The Lovely Ladies' Landon: Get'er Done

Another weekend and WOW was it busy. Our PM’s assistant told me they were going to start drywall on Saturday so I had a lot of things I wanted to do before they did that. My fiancé was also on a weekend trip with family, and we lowered the price on the house again which triggered a mass viewing Friday night. Here’s the breakdown:

Landon

Thursday night I installed a pipe from the basement to the attic in case if I ever needed to run any wire or cables to the attic. I ran it down along side the main air ducts. It took about 25 feet, and I made sure to cap both ends, shim the pipe to hold it in place, and then spray foam the pipe. While I was doing this, I noticed they didn’t spray foam the seam of some of their main air ducts. I also added more foam to them.

I was worried they would start drywall Saturday morning so I got a generator and Friday night I ran lights to the inside of the landon and started sound proofing my laundry room. Sadly the sound proofing carried is the standard 16” stuff and not the 22” to fit in the Ryan Homes non-loading bearing walls. This made it hard to install vertically. It wasn’t until I struggled with the walls for a night I figured horizontal is the way to go for the wrong size. I arrived at the Landon Saturday morning at 6am hoping to get a room done before the drywall guys showed up.

The drywall guys never showed up so I had the entire weekend to tweak things. I fully sound proofed the powder room and laundry room. I also sound proofed the wall between the master bath and master bedroom. This was a rather slow and itchy process. I also installed an extra outlet for the tv and an extra one in the garage. I also installed an extra hose bib on the side of the house where there is bigger yard. I only installed the rough in pipe through the wall and ran pipe to the area where they have the shut off values. I decided to wait before I connected it to the mains.

Sunday I insulated the garage the best I could. I ran out of insulation and didn’t have enough for the corners and one panel between the porch and garage. A neighbor stopped past and said he wished he did what I am doing because he says his garage pipes freeze each winter.

Spending all this time there working, I got really close to their work. I found things over looked that I hope they fix. The master bathroom has a Pex copper fitting that has no support and it swings in the wall. They installed the garage sink in the wrong spot which was discussed in the pre-drywall meeting and they confirmed it would be moved. I also showed it to the sales guy this weekend that the paperwork has it moved. The corner of the wall in the closet in the master bedroom was fixed horribly and I can still see light coming through the crack. I ended up adding spray foam on it. Today they start drywall and I hope my insulation remains.

Home Sale

A less than desirable buyer has approached me. This is the couple who messed with our personal stuff. So far everything about them has been negative. We tried to negotiate with them before and they turned away. Now they want to negotiate and hurry up and get the deal done. I really hope someone else comes along as I really dislike these people and their agent.

NVR

I came close to locking in a rate Friday, but decided to wait. From what I can tell with mortgage trends, the rates in October tend to be lower than September. For the past 8 years October has been lower than September. I spoke to a great loan officer at PNC who mentioned why the rates are bouncing up and down is because there is still a lot of demand for mortgages. He said the rates would go down, people would lock in the rate, and demand would push the rate back up. We seem to be still seeing all those who bought trying to lock in before the fed raised the rates. I figure I have three weeks to watch and maybe get lucky with a good rate.

Pictures

Garage Insulation I installed