We're still settling in

I haven't posted any new pictures because I want the house to be more put together. Right now there is still stuff kind of strewn about and random boxes sitting around.

It's been a long week, but it's so wonderful to come home each night to this beautiful home. We can't wait to fill it with our family for Thanksgiving.

I do have this one picture to share. It struck me as funny. Brian is sitting in the middle of what would become one of our two beautiful new bookcases.

Lessons learned from building a house

I thought I'd share some of the things we've learned during the building process.

1) Write EVERYTHING down. I wish I'd kept a more detailed log of all the calls that were exhanged and the results of each one. I kept good notes, but I think this would have made things a little easier when it came time to solve some issues.

2) Ask questions. When it's time to pick out your options, ask lots of questions. Don't assume anything. Example: We were asked if we wanted to pre-wire our den for a ceiling fan. We said no. However, we weren't told that not adding the pre-wire meant we wouldn't get a light in that room. We fought it and got our light, but it would have been a lot easy if we'd asked earlier on.

3) Get a realtor. I know it sounds strange to have a realtor on home you're building, but it helps. Their fees are paid by the builder, so it doesn't cost you anything and it gives you an extra set of eyes for inspections and an extra voice when you need it.

4) Don't pack your financial records when you get ready to close. The day of closing, they asked for a bunch of stuff that thankfully was easily accessible, such as copied of the cancelled checks from the earnest money (the money you put down to reserve your lot), a current bank statement, etc.

5) Verify how they want the closing costs paid - i.e. cashier's check. This was dropped on us a few hours before closing. It would have made life easier to know a little earlier.

6) Visit your house - often. We caught several things by visiting every few weekends (such as a widow in a closet). I took lots of pictures which helped when we were trying to work with the builder on certain things, such as an outlet that they couldn't seem to get in the right place.

That's all I can think of, but if anyone is thinking of building and has questions, let me know!

We close today!

It's almost final. The closing is at 4 p.m. mountain time today, and tonight we'll be sleeping in our big, new, empty house. We did the final walk thru this morning, and they have done a lot of work since we walked it last Friday morning. We had noticed some scratches on the microwave door when we were there last week, so we asked to have the door replaced. Turns out we got a brand-new microwave and stove. Why the stove? Well someone walked into the house and took the microwave and stove last week within 20 minutes of us leaving. Oh well. That stuff happens.

One thing everyone outside of New Mexico may notice is the lack of grass. Out here in the west, we have pretty strict landscaping guidelines to limit water use. So we use what's called "xeriscaping" which means using drought-tolerant plants in combination with rocking and other landscape cover to minimize water use. I'm still really having a hard time adjusting to the fact that I won't have a big, lush St. Augustine grass yard to walk in, but at least it means we don't have to buy a lawnmower.

Here are a few pics of the house as it stands. I'll be posting more as we get our stuff in it.

Our last visit before our final walk-thru

The house is getting so close! This was our final visit before we do a walk-thru on Friday, November 2nd and close on Thursday, November 9th. It's so cool to see the things we picked all put together.

It was neat to park in our driveway and see the exterior so close. What a great sight to see when we drove up.


I think the kitchen is my favorite part.


Sorry so blurry.


This may just look like a light, but it took us almost two months of arguing to have it added since for some reason the den didn't include any overhead lighting.


I think this will be one of my favorite places.


Leaving our mark on the foundation of our home. I snuck out there the day they poured the slab and it's now a permanent part of our garage.

Now it looks even more like a house

These were taken on 9/29. Things are coming along. We have our counters, some mirrors in the bathrooms, the lighting, and they have done some flooring.






This is the color scheme for our house - but this is a different model. Don't you love the flaming truck in the driveway?

It's really starting to look like a house!

These were taken on 9/22 and show that things are really starting to move along.

Textured walls, baseboards and doors

We went by to see how things were progressing, and here are the results of the last two weeks. They have textured the walls (which you can't really tell from the pics - they look the same as last time), but they added the baseboards throughout about 90% of the house and all the doors have been hung. Seeing the doors up, it made us realize - we have a lot of doors.





I've put up several pictures of the view from the back of the house, but here's the view from the bedrooms upstairs that are at the front.