My Heart Hurts

It has been exactly a week since we moved into our new home. We have been so busy packing, moving, and unpacking. This past weekend our family room and morning room furniture was delivered. We also got our washer, dryer, and refrigerator delivered. Everything looks great and I swear I will try to get some pictures up sometime this week! Yesterday was my day off and I was going to post some then but I had my PM, an electrician, two HVAC guys, a painter, and the cleaning people all here. Oh, and our brick got power washed yesterday too.

So why does my heart hurt? You all remember that huge window I have in my foyer, right? The one I have made you look at countless pictures of even before it was ever installed? Well it has to be replaced! SAY WHAT?!? There is a pretty big scratch on it. I have spent many many days looking up at the window from my foyer and looking straight at it from the upstairs hallway ever since it was installed. I'm pretty sure if there was a scratch before, I would have noticed it. I looked at it several times during our walk-through last week too and I did not see it there. The scratch magically appeared the day after our walk-through, when we got out keys. As a matter of fact, I noticed it the second I looked up at it. I'm pretty sure the cleaning crew caused it. They were cleaning the window the day we got our keys. They also left marks all over our wall and window trim below the window. The cleaning crew came out again yesterday to address some issues and to re-clean that window since they didn't really do that good of a job the first time. I asked them to tell me if it was really a scratch I saw up there or just something that needed cleaned off. The lady responded with, "Yeah, there's a scratch up there. We noticed that last week when we were here." SERIOUSLY?!?!? You noticed it last week and didn't tell anyone?!? Yeah, probably because they caused it. So my heart hurts because I don't even know how such a window gets replaced. How much of my house needs torn out to get to it? It's making me sick to my stomach just thinking about it. My husband is going to have to be here when it gets replaced because I'm not sure I could handle the stress. I had to hide upstairs when our fridge, washer, and dryer were all delivered because it stressed me out!

I mentioned in my last post that there were not enough outlets installed for Guardian to finish connecting everything in our basement and that our post lamp wasn't working. The electrician came yesterday and installed the outlets in the basement. He also found where the switch for our post lamp was drywalled over. I was impressed at how well the switch was unearthed. I was afraid there would be a big hole in the drywall, but there isn't. This light is really cool. It has a censor on it and automatically turns on when it's dark outside. There is a switch for it towards the front of our garage that we can use if we want it turned off. It's convenient to have because I always forget to turn my outside lights on when I leave the house and won't be back until after dark. Our community doesn't have street light (thank god!) so it's nice to have a light that automatically turns on.

A picture of out post lamp and my beloved window in the background. Taken before the house was power washed.
Sod should be installed next week!

Now for the update on the air conditioning issue. When we first moved in, we had our thermostat set at 74 degrees but the air wouldn't turn off even though the house was 67 degrees. The upstairs was having the opposite problem. It was warmer than we had the thermostat set for. The HVAC guys came out yesterday and fixed it. He was really honest with me and said that he had some wires crossed when he originally installed it. I commended him for his honesty and I told him that it didn't matter now that it was fixed! He was a super nice guy. I even asked him about adding a third thermostat so that we could have one in the basement. Right now our house has a two-zone system. The thermostat on the first floor controls the first floor and the basement. We also have one in our master bedroom that controls the second floor. He said we could have another thermostat installed in the basement and that it would be really easy to do and then we would have a three-zone system. All we would have to do is pay for the thermostat and for the labor. He said he could have it installed and hooked up within 15 minutes! I took down the number for his company and his name. We are going to schedule to have this done and I'm going to request that he is the one they send out.

Now for the paint update. I mentioned in my previous entry that we were not happy with the punch-out guy that was here the morning before we got our keys. I seriously think he just removed the blue tape and didn't do anything. My PM sent out someone else yesterday. Our biggest complaint was that there was paint all over the stained part of our banisters. There were also somes spots on the walls that were totally missed. The guy that came out yesterday was AWESOME! He was super nice and my dog totally loved him. She tried to follow him around everywhere. He actually used a drop-cloth and took his shoes off before coming into the house - the other punch-out guy did neither. He spent HOURS meticulously cleaning up the paint job on our railings and banisters. I told him that I really appreciated the fact that he was taking his time. They look amazing now! He had to come back today to finish up the railings and banisters in the basement and he went around the house looking for any other issues. We didn't put any blue tape up for him and we also have furniture in almost every room so he just got the really obvious things. We will save the blue tape for our 30-day.

I did notice yesterday that there is a HUGE paint spot on the carpet in the middle of our formal dining room. It's hard to see since the paint color is very close to the color of our carpet. I stepped on the spot and noticed the carpet was really rough. Upon taking a closer look, I noticed it was paint. This paint spill was poorly cleaned up and I'm not even sure if they will be able to get it out of the carpet. The carpet in that room may need replaced. This is the only room that we don't have furniture in for now, so at least we won't have to move anything to get this fixed. I think I'm going to walk over every single piece of carpet in bare feet to make sure I didn't miss any other spills.

I think that just about covers the issues I posted about in my last entry. There were other issues but those will be taken care of at our 30-day follow-up. My PM has a list of the things we gave him last week and we have already started a new one. I still owe you guys a post about all of the things I love about my home. I swear I will work on it soon!