Drywall!

I have never loved drywall so much! I ran by the new house today and expected the brick work to be still in progress but that's it. I did not expect the entire house to already be drywalled. I guess when I drove by yesterday I didn't look inside well enough. I saw the usual stack of drywall in the garage and assumed they had not started yet. Turns out they started drywalling yesterday at noon and finished the entire house last night. Today they are taping and floating and will probably texture tomorrow. It's so exciting! It looks so different now. I took some pictures and posted them on Flickr to the right. Roger and I are going to stop by together here in a little bit before we head to the airport to pick up his cousin Cara and her husband Jared and their two year old Olivia. We hope the weather holds out for them to enjoy a sunny and warm weekend in Austin. They have been in winter for two months now up in Wisconsin and would love a break.

Adventurous Bike Ride

My normal Wednesday workout would have been a mile and a quarter swim at the pool, but since it's closed for maintenance, I went for a bike ride this morning. And I decided I would ride to the new house in order to have a destination and make my ride more enjoyable and it would allow me to check out any new progress since the pre-dry wall walk through yesterday morning.

I wasn't sure what I was in for, riding on major roads to the house. I have driven there plenty of times and have noticed where there isn't a shoulder in the road and where bike lanes end, but until you are actually on your bike riding it, you don't know what you will encounter. I was a little concerned about the major intersection at Slaughter Lane and Manchaca Road because of traffic. I decided I would decide how I would turn left from Slaughter onto Manchaca when I got to it and saw if traffic would be loose enough for me to venture across three lanes into the left turn pocket. Or if traffic was so dense I would have to take it like a pedestrian and go to the corner, press the cross walk button and use the cross walk to get onto Manchaca. Timing worked out perfectly that I was able to cross the three lanes at a lull in traffic and turn from the turn pocket at the left arrow signal. It went smoothly.

As I got closer to Frate Barker on Manchaca Road, I knew the shoulder would end soon and I wouldn't have much space. I wondered if traffic would be patient with me and safe around me. I didn't have any problems on Manchaca and when I turned onto Frate Barker a few vehicles straddled the line to pass me. It turned out to be an easy ride traffic wise. And it was a good little ride in terms of incline and decline so I got a pretty good workout. It was 3.87 miles to the new house according to the computer on my bike. My GPS watch said it was only 3.82 miles. I still don't understand why there's a difference between the bike computer and the GPS watch. It's very slight but you think they would be almost the same. I'm sure it has something to do with the bike calculates by the turns of the wheel and the GPS uses satellite. Either way it was a fun ride.

The ride back to the house was less adventurous with traffic since I didn't have to cross through the Manchaca Road-Slaughter Lane intersection but just turn right. So it was pretty safe returning to the house. There were some good inclines but I was able to handle them well with all the shifting practice I have had in the last few months of riding again. I'd have to say I have shifting down now. Makes me wish we would have road our bikes more in Northern Virginia where it was really hilly. Oh well, I'll just have to make up for lost time here in the Hill Country. My total ride was only 10.11 miles which is short in my book. But at least I got some exercise in and got out in the sunshine and fresh air. My heart rate got up there and stayed there for a while so I did get a little bit of a workout.

The rafters in the ceiling which were not nailed and some areas not plum, which my dad discovered yesterday at the walk through, were fixed. The electrical stuff wasn't done yet, but as I was riding away from the house the electrician's truck pulled up. So I'm sure they got those done this afternoon. The city inspection was supposed to happen yesterday afternoon along with the construction manager's framing punch list. Which means the dry wall should start being installed tomorrow but for sure by Friday. Yeah!

Tagged

Our new house front door was installed yesterday and it has already been tagged, probably from neighborhood kids. I'm sure they watch as homes are built and go through all of them while they can still go through them. You know how suburban life is for kids, so boring that they have to find some way to entertain themselves. I don't even want to know what else goes on in those homes. A small area inside was tagged also. I do think it's funny that someone declared their love for someone else in the tagging. We also received our new back door yesterday which I forgot to take a picture of but will next time I'm there. I'm excited about it because it has built in mini-blinds. The back door of our current home has add on mini-blinds and they are a chore to open and close. The surround sound wiring was installed but not in the correct locations. Roger and the electrician spent quite a bit of time and discussion deciding what were the perfect locations for the speakers for the size of his television and obviously the low voltage crew did not get those plans. So I had to put in another call to our new construction manager who I just met Monday to go over the list of items which were incorrect or not installed at all.

And the gas drop was moved away from the back door as we specified at the builder meeting before construction started, but they moved it right next to the master suite window. The construction manager told me yesterday that it could not be within three feet of a window to pass city code so I guess they will be moving it again. The lack of communication between project managers, construction managers, contractors and crew is amazing. The electricians, low voltage crew, plumbers and gas guys are all going to have to come out again to remedy what they didn't do right the first time because they didn't receive our plans. The builder will pay for all those extras, not us. As I said before, glad we can go by the house often to keep an eye on these things. I can only imagine how much more involved it's going to get since the pre-dry wall inspection may be early next week. This may turn into my full time job. And what's even more crazy is the first construction manager told us the house is usually complete 45 days after the dry wall is installed. If that's next week, we're looking at the house being done around the middle of January. And we're putting our house on the market this Thursday. Please pray for the timing of it all.