Behold the Brick

It looks like the brick front of our house is nearly complete. It's beginning to look like a real house now! The brick still needs to be acid washed to make the front even, but so far so good...

Here's a closer look at the detail on our brick. We're really happy with the Virginia Highlands brick with the Red Wire Cut accent.

Our roof is nearly finished too. We're still waiting on a few more bundles of shingles, but you can see the peaks of our roof with the brick here:

We also noticed that one of our outside faucets has also been put in place. Now we'll have a place to hook up the hose and water our soon to be lawn!

Inside our house, things are moving along too. Our HVAC system is being installed in our attic, and our furnace is also being installed.

Since our pre-drywall meeting, some of the electrical outlets and HDMI ports have also been scoped out. Even though we only currently have 1 TV, we'll have cable outlets in 6 places in our home. Brian can only dream of the day he has so many tv's!

We also noticed that some of the cable and electric wiring has started to be pulled through the house. Check it out below:

We'll leave you with 1 more photo of the front of our house for now:-)

It's a Brick....House!

Today we met with Matt, our project manager, to conduct the pre-drywall meeting. It was about 94 degrees and we were sweating, but I'm sure that was nothing compared to how the 5+ workers felt after laying bricks all day in the sun. See below for the first shots of our Virginia Highlands Brick with Red Wire Cut accent.

During the pre-drywall meeting, we walked through each room of our house with Matt and a guy named Dale from Trinity Wiring to point out where we want our electric outlets, recessed lights, cable, phone, and ethernet drops, and security system wiring. Here's a photo in one of the bedrooms upstairs. You can see Matt in the shadow on the right, and the workers through the window.

We're nearly within 60 days of closing, so fingers crossed, the construction will keep moving along. We thought there was a snafoo with our brick selection since we had no idea what Williamsburg brick was, but it turns out it's just being used to supplement the Red Wire Cut accent brick around the windows and the garage door.

Here's one more shot of the house with the scaffolding. We were told that the roof would be complete tomorrow, and by Saturday, our brick should be finished.

A Roof Over Our Heads

On our way home from Pittsburgh, we decided to stop off at the house to see how much progress had been made since last Thursday. It looks like our garage door has been installed and our roof is almost complete. Here's a closer look at our garage door. It's a 2-car carriage door in white with Sonoma arch windows.

Inside our house, there's also been progress. Our fireplace has been installed...

The tub in our master bathroom has been put in place (Brian can't wait to bathe in it!)...

The floor to our shower in the master bath has been installed...

...and the bathtub has also been put in place in our upstairs bathroom.

It looks like things will be moving along this week. The blueprints were taped up to the window of our family room.

The houses two and three lots down from ours on the left also seem to be near complete. Just look at those lush lawns...looks like we'll need a lawn mower soon!

We have Windows!

Just before the Memorial Day holiday break, we decided to drive out to check on the house. This is our third visit in a week! As you can see, all of the windows are now installed. Below is one of our two bay windows.


This is a photo of the window in what will be our study:


And this is a photo of the window that will be in our foyer:



Some more materials have been delivered to our lot, including our 65 gallon hot water heater.


The french doors from our kitchen to where our deck will be have also been installed.


You can see the scale of the doors from the backyard of our house.

Aldie at Night

Surprise! We decided to take a drive out to check progress on our house only 2 days since our last post. It was dusk and we could hear the crickets chirping...a far cry from city living in Old Town, Alexandria!

In the last few days it looks like some more of our windows have been installed and some more housing wrap added. We walked through our house to check on progress too. Here's a photo of our family room. You can see where our fireplace will be, along with 3 new windows that were installed.

Here's another view of the windows in the family room:

Brian decided to climb the stairs to check out the upstairs of our new home.

We'll leave you with a sneak peek of our dining room. You can see the sunset where our bay window will soon be.

From the Ground Up!

Unbelievably, in only 6 days since our last post, we can already see the framing of our house! When we turned onto our street and Brian said "there it is," I replied, "that's not our house," but it was!

Here's a closer look at the framing around our garage:

As you can see, the framing has been put in place, along with the trusses. Some windows have been delivered too.

Our doors have also been delivered onsite. We can see our double basement door at the top of the pile.

As you can see, there are a lot of building materials on our lot.

There's also some NV Homes wrap on our house. See the view from the back of our house below.

We also snapped a few photos (below) of the inside of our basement. You can see the progress since last week.

Another view of the inside of our basement:

We're excited about being soon-to-be homeowners!

More Than Just a Dirt Hole!

Quite a bit has happened on Lot 15 in the last week! Our driveway has been scoped out with gravel...

...and now we have a dirt slab where our garage will soon be.

Our foundation footings and walls are also complete.

Since we have a walk out basement, we decided to upgrade to full size windows and a double basement door. You can see the windows and door framed out in the photos of the foundation walls.

Here's another view:

Our plumbing groundworks were also installed this week and passed inspection. Although we're not finishing our basement right now, we had the builder rough in the plumbing for a bathroom in the basement and a wetbar.

Here's a view of the foundation walls from the side:

Another view of the basement foundation from the back of the lot:

Me peeking through what will soon be a full size window in our basement!


If you walk in our basement from the backyard, this is what you will see. The bathroom will be in the back left corner and the wet bar to the right ahead of you.

If you come in from the backyard and look to the right, you'll see this:

Here's Brian surveying the progress:

And in case you didn't know it, I like to drive bulldozers in my spare time....

Next week, we're told that our slab will be poured and framing might even begin! Until then, we'll leave you with a sneak peak at our backyard...just imagine green grass...and BBQs!