We drove out to the house again today. We now have a roof! Woo Hoo! The HVAC is up in the attic, and the electric wires are throughout the home. The shelf for the water heater still hasn’t been moved to the right side of the garage. Ricky did find a few other things he will point out to the builder. Our inspector will be going out on the 21st and we have our pre-drywall inspection on the 24th. Not much more to update right now.
Ricky and I drove out to the house today. Boy, what a change from the last time we were there! All the interior walls are framed up. There were tubs in the two spare bathrooms, all the windows were in, and the roof was decked. It’s really starting to take shape. Of course, Ricky found a bunch of issues. One thing was the shelf for the water heater was on the opposite side of where the plumbing was. We did stop by the office and talk to Kristi and she said anything we found wrong would be corrected and that Zach hadn’t done his walk-through yet to tell them what was wrong. Stull Inspections will be going for another inspection on February 21. We’ll be there again on the 24th to do a walk-through with Zach and make sure everything looks good before they put the drywall up. Here are some new photos.
Things are moving quickly with the house, and it’s been really exciting to watch. Last week, they finished the framing, and we were honestly surprised at how fast it’s coming together. We haven’t had a chance to visit the site ourselves yet, but DW posted some pictures on our web page, and Lori and Aaron drove over on Sunday to take a few more. It’s amazing how quickly everything is going up!
We’re planning to head over tomorrow to check things out in person, and Ricky will be spraying the termite prevention solution while we’re there. Kristi and Zach called with an update yesterday, and they mentioned the interior walls are now up, and the windows are in place. Zach also said they’re decking the roof today and will be putting on shingles Monday. The HVAC system and utilities are expected to be finished next week as well.
It’s all coming together so fast, and we’re both excited and a little amazed at how much has happened already!
We hired Stull Inspections to do 3rd party inspections during the building process. They went out on January 23rd to do the first inspection before the slab is poured. They did find a few issues that needed to be taken care of before the pouring.
All tendons within three inches to supply or DWV piping should be relocated or the pipes should
be protected with a method approved by the engineer.
The vapor barrier has some defects that should be repaired. All rips, tears, holes and seams
should be repaired with an approved tape. Permeation of water vapor through concrete slabs can
cause failure of moisture-sensitive adhesives and may cause delamination, distortion or
discoloration of flooring products. Fill dirt is needed in multiple area before pouring the concrete
Hopefully, these things will get corrected today and the slab can be poured.
Lori went out to the neighborhood the other day and took some pictures for us. It looks like the foundation is ready to poured. I messaged Zach and he said it would’ve been Monday, but this arctic blast that is coming in will delay it until next week. Not the update we were looking for but glad they won’t be pouring in the freezing weather. He said he is planning on Friday or Monday of next week.
I emailed Kristi letting her know we would like to have 3rd party inspections during the build process. She’s been out of the office and finally responded on January 9th. She advised the inspections wouldn’t be a problem and that our foundation was scheduled to be poured on January 20th, weather permitting! This is so unreal, lol. We will try to make a trip over there one day this week. Ricky says they should have some framing and plumbing stuff in place before pouring the slab so we should finally be able to SEE some progress.
December 18, 2024
We drove to Magnolia today and the fog was horrendous. We drove to our new street and there were already 8 houses that had been started. We were there just two weeks ago and there was only 1 started at that time. These people move very fast.
We had our pre-construction meeting with the project manager, Zach Chilton, and Kristi Wells. Zach was a really nice, energetic guy. He listened to anything we brought up and answered all our questions. We decided against putting the LVP in the master bedroom for now. We added an outlet outside that will be controlled by a switch inside for Christmas lights, a flood light on the back corner of the house that will be able to point to the back yard and the side of the house where the generator will be, 3-drawer cabinets on both sides of the stove, blocking for hanging the tv in the living room, and blinds throughout the house. I decided we really need the blinds to be done by them because it will be a while before we hang curtains. We finished the meeting with paying 25% of all the options we put on the house. They can now start on building the house. This all seems so unreal, lol. I’m so excited to get the ball rolling!
