Oh Joy! Joists!

A place to park and a stack of lumber! Assembly begins tomorrow!

Got my first weekly update from my PM. He told me they poured the slab for the garage and tomorrow will begin some framing!  I of course had to run over there!  Lots of grading done in the rear yard which I was pleased to see. I think I will have to keep dedicated lot sneakers in the car because I've ruined my sneakers with Carolina red clay. 

Garage floor poured today.

What can I say, it's a pile of wood.

Lots of grading. You could barely walk back here before they started.
  Thousands of angry fire ants looking for a new home.

On Guard with Guardian

  Just got back from my Guardian appointment.  The only things I purchased were phone, cable and network jacks. They hit you real hard on these. This may vary by region but it cost me $125 per jack. Given this work is done with the walls open that is disappointingly expensive. Most people would want a cable jack in all the rooms. I ended up getting less than I really wanted because it was getting ridiculously expensive. I requested that we not even discuss any further options such as security or digital pre-wires, so we didn't.  I'd like to see them offer things like "Buy a digital pre-wire package, get 3 free cable jacks....," just something to make it less painful than dumping so much money into wall jacks. I walked out for over $1,000 and I feel like I got nothing.

From footings to foundation!

The foundation is starting to look like a house! I am lucky that I live nearby so I can track the build. This is the point in the build where you do not want to miss a day.  Tomorrow is Guardian. I've read up on the Guardian appointment.  I'm not taking my wallet. It will instead be left behind, hermetically sealed in a mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnalls' porch.

Morning Room

2 car garage? Looks like 1.5 to me

Crawl Space Access Door

Neighbors offered to take my picture. They assumed I was the owner,
 not sure what gave it away, perhaps the ear to ear grin :)

I'm guessing that's a porch.

Jenga!

Jigsaw puzzle? Jenga?

Something is afoot at lot 129

The footings were poured today! The house has feet!

Please pay attention to my footings and not the 3-car garage on the Summerville! 

Pre-construction meeting - done!

Well as I mentioned, I had a pretty large list of questions which I got from the blogs and every single one of them was addressed by my PM today. The meeting took a good 3 hours.  He was very thorough. We spent quite a bit of time on electrical options. Yes he even let us make changes on half-hots. I forget which blog I "Stole" it from but the front porch light switch will control the coach lights on the garage too. Here's a tip for you. The sideload garage only includes one coach light. If you want two, it is considered an upgrade ($).  I added a few outlets - one in the garage for the work bench, one in the owner walk-in closet, one on the ceiling of the bonus room closet (for a light) and a dedicated circuit in the bonus room for the treadmill.  Tomorrow he will start the footings.
       Looks like a mid-late June closing. So now the only remaining challenge is to find a place to stay for a month. My current house sold quickly so I will have about a 3 or 4 week gap with no home. I couldn't convince them to let me live in the model.