extended twice while we waited for our house to be completed and the landlord wanted to get new tenants before summer was over. So we had to scramble to line up a hotel while we waited for our final inspection.
In the meantime we used that final weekend in June to move all of our stuff to the garage of the new house. Luckily, we had sold most of our furniture and gotten rid of things we didn’t need before we even moved to the rental. We still managed to fill up most of the garage in the new house with all the boxes and mattresses that we did have.
It wouldn’t have been so bad, but U-haul called us the day before our move to tell us that they didn’t have any trucks for us, even though we had a guaranteed reservation. We called every truck rental company and even moving companies to see if we could line up a replacement, but we couldn’t find anything with such short notice. We ended up moving all of our stuff with our pick-up truck. Nearly 30 trips later, we finally had everything moved. We were so glad our rental was only a mile and a half away from the new house, otherwise we would have never been able to do it in one weekend.
The crew wrapped up everything they needed to do to call in the final inspection on July 1st. The inspector came out on July 2nd and signed off on everything so we could move our stuff inside the house later that day. What a long, crazy process it has been.
There are still some odds and ends that need to be tied up, but we are finally in the house we built and now they are going to have to bury us in the backyard to get us to leave!