What's it been like?

Getting situated and used to our new house has been pretty painless and enjoyable.  Since our house is a "Energy Star Certified" home and a "Green" home Duke Power gives us a 5% discount on our bill every month.  And by the way, our monthly power bill through the last 3 cold winter months was only $55.00/month (average).  Which was a very nice surprise!  I look forward to seeing how we do in the summer when the A/C is running.
One thing we noticed while the house was being built that has been nice now that we're moved in and the weather is warming; is there is a great breeze that comes from the lake to our house.  These last few warm days we were able to open the windows on the deck and the top half of the front door and enjoy a pleasant breeze to keep the house cool.

The neighborhood has been great as well.  Ashlyn and Wyatt have friends next door that are pretty well aged matched that they enjoy playing with.  There is not a lot of traffic, so the kids can ride and play in the cul de sac without worrying about getting run over.  PCI Builders keeps the other construction sites clean, I haven't had any nails in my tires.  I'm looking forward to using the lake more and taking the kids fishing.

Now that we're in

We've been happily in our new home for a couple weeks now, still trying to work out new routines to get things back to normal.  I thought I would give an update on what we've been up to

Shades
We finally (today actually) had our blinds installed on the house.  It's amazing how much you miss coverings on your windows until you don't have any.  Steve Spicer came out and did a great job installing 2" faux wood blinds on all our windows, so we now have some privacy.


Home Entertainment:
We finally bought a TV and blu-ray player for our home entertainment system.  We bought a plasma that has the capability of viewing 3D videos along with normal 2D.


Home intranet:
I learned the hard way that Time Warner Cable blocks you from enabling  DHCP on their cable modems.  This is very frustating, but also about as useful as locking your car with the windows down.
I got around it by installing Apple's Airport Extreme wireless router and now I'm up and running.

Ikea:
We needed several furniture pieces to make the house comfortable.  We spent a day at Ikea in Charlotte and bought everything we needed.  After 2 days of assembly we're enjoying it.

GOLD!

THE RESULTS ARE IN, AND OUR HOUSE WON GOLD IN THE PARADE OF HOMES FOR 2010!

We have a lot of people to thank, first and foremost our builder Chris Thompson of PCI Builders in Kernersville, NC.  He not only took a floor plan we found on the internet and turned it into the beautiful house we're going to move into soon, but also gave lots of advice on architectural changes we could do to the house to improve it (must have worked!).

Mark and Suzette Shelton of Shelton Kitchens and Baths did an amazing job helping us design a kitchen within our budget and also installing the kitchen.  This is one of the biggest kitchens we've ever seen and has more storage than we've ever had.

Josh Robertson of Graybrooke construction did an excellent job designing and installing the low voltage wiring I wanted in the house.  He was responsible for running the internet cableing, whole house audio, and home theater system/wiring.  This was an excellent addition to the home that we're very excited about.

There were many other contractors that all did an excellent job.  Chris Thompson has a list of contractors he routinely uses and all of them were top notch. 
The whole process of building a house was an exciting experience, I'm glad we did it.  I'm looking forward now to moving in!!!!

Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged

The 2010 Triad Parade of Homes has finished the judging for the Parade of Homes.  As a part of the Parade, the next two weekends the public may tour the homes entered in the parade.  If you go to the Parade website you can get a map of the homes to view them, we are home #39.
We will not find out how well the house did until Tuesday, but we do know we won an award for "Best Feature" for the balcony off our master bedroom that overlooks the lake




















We have a few more certifications that reflect how our house was built.  The first is a HERS rating for our home.  A home built to standard is given a rating of 100, anything less than 100 is BETTER than average; or MORE energy efficient.  Our house recieved a HERS rating of 67, so our house is 33% more energy efficient than the average home.

Additionally, our house is a "Certified Green" home.  This certification takes variables into account starting from how much building materials the builder wasted to whether or not we used LED lights or CFL's.  Our house received a "Bronze" award.

Structured Wiring

The structured wiring is complete.  Structured wiring is something I really wanted in the house (and something Shelly rolled her eyes about).  Basically, all of the low voltage wiring in the house (coax, internet cable, telephone, etc) are all run to a central location in the house.  For internet this will allow me to have internet jacks throughout the house, for example there are 2 jacks behind the TV so if I download a movie from the internet it will download faster (not using wireless connections).  I can also stream music, videos, etc from my computer to view on the TV.
Here is what the wiring box looks like:

And I have to admit I had a lot of help.  I found a great contractor that I've known for several years who has a lot of experience with wiring systems like this.  Josh from Graybrooke construction also helped me wire the house for surround sound and whole house audio.  If your thinking of doing something like this you should definitely give Josh a call or visit his website.

Walking photo tour, house near completion

The house is in the final stages of completion, so I thought I would take the time to give you a photo walking tour of the house.  We'll start outside:

Here is the house from the street (notice we have grass already!!).  The yellow rectangles in the yard are seed blankets to placed to keep the grass from washing away.  There are gutter drains at the top of each yellow blanket.

Here is the front door, the door has a 60/40 split.  Shelly and I thought this was a unique feature that added a nice extra touch.  Let's step inside and have a look around:

After you walk inside, you come to the living room.  The fireplace is gas, you can see 2 dark circles in the ceiling these are the recessed speakers for the surround sound system. 

From the living room, the kitchen is too the right.  The decorative posts frame the kitchen nicely.  From this position there is a deck to the left.  We'll have a look at that next...

The decking is a composite material that should last longer and be less maintenance than real wood.  The deck is screened in with a ceiling fan that rotates at an angle (or precesses for all the mri folks).  You can see a little bit of the lake in the right side of the image.  We'll step back inside for a look at the kitchen and dining room

Standing in the kitchen, you can see the door that leads to the deck.  Then obviously you can see the empty space where a table will be one day.

Looking to your left you can see the living room.  The refridgerator cabinet eagerly awaits our fridge.  Next to the fridge we have our microwave built into the cabinets.  In the foreground you can see the handle for the dishwasher.

To the right you can see where the stove will go one day.

Near the kitchen is the guest bath, here's a peak inside:

We'll go up stairs next,  here is the stairwell:

The hall:

Pictures of the master bath:

That's most of the house, I'm tired of writing for now... Maybe I'll add a little more later.

The end is near!

Lots of finishing touches going on now.  Today (9/9/10) the hardwoods are getting their first coat of stain.  As you can see from the pictures below, the columns on the front of the house have been installed and the concrete for the driveway and sidewalk is poured.  The yard is also being graded to get ready to be seeded!
We will be painting the walls and staining the woodwork (columns, mantle, etc) over the next week or so.  It will be hard to stay out of the house after it is finished, but we can't move in until after the Forsyth County fall parade of homes (first 2 weeks of October).  We are tentatively planning on closing near Halloween.