Almost ready to move in!

Well it's been a while since we last updated this status but we finally have a status worth reporting!  We had a steady stream of viewings over the Christmas period including several second viewings, which was encouraging.  We finally received, and accepted (after a quick bit of counter offering) an offer from a young Scandinavian couple.  The survey took place on Friday 23rd Jan and was accepted the following Sunday, which in my mind was really the locking in of the offer.  We exchange contracts on 16th Feb!

As for the new house, after effectively stopping the build for a while we had decided to complete and move whether or not the old one was sold.  Fate has finally dealt us a good hand and we expect the new house to be ready any day now, allowing us to do a "trickle" move.  The wood floor has been stained and the counter tops are finally in the kitchen.  This Saturday (31st) the carpets will be laid and after a quick touch up around the house we hope to have the final walk through and sign off middle of next week.  So, next weekend it's all hands on deck to start the moving.  We are hoping that with plenty of willing hands drawn on by copious amounts of beer and pizza (after the moving!) we can get the majority of our stuff moved the weekend of 7th Feb, but have the following week and weekend as a fall back.

So with that I present you some recent photos (I will post a final walk through set of the completed house hopefully next week) and a small video presentation of the project so far.  The video comes in high resolution (18MB) and low resolution (3MB).  If you can I encourage you to download the high resolution version.

The outside of the house is all but complete bar some last cosmetics (and gutters I noticed while it was raining the other day!)  We have pushed ahead with the patio, front path, drive edging and landscaping so as to get them all in before the winter sets in.  The latest crop of photos show the patio at the back, the "running" steps leading down to the fire pit in the back garden, the front path and the edging down the side of the driveway.  This is stamped concrete as opposed to brick paving as stamped concrete is considered more cost effective and durable.  Some key features of the landscaping include a main front berm, a 20' Red Maple in the middle of the front lawn (not looking towards leaf clearing next autumn!), four or five evergreens at the back providing privacy for the hot tub location and Ami's "pies de resistance" the curly trees each side of the front door.

With 971 Dressler still unsold building has all but stopped on the house.  With the fall rolling in we are pressing ahead with the external stuff such as landscaping and patio though.  As of 20th Oct the lot has been graded and the driveway poured, and it looks like a whole new house (not a building site any more ;-) Watch out also for  the patio and front path to be poured over the next few days!

The exterior of the house is almost complete save for a small bit of brickwork above the front porch, and the front porch itself.  The big change, and I mean huge, is that the drywall/plasterboard has gone up.  Finally the rooms look like they will when complete, although I must say it is rather strange not to be able to see through the walls any more!  It was also a watershed for my low voltage wiring as anything I have missed will have to wait!  We have also had delivered the wood for the floor (where we are having wood floors), the crown molding, the internal doors and the pillars for the porch.

Status: 11th August, 2003

I spend Friday, Sunday and Monday in the house doing all the low voltage wiring (TV, phone, computer etc.)  Actually, what I have done is to run flexible conduit to each room and then an empty wall box.  Two to a room, each drop going to the basement (1st and 2nd floors) mean that the dry-wallers can now come in to finish and when they are done I can decide what type of wire I want to which location depending on room layout etc.  If at any time I want to change the configuration I just run (a different set of) wires from the basement.  All the wiring will home back to a junction box in the basement where they will all be hooked together.  If you are interested in some of the items I am using for the job you can visit www.smarthome.com.

Monday 11th also saw the insulators come in and do all the internal insulation; walls, ceiling etc.  The drywall was delivered Wednesday so fingers crossed we will have some or all of the internal walls up by the weekend.

I do have photos of all of the above and will get them posted soon!