Check here frequently to read the latest status on our house...

Only two more days until closing, and the stress has hit an all-time high... =P

On Thursday, when Ben and I visited the house, it looked like basically nothing had been done that day, other than finishing up the sheetrock and texture in the leak-damaged area. Our wood floors had still not been touched, nor the 75 other items on our punch list. This infuriated us beyond belief, since we were very skeptical as to whether they would be ready for our new closing date on Tuesday (June 25th). Ben left a message at Standard Pacific's Houston corporate office, and talked to the supervisor of all the project managers on Friday. They assured us that everything was set for Tuesday still and the supervisor called our project manager directly to talk to him. However, they also said they would not replace the carpet in our study, because they could find no evidence of damage. It is hard to say how wet the carpet actually got since no one went to look at until a day and a half after the roof leaked, but we are requesting that something be submitted in writing with our closing papers stating that the carpet was checked out and that they will be liable if we have any problems with it in the future.

I also visited the house during the day on Friday and gave Tim, our project manager, our revised punchlist. I don't think he was too happy with that and I have serious doubts as to whether he will actually do most of the things on our list, but it is going to be ugly at closing on Tuesday if he doesn't. We also noticed on Saturday that they have already re-set the locks on the house, so the "builder's key" no longer works, which means we were unable to get in the house to take pictures or look around at all this weekend. Our sales lady said they generally do this after the cleaning crew has been through to keep other people from going into the house and messing things up; however, we think it is more likely that Tim just didn't want us in there to find any more items to add to our punch list. We pretty much have no confidence in Tim as a builder at this point, and notice that he likes to point fingers and blame his incompetence on other people. We will be glad when we are in the house and don't have to deal with this any more (at least until our first warranty claim)... =P

It had gotten so bad on Friday, that I was to the point of not even being excited any more about the house, and pretty much was ready to call the local news stations to tell them what a piece of sh!t company Standard Pacific is, but I have calmed down a little today. We also visited the Great Indoors and Sam's club today, so I am starting to feel a little excited again. We are looking forward to getting all of our new appliances and gadgets!! =)

Our final pre-closing inspection is tomorrow morning, and we are counting on Tim to be there to let us into the house since he changed the locks, so hopefully if we get him and the inspector together we can come to some conclusions on some of the issues. I think Tim is less likely to talk a lot of smack when the inspector is there. It should be interesting... Ben wants to bring a tape recorder.. =P

I will try to update the web page one last time tomorrow afternoon before we pack up our computers, but then there probably won't be any updates to the page for a while, as I don't know how long it will take us to get our internet access hooked up again...plus we'll be busy unpacking, and entertaining our guests!!! =)

It's been a busy week! Our walk-through was on June 11th, and seemed to go fairly well. There was a large crew of people at the house working on various parts of the house. All of the electrical problems seem to be fixed now and the noise that the plumbing was making seems to be gone. Many of the items that we discussed on Tuesday's walk-through have already been resolved. We re-scheduled the Inspector for Thursday, at Tim's request to assure that everything would be fixed before he came out.

Unfortunately, there were still several items on the inspector's list which had not been fixed. A couple of these have us very concerned because we are not sure how they are going to get it fixed before Tuesday, and we dread the thought of our closing slipping again and having to pay to extend the rate lock, re-schedule delivery of our furniture, re-schedule movers, etc... However, we also don't want to close if there are still issues that need to be resolved, because we suspect that it will take even longer to get things fixed after closing..

Standard Pacific seems to be doing a much better job the past couple of weeks of resolving our concerns and scheduling workers more efficiently, so we are hoping that they will continue in this manner, and get people to work this weekend to get the house done on time, but we'll see...

Our first walk-through has been scheduled for next Tuesday, June 11th, and our closing has been set for June 18th. June 18th is also the day that our rate lock expires, so hopefully everything will go smoothly. We also plan to have our inspector come back through on June 10th.

At my Dad's request, we have added a "Photo Tour" section at the top of the Photos page, which just has overall pictures of the house for anyone that wants to get a general idea of what our house looks like without having to sort through the hundreds of "Jerry Springer"(in Ben's words) type pictures and commentary on the rest of our site.

Our newly selected carpet was installed on Monday. It is much more cushy than the previous carpet. We also noticed that they had filled a lot of the holes in the grout in the kitchen, and re-did the light switch to the pantry, so that it doesn't overlap the tile any more. Today the house was cleaned again, the trim pieces were added at the bottom of the volutes on the stairs, and a number of the window sills were taken out. The affected window sills were not properly finished before, so they are being replaced.

