Welcome to the website about Clint & Traci's new house.  So far I haven't done to well updating the site in a timely manner. With the aid of a service called Blogger that should now change.

Friday, July 13, 2001

Well, a couple of days ago, Friday to be exact, we got our second final grade put on the land. They cut our cable line so my uncle and I ran out, dug up thier yard wart and ran a new line to the house. Time Warner came out Monday and laid thier own cable but didn't burry it yet. Also Monday we got our driveway light put in, which required a huge trench to be dug the lenght of the yard. This required yesterday's Final Grade round 3. They didn't cut the cable this time. Last night abotu 10 pallets of SOD were dropped off on our property.
This morning they came and Hydroseeded the back yard. Very cool mixture of seeds, fertilzer and green paper mache! Went out to run errands and when I returned they were laying the SOD!! Whoohoo! Greenery! They brought a HUGE truck full of SOD as well and have used up all by 4 pallets of that which they need for another house they still have to finnish today.
So, finally, at long last, we have grass and in the back yard, green dirt!
Of course, now begins the massive watering to keep it alive for the next 3 weeks. I went out today and bought $250 worth of hoses (gotta reach 200 feet) and sprinklers. Can't wait to see the next water bill. Del-Co water is going to love me.

Friday, June 29, 2001

Since my last update a lot has happened. Nothing tragic just the endless plight to get the house actually finished. Apparently there is an ongoing relationship with the builder long after you close. We were somewhat late in turning in our 30 day list, this is a list that we were supposed to turn in 30 days after we moved in that had things that needed fixed or repaired on it. Well, we got around to turning that in at the end of April. Surprisingly we were told that we were rather timely compared to most people. Our list had indoor items and outdoor items. Most of the indoor items were taken care of very quickly, most in one day. The outdoor items are taking a bit longer. The 30 days of rain during May didnt help much. The cracked sections of our driveway have been replaced and the outside painting has been done, but it doesnt match up right since there was something wrong with the paint. And the trim around the garage is in a color that nobody knows anything about. Monday the painter comes back to get all the paint to match on the outside. We still dont have a yard and nature has taken over the land that was graded just before winter started, so at least its green. The goal posts are still sticking out the top of our house. A wondering tree service came by yesterday and I paid them to cut down about 10 trees that were dead and climb up and cut down all the dead branches in the live trees. That took all day and was fun to watch. There is a major problem with our tile floors on the 1st floor however. The grout is cracking up and the tiles are loose and popping up. It seems that the grout is bad and is not sticking to the tiles or the floor. Its been a month now and weve had many visits by tile specialists and the Daltile product rep came out on the last visit. The current theory is something bad in the Tinset resulting in no bonding. The solution? All 1000 square feet plus of tile will have to be removed and replaced. Thats going to be quite messy and expensive for someone. One of the tile guys said it would cost at least $10,000 if not more. Also on Monday the bulldozer is supposed to show up to scrape off the layer of weeds nature has grown and to put a final grade on the land that is getting grass. That means we should have a yard sometime next week, barring of course, more rain and the 4th of July.

Until I figure out how to archive all of this or just move it off to it's own section all the prior updates to this page are now one big update starting today.

November 18th
I found some time to do a quick update just a few days from our walkthrough. All the carpet is in and the tile is all down. Painting has been going on for 3 days and all the last little finishing touches have been getting done, shower doors, mirrors, holes being filled in etc.

We spent a couple of evenings finishing our wall plates, terminating speaker wire and installing our Bose speaker mounts in the great room. There is still a ton of work to be done and I'll be quite surprised if they manage to get everything addressed by the 30th.

November 11, 2000
Okay, it's been a REALLY long time since I updated the site. I took a lot of pictures along the way and extensive video, but with working way too much, updating the site just fell through the cracks. At long last, here it is, an update!

We spent 2 weeks pulling around 20,000 feet of wire in June. We pulled 67 drops with an average of 1 CAT5 for data, 1 CAT5 for phone and 1 coax cable. The computer room of course got 4 CAT5 for data. The first week was spent drilling holes and wrapped up with 2 12 hour days. Just this past weekend we terminated all the wires other than the mess in the unfinished section of the basement. All the faceplates are in now too.

We had a snag when the trim painters got the wrong instructions and stained our built in bookshelves and banisters instead of leaving them natural. They ended up pulling out the bookshelves and rebuilding them and sanding down the banisters and stairs to natural and clear coating them.

