Some pics? No way! Ya RLY!

A quick pic post I know, but some people wanted a few to gaze at.
1.House being built next door.
2.Patio
3.Our new Adonidia palm
4.Naval Orange tree
5.Front shot with glorious new palm tree

Things going well

Just a quick word, we are doing well in our new house. I may start posting pics of upgrades that we do to the inside/outside. Not sure, this was supposed to just be a guide for anyone building a home in the area, and became more of a personal website. Owell, it may be used for both I guess.

Or maybe I should just start a seperate blog for that.......

.. 

Kitty in the window 

. 

Kitty lounging 

Moved in 

still a mess 

front room 

dining room 

living room 

Greeted me on the way out to take pictures of the outside. 

Moved In

We are moved in and unpacking still. I have to get my camera out and take some pics today. Everything is good. Closing took about an hour and a half, not so bad. Just happy it is all done now......

Closing

Closing is tomorrow at 11:00am. I'll take pics in the evening and post if my internet is up.

Expect to expect delays

Anyone out there buying a home in general, take dates given to you with a grain of salt because they rarely happen on schedule. Pad it by days, months, etc. Now to be fair the hurricane has delayed us a week or so, but a delay nonetheless. Ill post when we close in a few days Im sick of speculating. The Closing Coordinators (i bet she feels special with that title) office is in Port St Lucie which was hit pretty good by the hurricane, so we'll see how that affects us.

Final few days before closing

The mortgage company has everything they need. The house is complete. The CO was issued on Wednesday. Insurance company is waiting till Wilma is no longer a threat. Money is saved for closing. Just waiting on the closing company to call with a date to close. I am hoping for Monday or Tuesday. Depends on the hurricane.

hodgedog@gmail.com back up

My regular email is functioning again. I did some major begging to gmail support and it looks like it helped. Wish I knew what happened to help avoid it next time. I was bummin major on that one.......

I knew this would happen

We now have Tropical Storm Wilma threatening to spoil our move-in this week. Not only because we dont want to move during high winds, but because the insurance companies will not issue policies while there is an active named storm. Which there is right now, and models as of now are shifting OUR way. So its not like I could complain about it not affecting us, because it just might. So Im not really surprised, because Murphys Law always finds me in the most annoying of ways.

:(

I was prepared for delays, but jeez. There is one last inspection that has to be done for FHA loans that hasnt been done yet. Its gonna push it back a couple days. So no moving in this weekend. Ive rescheduled the POD for the 19th to be delivered lets hope i dont have to change it again. Time is flying by staying at Dads though so thats good....

........

Im not too surprised, but I havent heard that the city has issued the co yet. I called the super today and left a message just in case he forgot to call me , ha ha ya right now im reaching.

Final week?

We are hoping beyond hope that we will be in the house by weekend. Its a possiblity. But not in the bag. The walkthrough went fine, we had seen most everything anyways. Basically just signed off on it. They still have to do the remaining shutters, a chip in the bathtub, and not much else. Steve said CO maybe Tues 11th. Isa and I scrambled on Friday to get remaining paperwork for the mortgage company, now thats done. Kinda on autopilot now waiting for the mortgage company to call and tell us the closing date. I have the POD being delivered Fri, lets hope the CO is issued by then or I jumped the gun. Cable company is out on Monday the 17th too. Hope Im there from 8:30 to 11am!

I can see the light!

Steve just called me to schedule the walk-through. I am meeting him at 8:00am tomorrow morning. Hope Isa can go, but I doubt it. Not totally necessary since we've already been through it. The Health dept inspection and another inspection (i forget) is tomorrow also. Those depts will then fax their acceptances to the city, and the city will then issue a CO. Steve said maybe as soon as Tues the 11th. And he then spoke of closing "within a couple days" of the CO issue. That would put us in the house maybe by next weekend or a couple days afterward. Coming to a close pretty fast......

We are now POD people

this picture is screwed up on the enlarged version so this small one will have to do

Shutters

The front light on the house is such a screw up. It started when they didnt realize shutters were supposed to go on the house. This is shown clearly on the drawing we signed off on. So they said ok we'll put them on, but the front light is in the way. They had it placed too close to the window so they couldnt get the shutters on. Now they have moved it over to accomodate the shutters, but in the wrong place AGAIN. Supposed to be beside the door. No light will filter over to the front door so you can see it, ill have to put lights on the sidewalk or something that will light it up. Im not fighting with this one anymore, im done. Havent told Isa yet so maybe ill change my tune then ha ha. Isa and I are moving into Dads on Saturday. Ill still be able to update there.