We drove back to Spring this morning to bring the dogs to Lori’s and pick her up to head to the Design meeting in Escondido. We were planning on telling Kristi that we needed to consider a cheaper house or change some things on the Conway. Things are getting real and this is super scary. We had her take out the flooring update in the master bedroom so it will now have carpet. I was considering going to a lower inspiration package to lower the cost but we decided we wouldn’t be happy with the selections it came with. We both have our hearts set on that deep green tile in the master bathroom and I love that quartz island that comes with the Caves inspiration. The price only came down $5000 but we decided to go for it. We’ll probably need to put more on the down payment but we’re okay with that. I’m horrible at design and color matching so picking the brick, garage door, and paint colors was painful. Ricky likes dark brick and I like light brick. He told me to pick whatever I wanted. I went with a textured brick rather than a regular flat brick and a light stone with some splashes of rust in it. I let Ricky pick the color of the garage door and paint trim. The inside of the house will all be white and we’ll probably paint some of the walls before we move in. We also intended to ask Kristi to throw in blinds throughout the house and, of course, we forgot to ask about them. We are one step closer in this process, yay! Next will be a pre-construction meeting on December 18th. We’ll meet with the builder and confirm anything that we want added. We’re going to ask about moving the clothes rod in the master closet and adding a second rod and adding a table in the laundry room to have something to fold clothes on. We’ll possibly have them do the blocking and whatever else to have the TV mounted on the wall and wires not showing. This is a very stressful process, lol. I’m thankful that David Weekley has gone to the Inspiration packages and I didn’t have to go to a design center and pick out all the individual items for the interior. That would’ve been a nightmare to me.
The stone is Cave Rock Chopped and the brick is Postrock King.
Today, December 2, 2024, we got pre-qualified for our home loan. Things are getting real! Had to upload W2s, bank statements, property tax, home insurance proof, and many other things to the loan company website. This process is nerve racking.
Ricky and I did a thing yesterday. We’ve been house shopping for two years now, preparing for our move after my retirement. We finally made up our minds on the house and city we’ll be moving to. We decided on the David Weekley Conway model. We’ll be moving to the Escondido neighborhood in Magnolia, TX. We wanted a house with a 3-car garage due to not being able to have a building in the backyard. Turns out David Weekley sold all their 50 foot lots that were available by the time we were ready to sign a contract. Then we looked at Perry Homes and were interested in a house that had a porch across the entire back of the house. The price was pretty high for the amount of house we would get so we looked at the David Weekley’s on 60 foot lots. Turns out we could get way more house for the money compared to the Perry. The Conway model automatically comes with a 4-car garage in the 60 foot section and it also has a mother-in-law suite with a bathroom that the Perry didn’t have. We had been dealing directly with the sales women when we were looking in the beginning and I had seen some YouTube videos from realtors saying they could get good deals for people. I called Natasha Tessier who owns Dwell Realty in Montgomery, TX and set up a meeting with her. Turns out we don’t have to pay her anything as the builders have contracts to pay the realtors. Natasha is very nice and knowledgeable about the whole Houston area. We all met in Escondido and looked at Perry and DW homes. After we decided we were going to go with the Conway home we let her know so she could make a deal for us. Kristi Wells, the DW sales lady, told us they don’t make deals on new builds but they had a $15000 incentive. Natasha got her to increase that to $20000 and she said that’s all she could do. On our way home from there we decided we wanted the builder to install a whole home generator so we didn’t have to hire someone to do it later and also because it would be added to the price of the home. This all took place on Friday. We had a conference call on Sunday with Kristi and Natasha and signed the contract and then wired our earnest money. It feels so surreal. I’m beyond excited to start this adventure. Here are a few pictures of the outside, kitchen, master bathroom, and extra bathrooms! Our new address will be 1412 Florecer Lane, Magnolia, TX 77354.
