Weeks 10 and 11: Flooring Drama and Final Phases

So, we've been frustrated.

I've detailed all of our various flooring woes over the past few weeks. Wrong information, wrong orders, wrong installation, wrong pricing, wrong everything. Our flooring ended up being delayed by almost two weeks because the paperwork kept coming up wrong, which affected the sales price, which affected the appraisal, which affected the mortgage approval.

If there is one piece of advice you should take to heart from all bloggers and home buyers, it is to WRITE AND DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. As nice as your sales reps, project managers, and the rest of the employees are, they are NOT looking out for your best interests, they are looking out for the bottom line of the company that they actually work for.

The design center messed up. Plain and simple. And because they messed up, it ended up costing us an additional $800 that we wouldn't have had to pay otherwise. Now, I know when you're purchasing a house for hundreds of thousands of dollars, $800 seems like a pitiful, trivial amount to get worked up over. But consider that this $800:

• Held up our flooring for two weeks
• Messed up our appraisal, because all of a sudden, there was a $800 discrepancy that really couldn't be accounted for. 
• Messed up our loan documents. The bank would not approve the loan if it comes in under the appraisal price.
• It was too late to write up new loan documents, requiring us to bring the $800 to the closing table.
• And even if weren't, we would have been pissed having to bring even more cash. $800 is a closet system. It is a large chunk of a painting budget. It is new furniture. It is customized woodwork added to your home. $800 can go a LONG way post-closing. 

So after all of that, and not even knowing why we had to pay an extra $800, but being resigned to pay it because we didn't want to postpone closing, the flooring was finally done. In the end, everything was so messed up, that NVR just decided to credit us the $800. 

I went to visit the house on Thursday, and ... the flooring was wrong. Now, this particular error was actually done in our favor, but Oh. Em. Gee. We were supposed to have a nice engineered hardwood installed in the rec room, hall, and entry way, a wood that would closely match the (upgraded) oak on our stairs and the second level of the home. Instead, they just put down the upgraded oak all over.
 So that's where the $800 discrepancy came from, they were charging us for the wrong flooring. More design center shenanigans, right? After ALL of that drama, we ended up getting our first choice flooring that we wanted way back in May, but were discouraged from pursuing because of the pricing. Imagine that. And even better, we didn't have to pay for it, because it was a mistake on their end, not ours. 

Long story short, we now have beautiful oak on the first two levels and will still close on time, despite the headaches and missteps along the way. 

In other building news;

• Carpet is being installed on the third (bedrooms) level this weekend, so no pictures of that yet.
• Final drywall, painting, and trim phases are complete.
• Countertops, sinks, and faucets have all been installed. (Still covered though.)
• Appliances are all in.
• Interior door handles and cabinet knobs have all been installed.
• Electricity is running.

I'm adding pics from the past two weeks. In the kitchen, we have some before/after shots of the tile backsplash. They were hard at work on the third level and I didn't want to get in their way, so I was unable to get any pics of the finished bathrooms and bedrooms. I will post pics of those rooms next week, once the carpeting is in. 

Week 10. Stair rails are stained to match the flooring! 

Week 10, hardware added to cabinets, and countertops are installed! It was so hard to not peel off the blue covering, but they still need to be protected right now. :-(

Our laundry area. There was some discussion over on Owen's blog about the size of washers, dryers, and the accompanying pans. I don't know, this looks SO tiny. We really are going to have to measure accurately to make sure both pieces will fit.

Rec room flooring. I love the graining here. It looks a little different than the living room flooring, but it is the same. 

Living room flooring, different angle so the grain isn't as prominent. 

Backsplash installed! Classic white with gray grout. Love! 

Can I just say that I absolutely love that our fridge fits COMPLETELY into the space? None of it sticks out, it looks almost custom! The fridge in our last house stuck out quite a bit, and it drove me crazy when it came to cleaning, so I'm really happy that I won't have to look at the sides all of the time. And bonus, my baking sheets will actually fit into the fridge now! *claps hands excitedly*

Another shot of the entire kitchen. I cannot wait until it's unwrapped!