Pics

pretty much finished except for the shutters and a few other minor things.

pics tonite

Ive been slacking on the pics, we have grass now and it looks great. Its a little dead but thatll all change! They turned on the water, and even turned the A/C on already! Steve called me this morning to tell me the tentative time periods left in the process. This coming week he having final touchup work done. Thursday or Friday we will do a walkthrough. At the same time this coming week they are trying to get the bureaucratic stuff out of the way, inspections, reviews, etc. That can take 3days or 10days. Depends on the workload at the city at the time. Once the city signs off on everything, they will issue the CO or Certificate of Occupancy. The mortgage company has 10days from the issue of the CO to close on the house. So lets hope the city works quickly to give us the CO.

Not long now......

I just wrote the longest post ever just now and "due to a planned maintenance service at Blogspot", I lost it all. here is a synopsis :

1. we are moving stuff out of apartment on the 30th, going to live with dad the 1st.
2. carpet is going in currently
3. cannot get washer/dryer built into loan due to im guessing laziness
4. we are getting credited $2400 for being overcharged on the septic system
5. no resolution on the shutters yet, working hard on that one because isa is not a happy camper
6. still ticked i lost 10mins worth of typing.

no pics cause it looks the same as a few days ago, maybe with some more dirt.

lets get this over with already........
oh i forgot and 7. im starting to get stressed

Mystery Animal

To clear up the confusion the animal in the pic below is a frog. Isa loves to catch them (big surprise to many I know), and she wanted a picture of our first wildlife. And on that subject we have had 5-6 scrubjays in the backyard, not living there I dont think, but looking for food.

FPL, Waste Management

Our new supervisor Steve called me a while ago. Dan, the other guy we had quit, so we have Steve now, real nice guy too. He was letting me know to call FPL now and setup a new account. Not a transfer but a new account. I called them and got a dumb person on the other end, big surprise huh. After repeating that I needed a new account not a transfer, she said power cannot be turned on until a Certificate of Occupany is issued. Now she didnt immediately understand how dumb that sounded until I pointed out that you cant live there because there is no power, and they have to inspect the electric work first, WHICH REQUIRES POWER. My frustration is that we are in very fast growing area, which means Isa and I are certainly not the only people building a home.. You would think this was a routine phonecall, but no, it was all a surprise to "Martina". FPL, if by some crazy unlikely coincidence you click on my website and read this, give "Martina" some more training. Anyways it turns out the builder (or the city) can call and get temporary power for these few weeks the contractors/inspectors are out there. I just needed to create a new account for them to call and reference.
I have to call WasteManagement and setup a new account there too. I dont even know how much trash pickup is but it cant be that much. Well I have all that off my chest now I can sleep better tonite.

Tower Hill Insurance

Well I finally was able to get an insurance quote from a company that was recommended to me. And for a decent price even! So that hurdle is out of the way.

Painted, the only thing missing are the shutters on the outside. 

Woops

Isa and I were peeking in the windows to the house on Friday when we noticed something wasnt right. The vinyl flooring in the kitchen/bathrooms they had just put down is wrong! Wrong pattern completely. We were a little worried that we had mistakenly written down the wrong model number flooring, but I went to the sales office today and confirmed we did our part, they just got the wrong thing installed. So Allan is calling Monday to have it fixed. I hate they have to tear up their work, but it just doesnt look right. Ill feel better when I hear from them "we're fixing it".

Homeowners/Hazard Insurance

A note for those that are curious about the whole homeowners insurance thing. I thought this was decided at closing and taken care of for you, but its not. You are responsible for calling and getting the best price for this insurance on your house. If you are in Florida, you know this subject opens up a whole can of worms as far as whos good and who drops the ball. Ive gone to JD Powers website and read a list of the top rated companies, and a couple people have told me that State Farm was good during the hurricanes in '04, and also a company called Tower Hill Insurance out of Gainesville. Shop around its your right and responsiblity.

Called the Mortgage Company

I just spoke a good while with the mortgage company. I was curious how our credit/financial situation looked to them compared to a year ago, and when we lock in the rate. I was told by Mike (who no longer works there) that it was 60 days before. Our new person, Katie, says no, 15 days before. Ok Ok. Anyway we should be able to get 5.8%. Not too shabby from my research. I got a better idea of monthly payment, and Im just on cloud nine right now.

Towards back 

Doors up 

Front yard graded (sp) 

Paint those walls! 

Weekly update

Just got a call to tell me the well will be dug as soon as possible. Also the drywall guys will be finishing up sometime next week. By then he said he can call in the carpet people. I asked about them leaving the windows open when they leave (i didnt like them open because it could get onto the newly installed drywall), and he said it was the only way to dry out the mud they put on the wall joints. But he said he closed them when he was out on Sunday. He didnt say when, but the garage door seems like it will come right after the walls are finished. I dont want it closed so Isa and I cant go inside, but on the other hand I dont want anyone else getting in there and messing with it. Punk kids.

House with stucco on it, not painted yet 

Back of house (stucco detail)