That's Some Fine Concrete

It's nice to finally see our house actually being built. It seems like it has been such a long process to get to this point, but in reality it has only been about 6 weeks. I'm much more into the whole building process than I thought I would be, and I look forward to driving over to The Fitz on an almost daily basis to see what progress has been made since we last checked. I have a sneaking suspicion that our construction manager will be sick and tired of us by the time this is all over. But you can bet that we will be scrutinizing every detail to make sure they do things right.

Since our house is but a lonely slab as of now, most of our fun consists of going to (and in some cases breaking into) other houses that are further along in the building process. There are a couple of other Fitgeralds being built right now in the neighborhood, so we check them out at least weekly. Nancy's favorite new game is critiquing the unsuspecting future owner of the home's (whose window Nancy probably just crawled through to get us in) choice in counter tops, flooring, or carpet. Of course, our choices are the correct ones, and any choice these people made that differs from ours is horribly wrong, lacking in good taste, and/or downright ugly. One thing I am really glad we decided to upgrade to is granite counter tops. In the houses we have seen with formica, you definitely can tell a difference.

It's also great fun for us to go into other Meritage houses that are similar in size and two-story, but are a different floor plan. We have thoroughly checked out at least 5 different floor plans, and have come to the obvious conclusion that there is no match for The Fitzgerald. I am glad that we are still happy with our choice in floor plans, even after comparing to other similar ones--since we essentially picked our floor plan based on a few pictures online.

Then there is the less-often-played, but just as fun game of going into homes under construction from other builders. There are three builders scattered in our neighborhood, so we can compare the quality of ours versus the other builders...and of course, there is no comparison. Meritage is definitely the best builder in our neighborhood, if not all the world. Why anyone would even consider purchasing a cut-rate, low quality shack from one of these other lesser builders is beyond us. But in all seriousness, I think we did make the right choice. I'll get back to you after we've lived in it a while.

With all the fun and excitement of our house being built, our focus has now shifted to selling our home we live in now. All the clutter is in storage. The driveway is power washed. Shelby's toys are put away. Nothing left to do but show this sucker off. I'll be taking Shelby to work with me every day, so that no one has to deal with her when they are looking at the house.

This all has to work out perfectly, you see. We can't sell it too quickly, or we will have to find another place to live until the ol' Fitz is ready. Yet, we obviously want to sell it before we close on the new house, to avoid the nightmare of paying two mortgages. The chances of things working out perfectly are probably about zero, so be sure to either come visit us in our third-floor ghetto apartment in a month, or start gathering your recipes for that fundraising bake sale. Either way, this oughtta be fun.

In case you were wondering, yes we did take some pictures of our lovely slab, both with the forms still up, and after they were torn off on Saturday. Word is they are going to start framing on Tuesday. A mighty fine lookin' slab, don't ya think?