Ben also received a call from someone at the corporate office today, and we are still trying to negotiate for them to pay our title insurance policy as compensation for all of the inconviences and delays we have encountered. We are still waiting to hear back from them on that.

Since Tuesday, things have been moving along nicely. Our "Dynasty Series" lighting has been installed in all the bathrooms. Crown moulding has been added in the foyer, many of the electrical problems have been resolved - our breakfast area light now works, the doorbell has been installed, a light was installed above the computer desk in the kitchen, and the lights that were not working in the master bedroom, now appear to be working.

Our Sales Representative, Linda, also asked the carpet Rep. to go look at our carpet to see why it didn't match the sample in the model. He agreed that the color looked different, and informed us we could go pick out a new carpet from the "Headliner" series, which was a two level upgrade! We picked out the new carpet on Thursday, and it is scheduled for installation on Monday. =)

We have still not been given a walk-through or closing date, but were told that the walk through would probably be "late next week". We went ahead and re-scheduled the delivery of our appliances and sofa for June 15th. We also ordered our shades this weekend, and are hoping they will come in the week that we move in.

There are still many things on our punchlist, but overall we have been generally please with the progress and change in the builder's attitude since we sent the letter to their Corporate office. However, we still have not gotten a response to our letter, so it should be interesting to see what they will say.

Our walk-through for today was post-poned until further notice. We had a long talk with our sales lady this weekend, and also wrote a lengthy letter to Standard Pacific's corporate office expressing our dissappointment with the continued problems and delays on our home. We also asked for compensation for the rate lock fee which we will have to pay to extend our rate lock.

On the positive side, since we complained, they seem to be working harder to make things right. Today they came in and touched up the sheetrock and paint on all the rounded corners in the house. They also appear to have fixed the two A/C units which were not working properly before. The concrete pad for the A/C units was extended to allow for the proper spacing of the units, and another concrete pad was poured at the back door of the garage.

Wallpaper has been installed in kitchen, guest bathroom and master bedroom. Shelves have been installed in guest bedroom closet and Amy's playroom closet upstairs. Wood flooring has been installed in entry and dining room. The window seat has been installed in the master bedroom. Glass for shower was installed in master bathroom. A/C units have been installed.

Our independent inspector came by to inspect our house today. He had quite a long list of things that need to be fixed. The builder changed our walk-through date from Wednesday to Friday to give them more time to finish up. We are somewhat skeptical that they will be done by the end of the month, but were assured by the sales lady today that we are still on track.... I guess we'll just have to see if their reaction changes when they get their copy of the inspection list tomorrow. On the more positive side, the inspector did have some positive comments as well, and at least didn't find anything that appeared to be a show-stopper...

There are many electrical problems in the house right now - most will probably be easy to resolve, but a few have us concerned. There are also some issues with some patchwork that was done for gaps in the brick. And of course, there are a million minor paint/trim type things that will be on our punchlist if they are not resolved by the time of our walkthrough on Friday.

We also spent a fair amount of time this week picking out cellular and Roman shades for the house. We have selected pretty much all of the shades except for in the master bedroom, since we are still not sure how we will decorate that room yet. We plan to place the order this week, and hope to get the shades installed during the time that we are taking off of work.

Things have moved slowly this week, but much has been done. The stainless steel sink has been installed in the kitchen. Smoke detectors have been installed throughought the house and the electricians have found the hidden light switch and recessed can with the help of pictures we left them. The house passed electrical and gas inspection yesterday as well.

Light fixtures have been installed in the kitchen and dining room and the stair handrail has been touched up and varnished. Toilets, towel bars, and toilet papers holders have been installed in bathrooms and the Price Pfister fixtures we bought have been installed in the master bathroom.

An address plate has also been installed outside the front door, and the brass trim pieces on the faucets in the bathrooms and on the front door threshold have been replaced with chrome/silver colored ones.

Much to our dismay, we were informed today that the wallpaper we had picked for the guest bathroom has been discontinued, and that we'd have to re-select. This was the one bathroom that we had paid extra to upgrade to that particular wallpaper, which was an asian red wallpaper with black and gold asian writing on it. The new wallpaper we selected is a similar style, but actually has pictures instead of the writing. Hopefully it will look good.

