Pre-Construction Meeting

Our pre-construction meeting got delayed from last Monday until this Monday because of our recent changes.  Overall the meeting was great, our PM was very helpful and nice.  He also sounded like he had a lot of experience and really wanted to deliver a quality house to us.  First we reviewed the plot plan and the placement of all utilities.  We also went over lot grading and house placement on the lot.

Second we went over our selections and the floor plan of the interior of our house.  He called us smart and special for thinking of a way to do a mudroom in the garage by adding 4 extra feet.  He also told us that the garage door can be shifted along with the driveway to allow the 4 extra feet on one side of the garage.  This was good because we didn't want the garage door opening in front of the mudroom, they first told us it might have to be centered (that was a relief!).  He's a picture of the floor plan with the 4ft extension of the garage:

Third we went over how to behave on the construction site, possible weather delays, stating that things will go wrong because its a construction site but he will make sure they are corrected,  and warranties.  We also had time to ask questions about anything we wanted.  Here's a list of some of our question/things for us to double check on (he went over almost everything before we had to ask though):

Double check: 

Flooring/stain color

Cabinets/counter tops

House orientation/color/options/garage/lawn grading

Lighting/ switch locations (switches that control plug locations)/ fixtures/ rough-ins/ type 

Number of cable, phone, Internet/ locations of these

Bathtubs/showers – type/size/shower door/roman shower

Fireplace location/surround/switch

Appliances – type

Outside- siding/shutters/exterior trim

Island- outlet/ location/ orientation/ light rough-in of one recessed lighting over island

Location of garage door

Questions:

Height of back door? - 3.5 feet

Counter tops – Rounded edges?/ Can we choose our slab? -Will have rounded edges and can choose our slab and should do so when they start digging:-)

Windows – screens? -yes

Heating vent covers - locations (not under sinks on floor)/ type -nope they will not be

Placement of attic access -upstairs hallway

Can we get hardwoods under island and cabinets? -yes, but the hardwoods might get ruined during other construction because they don't do it in that order to help protect the hardwoods.  We settled on hardwoods under island and stove (which I thought they already did along with the refrigerator).  

What is the accuracy of the closing date? (+/- a week?) -30 days out closing date is pretty good, but give a bit of days just in case

Will there be water going to the refrigerator? -yes
Height of cabinet above fridge? -Standard height about 70" with hardwoods space for refrigerator

Some things that we found out that we weren't happy with:

1)  Our garden view lot was not garden view for our house because the house is so small in depth compared to other floor plans.  This means we have a well around our egress window in the basement.  Until this point we were under the impression that there would be no well and we could see out from the basement.  This is annoying, but not a deal breaker.  It's a good thing we didn't get charged extra for the lot because it was garden view or we'd be pretty upset.  On a positive note, this means the height of the back door will be lower than we thought and we could possibly do a deck or a patio.

2)  There is a sewer grate in the middle of our driveway on the end of it.  He can't really shift our house/driveway over because of our massive house width.  He was going to look into it and see if he can move it slightly over to miss it as much as possible and get back to us.  This is a little annoying, but not as annoying as the first thing.

All in all I'd say it went pretty well.  He said we will be starting within the next couple of weeks.  The time depends on the number of houses in front of us and when we get our permit accepted from the town, he said they are behind.  He gave us an estimated date of closing for 2nd half of July, which is pretty exciting and awesome.  I can't wait to start our house and be done!