All the remaining action items from our orientation last week — namely, the landscaping — were completed this week. Check out the photo gallery for a fairly thorough tour.

Also of note, our house scored a “5 Star Plus”, the highest possible energy efficiency rating.

We’re thrilled with how everything turned out. Especially the exterior, which is always hard to visualize from line elevation drawings…it really looks sharp. Amanda’s looking forward to accenting the outside with some colorful flowers, and I have a list of projects so long that I’m quite certain I won’t ever be bored.

We almost don’t believe it, but the house is really, actually, totally done! And ahead of the original schedule to boot. After an aborted attempt with a builder that failed (and still has our money), we were lucky enough to get connected with a better builder who has been the complete opposite of what we experienced the first time around. We can’t say enough about the professionalism, honesty, and work ethic of the Bedrock Builders team. Everything is always done right, built right, with great care and great attention to detail, they communicate clearly, and we’ve never dealt with a more pleasant group of people. Several have told me how much they enjoy their job, and it shows.

I know they’re reading this blog, so to Steve, Sean, Dan, Barb, Kevin, and the whole team…thank you!! We enjoyed this whole experience and had a lot of fun, just as Steve promised at the very beginning. We love our house, and are looking forward to meeting all our neighbors.

This will be the last weekly post on this site about our house. While I might document a DIY project or two (a tile backsplash and built-in shelves are in my future), this blog has fulfilled its purpose…and it’s been quite a ride! What started as simply a way to document the typical home construction process for our friends and family turned into an online focal point for customers and contractors being victimized by Hansen and Horn, and the attention generated here was what led Bedrock Builders to connect with us. I know some of you have been following along for the better part of a year, and if you’re one of the other victims of H&H I hope you’ve been able to find a way to move forward. Best of luck to everyone, and thank you all for your interest and support!

-Matt

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Not a lot of changes this week, but we had our orientation and walk-through with Sean. Our Realtor and I met with him on Wednesday afternoon to do a full walk of the house, provide me with as much information as possible about maintaining and operating some of the things in our home, and address any remaining concerns. When I walked in, Sean had literally all the lights on (I could hear my mother in my head…”Every light in the house is on!” and walking around flipping off switches) and the fireplace going.

We made a list of outstanding issues that will be taken care of in the next week — mostly little things, paint cleanup, getting a couple additional shelves in the master closet, things like that. Also the siding, which is still short of finishing on the front of the garage. Sean told me the siding guys forgot to place the order the last time he reminded them about it, so somebody might be driving up to where they make the stuff in Battle Creek, MI to pick up about 4 pieces of siding! Haha…oops. Then at last the green-painted shutters will get put around that small window on the garage.

There’s a picture of the powder bath mirror in this week’s gallery because we were expecting to have just a oval, plain plate-style mirror in there, but this nice looking framed one showed up instead. “You like that? Picked it out myself at Home Depot,” Sean told me. Yes, we like it! Exactly our style. I also have to appreciate that he totally read my mind and replaced the white power outlets on the side of the kitchen island with black ones, which blend in so much better with the dark cabinetry. I didn’t even get around to asking.

On the exterior, the gutters were installed and the final grade was applied to the yard. There’s hydroseed in the back, but sod and landscaping aren’t in the front of the house yet…still a bit early for sod I think.

Closing is set for Friday…wish us luck!

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We spotted lots of other smaller changes too…the glass door for our shower, the faucet in the kitchen, all our cabinet hardware we picked out the other weekend from Lowes (and Bedrock graciously installed for us), a handrail for the stairs in the garage. Some of them were bigger than others: seeing that stone on the front columns, along with the front door painted our “Toy Tank Green” accent color (which the shutters will also be painted) advance the curb appeal quite a bit. Immediately inside, the iron spindles on the staircase really got us excited — not to mention all the hardwood flooring. Amanda probably stood there in the entryway for close to five minutes taking it in. The house got a quick clean at the end of this week, nowhere near its final state, but it gives us a good idea of the finished product.

These last details all come together in the final couple weeks to really make it feel like somewhere you’d live. Standing in the foyer, Amanda said (for the first time in the 14 weeks we’ve been visting the site during construction), “This is our home!”

Still remaining to be wrapped up in the next week: exterior siding and paint, basement landing area carpet, paint touch-up in numerous places, a couple more lights, and lots of little punch-out items. Depending on the weather we might get some yard/landscaping too, but there’s a possibility that might have to wait until after closing (happening on April 9th).