Since my last update to this page, all of the tile has been installed. Unfortunately, they installed the tile incorrectly (not on diagonal) and also installed the wrong pavers on the front of the house. Both the tile and pavers had to be ripped out and re-done. They also re-did the fireplace and it is now correct, with the exception of the hearth. We will probably let that slide, since it would probably require too much demolition at this point to be worth fixing. We also told them to leave the white ceiling fans (we had asked for brownstone), but now that the white ones are in, we kind of like the way they blend with the ceiling instead of standing out. Most of the holes in the sheetrock have been patched and the attic access door has been re-framed.

Today gutters were also installed on the back of the house, and Mexican Redbud trees were planted in front yard. The landscapers also watered the plants, which is good since they appear to be on the verge of death.

Last weekend we were informed that our project manager has resigned. We are hoping this will not further delay the finishing of our house, especially now that we have our interest rate locked..

Before our project manager left, many things were done incorrectly. The light fixtures in the bathroom were installed, but were not the right light fixtures. The Avanza had been ordered without the bullnose, and had to be returned. The ceiling fans were installed, but they are also wrong. Several more holes were punched in the sheetrock in the family room (we think they were looking for the gas line for the fireplace). And to top it all off, we found an electrical outlet, a light switch, and a light that were inadvertently covered during sheetrock. As if that wasn't enough to really annoy us, none of the other issues we had reported in previous weeks have been addressed. We are wondering why we ever bothered filling out a selection sheet, since the project manager obviously didn't take the time to read it... =P

However, when we went by the house today, they had installed the Avanza countertops in the kitchen (with the bullnose). =) We are assuming they will be starting on the floor soon, since they went through and cleaned out the house real well this week. They also cleaned all the paint off of the windows.

The ballustrades and molding on the stairs have been installed. The fireplace has also been installed, although it is missing the lion's head and upgraded hearth that we paid for. We spent some time on Friday and Saturday with our new Sales consultant, Linda, going over our selection sheet to be sure that everything is documeted properly to minimize future mix-ups. We were also informed on Thursday that the tile we had selected for the master bathroom is not currently in stock, so we had to select a new tile and are hoping it will look as good. You can see our new tile selection on our Design Selections page.

We also drug my parents all over town this weekend looking at appliances and other home decor type stuff. We purchased our refrigerator, washer and dryer, which was a sizeable chunk of change. Blinds will likely be the next major purchase, but we still need to figure out how much money we will need at closing, and whether we should pay any points, since the interest rates are going up again... =P

We found out today that our sales lady, Connie, is leaving Standard Pacific to go to David Weekley homes. We are a little bummed because this will be the 4th sales person we have had since our house was started, and every time there is a change, things seem to get lost/forgotten in the shuffle. At least we shouldn't have too much longer to go. Hopefully, this won't mess up our closing....

On a more positive note, the work on the house is proceeding at a steady pace. Some of the trim work has been done along the side of the stairs and many of the cabinets doors and drawers have received one coat of paint. Russell, our project manager told us on Saturday that we should be between 45-60 days of closing. It's too bad that the interest rates are already skyrocketing back up... =(

Wow! Things have been moving really fast this week!!! On Wednesday, March 13th, the cabinets, doors, molding, and various other wood trim was delivered to the house. The very next day (3/14) all the bathroom cabinetry was installed, as well as cabinetry in the family room media niche, and the utility room. Some of the kitchen cabinets were also installed. The following day (3/15), all the walls in the house were textured and readied for painting, and the form was layed out for our extended patio on the back of the family room.

Saturday the house was quiet, but then much to our surprise, workers were there all day today (Sunday - 3/17). All of the doors (with the exception of 2) were installed. Crown molding was installed in the dining room, study, and master bedroom. Shelves and rods were installed in all of the closets. Newel posts and handrail were installed on one side of the catwalk. An attic access door was installed. And the handrail for the stairs was clamped to the stairs to bend it into the right shape.

Overall, things are moving along nicely now, but we did find a few small things that concern us and plan to speak with the builder again on Monday about these.

Most of the sheetrock installation and "floating" the sheetrock has been completed. However, we noticed on Sunday that they still haven't framed out the french doors for the Study. We are still trying to get permission to plant our own trees after closing as well - It turns out it is a city requirement not just the HOA. Who would have guessed it would be such a hassle just to choose our own trees.. =P

On a more positive note, we got a good deal on a really pretty sofa/console table at Sussan's furniture Tent sale this weekend. There are several different places we could actually put the table, but will probably wait until we actually move into decide. Also, our garage doors have been installed, and the house is looking much more impressive with the sheetrock installed. We think texturing and painting will be the next step. Still no word on our closing date, but we are guessing it will be end of May.

