Today is the day

Today is the day that they start setting the house. It is a pretty slick process and by Friday or Saturday we will have the framing or the house pretty much done. As you can see the progress is amazing. The top picture was taken at 8:04am, and the bottom at 8:40am. By the time I left at 9:30 the basement was done and the first floor deck was on. CRAZY.

By the end of the day the second floor should be done and the roof trusses will be put on tomorrow. Not really sure what will be left to do after that but...

The weather looks to be great for the next couple of days, which should ensure that we have a dry house :)

The construction process is pretty sweet and is probably the way of the future. They can build a house in 5 days in their factory and can have 5 of them out the door a day. Greg (the Sterling rep) was saying that the builders actually sleep in there trucks when they drive them up here. Saves on motel costs I suppose.

Our Rock Wall

Here is a picture of the rock wall that Lighthouse put up yesterday. They claim that it is costing them 4k, which I find incredible and slightly in doubt, especially considering what we figured out about the appliances.

It looks nice, but there is definitely more work to be done on it, at least we hope. Currently, there isn't a "workable" path to the lower level, this was put up basically just to hold up the driveway for Sterling.

Apple Orchard

Just wanted to write about the great time and deal we got on apples last weekend. We went to an apple orchard in Prairie du Chien, WI last weekend and bought apples for 35 cents a pound. We got a large bag for $2.50. I haven't been to an orchard around the cities since last year, and don't remember the price, but 35 cents seems like a crazy good deal. We had a great time, btw next weekend they are having some sort of festival.

Our $23,000 appliances...

So as a result of using our house as a model, Lighthouse wants to upgrade our appliances. We had selected some very nice black maytag ones, that apparently didn't make the cut. Though I really doubt that they ever actually looked at them.

So the talk was that we were going to get stainless appliances that cost 25k, and we would only pay the 5k that we had originally planned on paying (which was actually more then we were going to get our for, but pretty close). I think the idea was that we would be so blown away we wouldn't ask questions and just be thrilled.

Why someone would buy appliances for 25k is beyond me, I mean the food is cooked the same... So yesterday Steve called and asked if we had reviewed them yet, we hadn't because we had been out of town. So last night we stopped by Warners Stellian and had a gentleman look up the order Lighthouse had placed on Friday. I am thinking Lighthouse wouldn't have wanted us to see the invoice, but he printed it out and said we could take it, and you can see the outcome above...

Now they are nice appliances, and you can see the MSPR that I found off the Bosch website. Lighthouse is getting the model price on the appliances, so that is why it is so cheap, still not 25k like they said though. In addition, our 5k appliance package included a washer and dryer, so we are going to have to figure out how we are going to rectify that.

Draw #3

Well, we were supposed to meet with Lighthouse tonight to go over a couple of things, but then I received a voice mail from Steve says that "Before you drive all the way down here, just wanted to call and tell you we aren't having a meeting." Kinda weird, and he sounded crabby about it, so I am not sure, what that was all about.

In addition, I received an email this afternoon with a draw request and an invoice that didn't match the draw request. It was the draw request for the Sterling package, about $112,000. The email stated that Lighthouse would reimburse us at the end for the additions to the package (due to the model house). I am not comfortable with the ad-hoc method they want to use for this, and requested an invoice that details the additions. As well as wording on the invoice to the effect that we will be compensated at the end for the additions...

Revised Draw #2

The last draw request had to be updated to exclude the well bill, because Lighthouse doesn't have the invoice for the well yet. Bohn still has work to do with the well, so it makes sense that they shouldn't be paid yet...

The draw was revised to 34,000. That should add about $200 to our interest payments per month.

What have you received as a Model Home?

I am wondering what other people have received as the result of allowing their builder to use them as a Model Home. It seems that we are getting a really good deal from our builder and I thought it would be fun to compare what others have received.