We were at the house on Sunday and took some more photos - the house is coming along nicely, but there are some things we're concerned about. But on to the photos!



The ridge our house is on is developing quite quickly - there's an open lot right next to us that hasn't been started at all, but other than that, most of the houses look like they'll be finished within a few weeks of each other (there's already someone at the end of the street that has moved in). Our house is the fourth one from the right - the white siding with the dark roof.



At Signature Lighting, our chosen supplier, we had a few choices for exterior lights. It took us a while to decide, but we opted to go with the style shown above. We felt they looked Japanese in style, which would fit with the general theme of our home. We were hesitant at first because we hadn't seen our garage stonework, but after the lights were installed we knew we made the proper choice.



They had finished putting the lino in our bathroom, and we're really pleased with the way it's turning out. The lino really complements the wall colour and countertop - although we put them all together in the Nu-Way showroom, the samples were small in size and it's difficult to visualize how it will all look together. I was really wishing for some sort of virtual reality display to help us see what it would look like, but everything so far on this journey has been very low-tech (much to my dismay in some cases). Speaking of interior colours, I was surprised that Nu-Way didn't have some sort of default "colour templates" that people could choose from. If you don't have a clear vision of what your home should look like, it's nice to fall back on the skills of an interior designer that can put together colour bundles (flooring, walls, countertops) to help make your choices easier. It seems like a logical thing to do, yet Nu-Way didn't offer it.



Our main living room area is turning out beautifully - the hardwood floor looks excellent so far, and it compliments the fireplace and mantle nicely. The ceiling fan fits right in, although for some odd reason only the light works - not the fan. We've asked Bay West for an explanation.



Another thing we chose at Nu-Way was the kitchen tiling for the back splash - we had originally talked about going with an Asian pattern, but in the end we felt it was a little too green and opted for this one instead. It's clear we made the right choice - the tile looks beautiful, although I noticed it's a little crooked in some places. I'll be interested to see what Bay West says when we do our walk through on issues like this - will they agree with us that it needs correcting, or will they think it's good enough?



The image above is of a wall near our back entry way. We checked our blueprints, and there's no switch that's supposed to be there. It looks really odd because it's up quite high on the wall (nearly six feet up), far higher than a normal light switch would be. We've asked for an explanation as to what this is, along with the huge cable beneath it (we still don't have a thermostat installed, but that cable looks really thick to be a thermostat cable). That's one thing we're finding frustrating at this stage of the process - we're seeing things that no one told us about, and we're not being given any explanation. Why make the customer ask what the strange switch is for? Why not tell us that there's something going in that wasn't on the blueprint, along with an explanation of why it's there.



It's funny the things you notice when you're looking around. The image above is from the basement ceiling - someone was putting in a nail to secure two pieces of wood together, picked a bad angle, but hammered it anyway.



Here's another odd "fix" - a chunk of wood jammed into the closet frame. I don't know if it's temporary or not - I guess we'll see if it's there for the walk through.