The house passed windstorm inspection on Wednesday (2/27), and workers began sheetrocking on Saturday!!! =) The utility room has been completely sheetrocked, and several other rooms have been partially sheetrocked.

We spent some time Saturday looking at trees again, and are now leaning towards a "Forest Pansy Redbud" tree. We filled out a form for the Home Owner's Association requesting permission to waive the usual requirement for Standard Pacific to plant a tree so that we can pick our own.

We met with Russell and his new assistant, Timmy, on Wednesday (Feb. 13th) to go through our final pre-sheetrock punchlist. The walk-through went well, and things have been going a little more smoothly this week. We also met with Connie again, and got a few more things in writing about the computer desk in the kitchen. Ben also met the Kentmoore Cabinets representative at the house and was able to give him the details of the computer desk and the bookshelves upstairs. The guy that normally builds their cabinets, Randy, apparently was fired or quit or something, and failed to pass along some of the information about our house. Anyhow, Ben was able to straighten it all out and thought the Kentmoore Cabinets representative seemed really nice.

At the meeting on Wednesday, Russell said they were preparing for the windstorm inspector to come back and were expecting to start sheetrocking soon. The inspector told them to put OSB on all exterior walls of the house for extra windstorm protection. This is normally done on the corners of the house only. In our house (when John Reaves was our project manager) they failed to do this, and just added metal bracing later. We're not sure why the engineer wants it all the way around, but it certainly won't hurt anything, and should provide better insulation, soundproofing and provide extra strength to the walls.

After spending WAY too much time looking at trees, Standard Pacific informed us we could only choose from a list of 5 trees, none of which were the ones we wanted. They also said that they had to plant at least one tree because of the Home Owners Association's rules. We are in the process of trying to get a waiver from the H.O.A. saying that Standard Pacific doesn't have to plant any trees and that we will plant our own trees within 2 weeks of moving in.

On Saturday (Feb. 23) workers laid out the forms for the driveway and sidewalk. We are hoping they will pour these soon, so we don't have to walk through mud every time we go to the house.. =P

Brick is complete and insulation has been installed throughout the house. The windows have also been caulked. We met with our sales representative, Connie, this weekend to discuss a few remaining issues. The meeting went well, and she will be meeting with Russel on Monday to discuss the house status.

Meanwhile, we also spent a good portion of the weekend looking at trees. It turns out that the standard trees are pine, and we really don't like pine trees, so we searched the internet and local nurseries, and have decided on an Eastern Redbud tree. Now, we just have to see how much extra it will cost to get that type of tree. We also noticed at the Pines model this weekend that there is a new Bronze Tile standard lighting package, and are hoping we can get that one instead of the brass. We will still most likely replace all the fixtures over time anyway, but at least this will help, so that we don't have to look at brass fixtures until we can afford to buy our own... =P

The brick is almost complete, with the exception of one small area on the back of the family room. Also, a few of the items on our punchlist have been fixed, and the latest sticker from the city inspector only has 3 items remaining before sheetrock can begin. Of course, we have a few more items we want fixed as well, and we'll see this week how things go...

We also learned this week that they will no longer be building our floorplan in our neighbourhood, although Ben ran into a couple one day that wants to build another Enclave, and it looks like Standard Pacific will do it, as long as they get Elevation A (Ours is elevation B). So, there may be a total of 3 of our floorplan in the neighbourhood, but at least we will be the only one on our street. They have also raised the base price of our house in Magnolia Creek (a nearby neighbourhood) to $251,900 , and the spec Enclave in neighbourhood is now listed for $258K !!! I guess that means our house has already appreciated significantly, but I am also afraid of what that may mean for our taxes.. =P

They also installed our mailbox this week, and we even got our first mail!!! It was sort of a "Welcome" mail with coupons for blinds, security systems, and general info on moving.

The brick is going up swiftly and we are really pleased with the way it has come out. It actually looks a lot better now that it has been cleaned and dried out some. Ben and I also met up with our supervisor on Friday morning, and he seemed a lot more cooperative then. Apparently, he has been burdened with way too many properties to supervise, and is a bit on the stressed side himself. Anyhow, he told us to come up with a final pre-drywall "punchlist" and to leave it for him Monday morning. He says they will take care of all of our concerns.