The wine captain that goes in the wet bar by the great room almost fits in it's hole. The screws that hold the door on stick out about 1/16th of an inch to high. Not sure how that will be resolved, but the builder hasn't contacted us about it yet. There was a small leak in the basement and they had to cut a hole in the finished ceiling to fix it.

Carpeting began today and is scheduled through tomorrow. Wednesday through Friday is final painting. Next Monday and Tuesday is cleaning and our walkthrough is on Wednesday the 22nd. As it stands now we are scheduled for closing on the 30th and moving on December 8th. Our driveway has cracked in two places, one of the quite bad. We still don't have sod in yet and it keeps raining so they can't do the final grade. We locked our interest rate today after giving up waiting for any sort of movement based on the election.

We have a list of over 25 issues we hope are addressed in the next week, we'll see how it goes. So far all our concerns have been addressed satisfactorily.

Check out the new sections under Construction; wiring, drywall, trim finish, tile and granite, appliances and outside. There are lots of new pictures.

Next update will probably be right at or after close.

May 13, 2000
We have cut outs for plumbing now and drawings on the floor of where cabinets, vanities and kitchen stuff goes. Stairs into the baement are now in place as well. Nice plug like things where the toilets will be placed. Traci noticed that we don't have frosted glass in the windows over the tub, so anyone can see right in. We think we asked for frosted glass....back to the paper stack to see if it ever got written down anywhere. We're still missing a cutout in the kitchen where the TV in there goes and have a door frame we don't want. Have to meet with the site super to work those out. Looks like alot of plumbing work will get done this coming week.

May 11, 2000
It's been awhile since the last update as Traci and I have been busy working around the clock to pay for this thing. We've all but completed interior selections having to change things as we discovered they weren't the way we wanted. The exterior stone turned out to look rather hideous so we changed that. We've removed the basement kitchen in favor of something more bar like. If anyone has some pictures of good basement bar design please send them me. The only thing left as far as interior selections is concerned is the wood flooring in the dining room.

Since the last update the hole was dug, the basement walls put in and the house is now framed under roof with windows in. They poured the basement floor on the 9th and have started framing the basement as well. There are 71 new pictures showing the house through various stages. I missed getting shots of the early framing stages. The land right around the house is a total mess and it's hard to imagine it looking nice someday. We meet with the landscaper on Monday at 5pm to discuss how we'd like it to look someday.

March 2, 2000
It has begun. We officially sold the land to Yocca builders. The land has been cleared and digging is to being soon. We have a nice big chunk of money back from the land, which we are now turning over to Yocca as our downpayment to them for construction. Picutres can be found under Construction.

January 30, 2000
Just before xmas we did our exterior selections. We picked the color of our stone, stucco, trim, shingles and other things I never thought about. On Saturday we did our first round of interior selctions. That lasted about 4 hours and we had to choose a ton of things. As expected we've deviated from the colors in the model. We've stayed with a light maple for all of the cabinets throughout the house but deviated big tme on the floor tiles, counter top and paint. The counter top we choose is very different from the black frekled Corion we initially liked in the model. We have chosen to go with granite counter tops, of course! The color is Verde Uba Tuba. This percipitated a series of changes in the floor tiles, paint, grout etc. The cermic tile we choose is called Spicy Gumbo and will be arranged in a random pannel throught the lower level, with a more square layout on the verticle surfaces on the kitchen island and fireplace. I'll be putting up some scanned in samples of the things we choose on our interior selections.

While doing selections we also signed the contract for the sale of our land. That should close in 2 weeks.

December 5, 1999
At this time we own the land, a 1 acre wooded lot located in the Woods of Seldom Seen, on Filiz Rd. We have signed final contracts with our chosen builder Jeffery Yocca. Last Tuesday we reviewed the fianl architectural drawings and are now waiting the next steps. Three things must happen before we break ground.
1.) Yocca must buy the land from us.
2.) We must goto 'selections' where we pick all the interior stuff.
3.) Endless permits must be filed.

In all these three things should take about 5-6 weeks which puts ground breaking in January. At the architectural review we received a copy of the house plans. I have made these available here. The more legible versions are kind of large, but still under 1 meg each. I have video of what the interior of the house is based on and will be putting that up via streaming Real Video as soon as I get around to it.