We’re nearly there! One more week of work and touch-up, then we’re ready for closing.

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The chandeliers in the main foyer, dining room, and breakfast area are cool, and we love the pendants over the kitchen island too. The closets got a little attention in the last couple days as well, with most of the wire shelving hung.

What we didn’t get to see this weekend was hardwood flooring — it was supposed to start on Friday, but Sean called me yesterday and let me know that the flooring supplier told him our floors got “lost” in transit. How one loses almost 12o0 square feet of hardwood flooring is a mystery to both us and Sean, but another batch is on the way and the overall schedule shouldn’t be affected.

So flooring of both the wood and carpet variety should be going in this week, and I believe the public walk and driveway will be poured as well. With our official walk-through/orientation on March 31, there’s only a week and a half of construction left!

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I also stopped by today because Sean called me and basically asked, “Are you guys sure you want the board-and-batt siding (the vertical strip areas near the top of the roofline on either side of the house) to be painted the siding color?” Apparently these would normally be painted the trim color (“Pegasus white” in our case), but during the selection process we (especially Amanda) thought they should be painted the soft green to match the rest of the siding. Upon seeing all the siding actually installed on the house, Sean thought we might want to have a second look at that and make sure. I’m glad he called me; now that we see how the large swaths of green on the huge side walls of the house look, the top area will indeed be better it it’s painted the trim color. Gotta love Sean, always looking out for us…even protecting us from ourselves.

The green of the siding is a little pale in these direct-sunlight pictures compared to how it looks in person, and we think it successfully pulls off the feat of making a large-ish house look light and airy rather than big and dominating. We’re quite happy with how the siding/brick/trim colors come together.

Starting Friday…hardwood floors!

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The columns, now fully painted, look fantastic, as does the beautiful dark stain on the wood rails. The color on the walls doesn’t quite look the same as the paint chip (it never does), but we like it.

The biggest news this week was when word unofficially came last night that our closing date will be…April 9! Less than one month away! The house itself will be complete and ready for inspection on or around April 1. Originally, Bedrock had indicated that late April was when the house was likely to be done. As things progressed, it moved to mid April; earlier this week they were talking about April 15, and now it’s going to be set for April 9. That’s amazingly fast progress, considering we broke ground in mid-December and then had 2 weeks of dead time because of weather (so even though this is week 12, there’s really only been 10 weeks of construction).

Closer and closer…the end is in sight! We’d better start buying some furniture…

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We love the craftsman-style trim we chose; the simple clean lines really appeal to us. The height of the baseboard trim is great too, I think it looks nicer than a lot of the more standard shorter trim we saw on other houses we looked at.

The kitchen is the single biggest transformation this week, with all that cabinetry in place. It really defines the space of that whole great room area.

One of my favorite details are the four faux columns that flank the dining room and separate the kitchen and great room. We didn’t want any actual freestanding columns constricting walkways between rooms, but we sort of like the look and wanted something to set off the entrances. So I met with Sean, our super, this week to work out the details of what the trim on those areas might look like and I’m really pleased with the results. Check out the photo gallery for a picture.

Coming up this week, the last details of trim work should be finished up, and then the exterior brick (and maybe siding) will get started while painters start doing their thing inside. We’re very excited…everything looks great!

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Numerous local news outlets have picked it up; one of the best reports so far is from WISH-TV Channel 8, which also broke the story about the problems back in November. With liabilities more than double their assets, it’s unlikely we’ll get all (if any) of our money back. There’s also word that the former owners may be facing criminal charges for messing with people’s escrow money.

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Before that, though, is trim carpentry — which starts this coming week!

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On Wednesday, the drywall got started. Going through the house this weekend, with all the drywall hung, the place looks quite different! Not being able to see through the studs into the next room can really change your impression of a space. Fortunately, everything still feels great and sized appropriately. Our friends Megan and Nolan came up to check everything out with us this weekend.

They had some propane blast heaters going to help dry all the drywall joint compound, I’m guessing, and the house was insanely hot inside (a nice change from our previous visits, I suppose, when it was absolutely freezing). There’s still some finishing work to do on the drywall this week…and then I’m not actually sure what’s next! I need to check with Sean, but I’d guess they’ll start hanging doors and stuff soon, maybe put in lights.

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