We spent a good portion of Saturday coming up with our pre-drywall punch list. There are still a few things we are not sure about, and are hoping we can get in touch with a good civil or windstorm engineer that might be able to give us some advice. I think once we get these few issues resolved I will feel a lot better and will actually be excited about the house again.

This week has had me way to stressed out and tired.. =(

Since we didn't feel like the first inspector did an adequate job, we hired a 2nd inspector, Terry Black, from inspection concepts to inspect our house on Monday (1/21). He did a much more thorough job and found many things that need to be fixed. Of course, the builder disagreed with most of the inspector's findings, and this has been a source of much debate and frustration this week. I have been trying to do a little research to figure out who is telling me the truth, but I think the supervisor officially hates me, and I am starting to wonder why we chose Standard Pacific to be our builder.

In order to get an unbiased opinion on some of the issues, I met with the city inspector when he came out to inspect the house again for cover. He found another 14 items that need to be fixed before the drywall goes in. I showed him a few of the things that the other inspector had mentioned and he added some of these to the list, which really pissed off our supervisor, but oh well... he's not the one that has to live in and pay for the house for the next decade or more...

Meanwhile, bricking has commenced... the brick looks darker now that it is on the house, we can't wait to see what it will end up looking like! Actually, it is pretty exciting since we have never actually seen our house beyond the sheetrock stage. We had seen a similar floorplan in Dallas, but it was only in sheetrock stage, so once we get past sheetrock, it will be interesting to see what it will look like!!!

Hopefully things will go smoother after we give the builder our final pre-drywall punch list. This week has been way too stressful and aggravating.... =P

We found out last week that John Reaves is no longer our project manager - we are back to our original project manager now, Russell. We met with Russell today to go over all the electrical wiring in the house and to discuss previous issues. It turns out that the vent in the closet can't be moved, so he agreed to install the 3 extra cable drops we wanted for free as compensation. We also added extra shelves and a light in guest bedroom closet. Overall the meeting went well, and we are hoping to have a better supervised build process with Russell than we did with John.

We also ordered a sofa and "chair-and-1/2" this weekend from Dillard's. We also have a breakfast table and chairs selected, and plan to buy them when we get closer to moving. We have pictures of these on our design selections page.

Over the past few days lots of work has been done - the roofing was finished (with the exception of the sealing of the chimney stack), AC duct work has begun, and 2 hot water heaters have been installed. Unfortunately, we have noticed a few problems as well. The one that concerns us (or at least me) the most so far is that they installed one of the AC air return ducts through the middle of the closet in my playroom upstairs.. =( I am not sure what caused them to do this, but it will have to be fixed as it is taking up a significant amount of the closet space in the room. We also noticed that the firebox for the fireplace was installed too close to the floor, which would not allow for the 8" hearth we paid to upgrade. However, a few workers came by the house today around 5pm while we were there, and appeared to be working on fixing that problem.

The house has also failed brick-in inspection twice since last Friday. The first failure was due to the fact that the gas lines were not installed yet (apparently the inspection was scheduled to early). The second failure was due to the fact that the plumbers came in, but managed to burn holes in much of the exterior wall foam board when they were saudering pipes.

The Tech Shielding has been installed on the roof. We were a little concerned because we got a little rain on the first night that it was installed. We are hoping that they will get the tar paper and shingles on before the next significant rain.

They have also begun on the plumbing for the house. All the water and gas lines appear to be in place. Two hot water heaters were also installed in the attic above Ben's playroom upstairs. 3 hose bibs were added: One on the exterior side wall of the garage, one on the back of the garage, and one on the exterior wall of the master bathroom.

We also went by to visit the Standard Pacific sales lady (Connie) and wrote another check for some upgrades. We are getting the tile in the master bathroom, kitchen, family room, guest bathroom and utility room laid on the diagonal, and are also getting leaded glass inserts for the cabinets above the computer desk in the kitchen.

Post tension cables, wire mesh, and slab form have been setup. Slab is scheduled to be poured on Tuesday (10/2/01).

We also bought the Price Pfister brushed nickel Roman Tub faucet that we wanted for the master bath and wrote another big check for our final (hopefully) upgrades (back door on garage, media niche, bullnose countertops, and upgraded dishwasher).