As you all know, we had our walkthrough earlier this week, and many of you have been asking to hear about it, so here it is! There are photos, and comments to go along with those photos!

Generally, we were pleased with the walkthrough and what came out of it. It started out on a bit of a sour note, as the first room we "critiqued" was the master bedroom. All the doors we chose are flat, no wood grain, and show every single bit of dirt and grease because of the finish. We commented to the gentleman who did the walkthrough with us (he asked that his name not be used on the web site) that we expected all the doors to be cleaned, as all you can see on them are greasy fingerprints which have been lacquered over. He said that because of the style of door, they can't do anything about the flaws. I guess the sales people, or the supplier was supposed to have said something to us about the poor finished quality of this particular style of door, but didn't, so now we'll be moving into a brand new house that has dirty fingerprints all over all the doors. Very disappointing. However, we were told that in 3 months, we can call Baywest back, and they'll come in and touch up the doors with paint brushes. My dad, who as Jason mentioned earlier, painted interiors and exteriors of homes on his own for 25 years, said that with these doors which were originally sprayed, they need to be taken off the hinges and re-sprayed. Baywest doesn't do this for us, so we may have doors that we'll be able to see brush marks on forever. <> That was the biggest frustration of the walkthrough.

We talked about the poor quality of painting on the walls, and unforunately, the painters were there working while we were doing our walkthrough, so it made for a bit of an awkward situation when we had something negative to say about the paint. With a south facing house, apparently we're to expect that we'll be able to see blemishes in the walls and the paint...who knew? The other thing with the paint is that when the painters did touch ups on the walls, they didn't go back and repaint all the walls afterwards, so if you stand at an angle to most walls, you can see all the touch up points. We mentioned this, and were told that based on the New Home Warranty guidelines, we're supposed to stand 3 feet back from the wall, dead on, and if we can't see any blemishes from there, it passes code. Nice try! I guess we can't really do much about it, but were under the impression that as a brand new home, everything would look "perfect", or at least to our satisfaction.

The good news, however, is that our mantel which was poorly installed, and our island which was described earlier, are both being replaced. The gentleman doing the walkthrough with us agreed that the final quality of both was "crap", and said he would be in contact with Prestique Kitchens regarding the island, and that he himself would rebuild our mantel.

I'm gonna go on a bit of a rant about Prestique Kitchens right now. You'll see a photo here of our drawers and cupboards in the kitchen, and you'll notice that they're horribly misaligned.



Well, this is what ALL our drawers and cupboards look like. Not a single bank of them in any room of the house is aligned as it should be. So, we'll have to have them in to fix all those problems. But, that's not the biggest point of contention with them. They are the people responsible for the disaster that is our current island. We were told during the walkthrough that Prestique is not highly regarded in the site superintendent's eyes, and they have a notorious reputation for being very slow to fix problems they cause. We, of course, pushed back and even went so far as to call Baywest's president, Harry, and insist that our island be fixed/replaced by Friday, when we move in. He got on Prestique's case, and they're coming in tomorrow to try and fix the island. We told Baywest that if it doesn't look EXACTLY like the one in their showhome (featured below), Prestique will be back to replace the entire thing.



We're quite displeased with the quality of workmanship displayed by Prestique Kitchens, and will not let them off the hook until everything they installed is corrected and to our satisfaction.



This photo above shows the gap between the island top and the wall it rests on. We weren't sure why there was such a gap, but were told that there will be a wood trim being put there, along with a support beam to hold up the island.



You can see here what our kitchen is going to look like when we move in. The fridge isn't in its hole yet, and it's a good thing! We discovered that the door of the fridge doesn't close. We were unable to see any sort of blockage, and have contacted Coast Wholesale Appliances to have it fixed, or replaced.



The hardwood floors look AWESOME! We are SO pleased with how they turned out! Nu-Way Floor Fashions did a remarkable job, and we couldn't be happier. We don't have a photo of the carpets, but they're equally as pleasing to us. Thanks Nu-Way, and Connie!



We were never given the option of choosing different towel rods and toilet paper holders, and wondered why. Shelly told us that their supplier basically has one or two choices! So, we took it upon ourselves to make yet another trip to IKEA and we picked out some of our own. We'll be sure to post some photos of them soon! Here are the standard ones that are in our bathrooms right now.



This nice little hole greeted us when we walked into the laundry room! It was fixed up prior to the walkthrough though! We figured Baywest must've accidentally made our laundry chute too small! :-) Just kidding!



Our last little "surprise" was this lovely $5 thermostat! We paid for an upgraded thermostat that would accommodate air conditioning when we get it installed somewhere down the road, and it appears as though a little mistake was made! Baywest is going to be fixing that up for us as well!

At the end of a long two and a half hours, we were being shown some paperwork and upkeep brochures, and the final document we were shown was a copy of a contract that would be sent to New Home Warranties, outlining what was left to be finished, in other words, a deficiency list for our home. We were rather shocked to discover that Baywest submits this document with only our signatures on it, and none of the deficiency boxes filled in! They supply us with a contract between Baywest and us that outlines what needs to be fixed, and what will be fixed, but that never sees a lawyer's office. We were told that the reason they do this is that lawyers often don't understand exactly what needs to be fixed, and can mistake a small painting touch up for something worthy of holding back money for. Makes sense, I guess, but also made us very uncomfortable signing a blank document when there is obviously much left to finish.

All in all, it was a productive experience, and we have the guarantee of a nicely finished house when all is said and done. I'm amazed at the number of hoops we have to jump through in order to get our house to look exactly like we want it to look, but Baywest seems to be doing their best to get things fixed up for us, prior to our possession date.