Pre-Drywall Meeting - Finished!

April 24 - We had our pre-drywall meeting today and it went really, really well.  We came prepared with our list of questions and ready to do our best Sherlock Holmes impression without the abs and the Iron Man duality.

All of the items that were already marked with orange paint had been fixed.  We were pleased to see that some of the items that had not been marked were fixed as well.  Perhaps, Drew noticed them or he reads our blog.  Cool beans either way.

A few things of note:

First, the house is covered with orange foam stuff.  While our son loved playing with it, we were questioning why it was hanging down and looking like radioactive hair mousse.  Well, the answer to that is that it is for fire protection and sealing between floors.  So, the little orange goo is there to protect you.  (Tag line trademarked by us).

Our son was so impressed with it.

Second, there will be insulation above the garage to keep the bedrooms and closet warm.  Toasty warm and without the smell of exhaust.

Third, all of the holes and gaps between the joints were filled and closed up.  There were no areas where drafts would be coming through.  No David Letterman teeth on this house!

All gaps were filled in.

Fourth, the leak around the fireplace was due to the horrendous storm that we had the night before.  Apparently, the flashing around the fireplace was not properly taped and the sideways rain ripped it off.  It has since been repaired.

Fifth, all outlets and lights are in proper position.  It is cool that they place one outlet upside down in each room to show which outlet works by the switch.  So, we get upside down o-faces in each room.

Sixth, all bathtubs were filled with water for the plumbing inspection.  There was one leak that was found in the basement and it has since been repaired.  Incidentally, there was also water under the furnace in the basement which was from the plumbing test as well.

The leaky pipe above has been repaired.

Must have been a heck of a leak!

Floor to ceiling!

This is the water that leaked from the pipe test (pipe is hidden behind post here).

Seventh, we were pleased to learn that the wall above our fireplace does not need more support for the television.  It is a load bearing wall that will support basically any sized television without issue.

Eighth, the tears in the attic area will all be closed.  There will be ventilation in the attic that will allow for airflow.

Ninth, the crushed duct work.  Well, crushed is a strong word.  Let's go for squished!  The duct had been bent because there are water pipes right above it and it needs to fit inside of the ceiling.  The duct is not completely crushed so the air flow should not be disrupted.

Tenth, the speaker boxes were installed as were the rough-ins for the sconce lighting.  Beauty, mate.  Now, Bryan can have the speaker system that he has always dreamed about.

This one definitely goes to 11.

We also took a look outside the house to note where the water bibs and outlets were located.  We also looked at the roof, the house wrap, and the flashing on the windows.  All is in working order.

We were very pleased with our walk-through and Drew, our project manager, was extremely patient with all of our questions and our son's questions too.  Who knew a four year old would have so many questions about how a home was built?  Drew even took us down to the model to see the progress inside and to take a look at what our interior doors will look like.  It was so much fun!

There were two things that we are very, very happy about!  We get a mailbox!  This may not seem like a major deal to anyone else, but we are kind of tired of the community mailbox.  While Bryan certainly needs the exercise (yes, he's a little tubby you can admit it), the community mailbox at our rental is riddled with neighborhood advertisements and missing cat flyers, as well as, graffiti.   Awesome.  So, we were quite happy to learn that we would be getting our very own mailbox again.

We can only dream that it would be as wicked awesome as this.

The second cool thing is that our house will be used in a demonstration for potential buyers on Saturday.  They are going to conduct a duct blasting test that will measure to see the airtight quality of the duct work for the heating and cooling system.  It is going to be looking at the airflow to make sure that it measures correctly.  This gave us a big boost because we know that they are going to make every effort to make sure that test goes well for the demonstration.  So, that means it will be good for us!

Oh, my gosh! That giant slinky has come to kill us!

One more note, we know it is getting too long at this point.  We remain very impressed with Drew and his attention to detail.  He noted areas that still needed repair and talked about all of the areas that were fixed.  He remains to be honest and always communicative.  We could not ask for a better project manager and that's the truth, Ruth.

SLJ knows it.