Baby, it's cold outside. Sometimes.

In true Cincinnati fashion, with a little help from El Niño, one day it feels like February, the next, not so much. Luckily we had several days of warmer weather (50 degrees plus) and were surprised to find out our driveway and sidewalks were poured! Lots of progress both inside and out. The stonework is done, front door is painted and the railing and stairs were installed on our porch. Inside the counters and appliances are in, all the carpet is down and it's touch-up city.

After our meeting last Thursday, I really didn't expect to go through the house again until our final walk-through. Sitting at work on Monday though, I couldn't help but feel like I needed to go through the place ahead of time, and invited my Dad to look at it as well since he knows a lot more about houses in general than I do. Luckily, we were able to schedule time on Tuesday afternoon to do this and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this to everyone. Take your time, well ahead of closing (not 3 days like me).  While your PM should already have a punch list of things that need to get fixed, you should go through and see what you catch and see if everything is up to your standards. For the most part, many of our things were easy fixes. Drywall patching, paint/stain touch-ups, cabinet doors to be replaced, straightening toilets etc.

They had redone the tile in the master shower so we got to see that for the first time and am I glad it was before our final walk-through. The first tile job they did wasn't so bad. Yes, a weird sliver of tile in the corner and a couple crooked glass tiles, but it was almost acceptable. The second go around, not even close. I guess to not have to cut any tile they just made the grout lines bigger which wasn't attractive in the first place. Then it looked the the accent tile on the back wall was sloped by like an eighth of an inch, high one one side and low on the other. Further inspection on the upstairs bathroom also revealed that the tile wasn't laid flat on the side walls and was basically wavy. There were tons of scratches and chips in the hardwood floors and I'm doubting if they installed the upgraded carpet pad as it didn't feel nearly as plush as I expected.

I wasn't thrilled about it all while we were there. I mentioned it in the list of things we caught in my email to our PM after we were there. I was still less thrilled when I went to bed last night. When I got up this morning, I was beside myself that either I was going to be stuck with the crap tile jobs and/or my closing was going to have to be delayed and we wouldn't be able to move this weekend. Spent the morning trying to decide what to do and waiting for a response to my original email. Consulted the advice of the Facebook group and decided I needed answers.

Sent another email to our PM basically saying, what do we need to do to fix this? He called me back shortly after and I was happy to hear he had already called the flooring guys. They had already been out there and had inspected both showers and all the hardwood. They're going to redo the tile (again) in the master shower, this time with 3/16" grout. (Apparently the first time was like 1/16" and 1/4" the second time.) They are going to see about getting tile from the same batch they used in the upstairs bathroom as the back wall seems fine, just the side walls are messed up. If they can't get matching tile, they'll replace the whole thing. They also marked at least 40 hardwood boards that needed to be replaced.

Needless to say, I'm thrilled all of this is being taken care of, but sad we have to delay closing. Seems like we had the option to go ahead and close and let them come back and do all this work later, but that would be such a mess and we'd have to miss more work. Since we don't have to be out of our current house yet, it just makes sense for it all to be taken care of first. Sounds like our closing will be sometime later next week. I have to travel for work the week after so it will probably be 2 weeks before we're able to move. Hopefully it's gets a little warmer!

Meanwhile I have to reschedule our moving truck, reschedule the delivery of our refrigerator and un-forward our mail, but here are a few progress pics:

Stone

Deck for the Porch

Driveway and Sidewalk!

Railings

Appliances are hiding

Paint and Surprises

Since last week's visit, the cabinets are all installed. The trim work is all up and has been painted. Lot's of drywall patching and more painting. All the ceramic tile in the bathrooms is done. The heat was on and so were the lights! Outside all the siding was on. They were starting the stone and the deck.

First - a door update. Last week I mentioned the master closet door wasn't hung to swing out into the bathroom as we requested and the basement door was swinging out into the dining room instead of into the stairwell. Our PM agreed the master closet door would be switched as he had previously agreed to that in the pre-construction meeting. As for the basement door, turns out that's another one of those "rolling changes". Based on feedback of current Calvert owners, the doorway to the basement was too small to get large pieces of furniture down there. I can understand that, we had a similar concern. In an effort to fix that, they made the door six inches wider. Great! Except now because of how much wider the door is, it can't swing nicely away into the stairwell. So we had a decision - we could have the door switched back to the old size and swing in, or keep as is. While I hate that the door swings out, we had already discussed taking the door out anyway as most of the basement is finished and I didn't want the furniture situation, especially because we don't have a walk-out. Bigger door it is and I can almost guarantee it will be coming off the hinges.

Now for the surprises...

I was able to get a close look at the tile in the master bathroom for the first time. Last time we were there the guys was in the process of installing it. A couple things we noticed were an odd sliver of tile in the corner row. I guess the guy messed up the placement of the tile. A couple of the accent tiles were a little crooked and the corner bull-nose pieces were split down the middle. The guy that was there with us at the time cause our PM was running late said they make the square corner bull-nose, but they are fired at a different time in a different location and usually don't match right. So now they splice together pieces. I can live with that. However, while I was closely inspecting the accent tile he goes "don't fall in love with this shower" and I was like, "why not?" and he said "we're ripping it all out." HUH? Apparently they didn't think the tile work was acceptable (mostly because of the corner sliver) and are making the flooring place re-do it. I have to say, I'm impressed they took that action all on their own and don't accept poor workmanship. So fingers crossed it all turns out much better than the first time around. I made special mention of making sure those accent pieces were straight!

We also were told that they had to move the window in our bathroom. Apparently it wasn't centered correctly so when they installed the vanities, it was obviously a couple inches off. I can't even imagine what a mess that was to move and thank goodness they hadn't installed the stone on that side yet. They did break the lower pane in the process, but they said a new one is ordered and won't be installed until the last minute, just in case it could get broken again. Again, glad they identified their mistakes and fixed them. I just hope there's no issues with the window frame or weatherproofing since it all had to be moved.

Stopped by the next day since I wanted to see the progress on the stone and the deck. Looks like they made of tons of progress so very excited to see where we're at this week since we're getting near the end!!

Perhaps I should consider starting to pack up my current house...

Stone for the side

Dining and Living Room

Railing in the Basement

Basement

Upstairs Bathroom

Master Bath

Master Tile

Trim added to Tray Ceiling