-- How Do You Measure Crazy? Very Tenderly

     So, in case I haven't mentioned it before, Penny and I can be a little crazy.  Normally, we offset each other because only one of us is crazy at a time.  But occasionally the perfect crazy storm occurs where our craziness combines and exponentially multiplies our craziness ten-fold.  Let me explain...

     From the day the chain wall was laid out on the new house, both of us thought that the footprint of house was a little small.  We were certain it was smaller than the model home we looked at - which had our same exact floor plan.  Then the foundation was poured, and we both commented that there must be a mistake.  So we took a tape measure to the foundation, and sure enough, the length and width of our foundation exactly matched the floor plans we had been given. We must have just been mistaken, but were put at ease... until... the framing went up.

     This time we were both sure something went wrong. The rooms we were looking at were way way way too small to be the rooms we saw in the model home.  So in a clandestine twilight operation, Penny and I took the tape measure out and measured each and every room in house and once again, it matched the floor plans exactly.

     How could it be?  How could both of us be wrong about this?  Then we came up with the only possible solution, and it made both of us sick.  We had been swindled.   It was the only explanation.  The model home had to have been built to a slightly larger scale.  You see, we're already apprehensive because we kind of got pushed around by the contractor who built the house we live in currently.  Some shady work in some areas, some things promised to be fixed that never were, some general half-@$$ work that we had to pay someone else to come and fix.  It must have happened again.  Despite this new contractor's sterling reputation, they must have done it to us as well.  We called our real estate agent, told her what was going on, and asked if we could see the model home one more time.

     We showed up armed with our tape measure and walked into the model home. One look around and I knew this wasn't going to be good.  We went into the dining room first.  This was the room that I was sure was the most off.  We took out the tape measure and... It matched the floor plan exactly.  The kitchen was next.  Penny was certain the kitchen wasn't right, but it too matched the floor plan exactly.  The large great room, that one was definitely off.  I could tell just by looking around that the spacious model home that it's great room was practically palatial compared to the half-closet great room that was being built on our new lot.  Zip went the tape measure and... it was actually one inch shorter than our floor plan.

     Room after room was exactly like it was supposed to be.  We had not been swindled.  Penny and I simply pushed each other to the brink of crazy and paranoia.  Suddenly, the movie, The Shining, made sense.  Needless to say, both of us were more than slightly embarrassed by this.  Apparently, houses look different until the sheetrock goes in.

     Once again, I have to give a big shout out to our agent, Susan Reardon.  She must have taken some course on how to handle crazy people in real estate school.  Penny and I had both hoped we could stay in contact with her once our business relationship was over.  But she probably prefers her friends to be a little less of the neurotic nut-job variety.

     Anyway, in summation, everything is right and on track with the house.  the only thing wrong is the new owners.

3/24/2012 Back Patio

3/24/2012 Office Loft

3/24/2012 Kitchen

3/24/2012

-- Latest Pics

3/19/2012 View From The Front

3/19/2012 View From The Rear

3/19/2012 View from inside the Great Room

3/21/2012 View From The Front  (The Roof Is Up)

-- New Pictures

Taken 3/15/2012

Taken 3/13/2012

--- Would you like some RICE with that?

So it turns out that I'm not as young or as in shape as I thought I was.  Penny and I went to the construction site yesterday.  As we were leaving I specifically made Penny go around the long way so that she wouldn't hurt herself.  I, on the other hand, am tough, and decided I could make the little jump off of the ledge. 

So I did my best ballerina leap off the ledge, like I was Black Swan or something, and heard a distinct CRUNCH come from my right leg when I landed.   

Penny , to her credit, immediately stopped fussing at me when she realized I was really hurt.  We think I tore a muscle in my calf.  Doctor says use RICE, which isn't quite a delicious as it sounds.   RICE - Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.

-- The Winds Of Change (aka Coyotes and Deer and Turkeys, Oh My!)

     For those of you not in the Chattanooga area, there was a nasty series of tornadoes that blew through our area on Friday night.  Let me start off by saying that we're all fine, but the tornadoes kept dropping all around us.  There was a tornado that touched down (officially unconfirmed at the time of writing this) just about half a mile WNW of where we live now (Island Cove Marina).  It traveled in an ENE direction, just barely avoiding the subdivision we live in now, but it zeroed in on the subdivision we are building in (Hampton Cove).


     The sheriff was on the news and said the area of our new subdivision was a "war zone",  We saw pictures of a tractor trailer that was delivering furniture to a house about five doors down from our new property.  It was blown onto it's side and into the house it was delivering to.  The subdivision that is right next to ours had a house collapse with people in it, and another house that was lifted off of it's foundation and blown into the neighbor's house.


     Needless to say we weren't really looking forward to seeing how bad our beautiful new neighborhood was hit.  The ride to the subdivision was not comforting:

     We drove up there and there were police stopping everyone and questioning why they were there.  Most were getting turned around, but most were lookie-loo ghouls who were driving around excited to see all of the damage, or worse yet, capitalize or loot on it.  It was a little difficult to get through, because obviously, our drivers licenses don't have the new address on it yet, but Penny turned on the waterworks, and we were let in.


     It was bad, y'all.  Real bad.  Let's start with our property.  

Here's a picture from Thursday:

 And the same angle on Saturday:

Our tree lined back yard is gone.

If you look at the video from my last post, you'll see a port-a-potty on the front of the property.  Here it is now against the back fence.

Here are some other shots from the neighborhood  Some of these are going to look like some missing trees, but keep in mind, there were thick woods behind the subdivision.

This poor guy had all of his windows blown out - and all three of his cars badly damaged

This was thick tree line. Also, if you look closely, you can

see the subdivision behind us that had the house collapse.

Here is our property from a distance, you can 

see the roof damage on the houses on both sides of us.

     Some of you may have heard about the airstrip behind our house.  Well, that guy's plane was in pieces all over the runway.  There was another house being built about two doors down.  It was almost done, but the garage doors hadn't been put on yet.  The storm got in there and blew the wall out and took off part of the roof.


     While we were on our property, surveying, we finally got to meet one of the neighbors.  His name is Scott, and he seems like a really nice guy.  He is divorced and lives with his two children, young girlfriend, his niece, and his small dog.  He moved to Chattanooga in about 2006 and has lived in Hampton Cove for about 2 years (sounds like Penny and I except without the kids and niece, and I would be Penny's younger girlfriend in this scenario).  He really loves the neighborhood, except for the coyotes.


     That's right, coyotes.


     What coyotes you may ask?  Well, apparently, there's a bunch of coyotes living in the area, roaming the street willy-nilly.  The girl who sold us the house didn't mention anything about the coyotes.  They are supposedly really skittish around people, but Scott didn't say anything about how they are around chihuahuas.  I guess our dreams of letting p-nut roam the backyard freely are now out.


     Scott went on to tell us about the deer that are always in the back yard as well, (which makes up for the coyotes).  There's also a bunch of wild turkey's that fly around and are often seen in the neighborhood too.


     So in conclusion, we lost some trees, but made out better than most people in that subdivision.  I think it's safe to say that our move-in date is going to be pushed back.  There were about five homes under construction by our contractor, and every single one of them had some major damage.  I don't know how those people are handling it.  I remember my first new car.  It was a Jeep Wrangler and I loved it and took extra special care of it.  That is, until about 4 months in, when I got hit by a car that got hit by a drunk driver.  It never was the same after that, and I just had some minor damage.  I don't think I could move into a brand new house that just had it's side wall blown out.  


     I'll keep you updated as soon as we hear anything new.

-- Foundation Update

I know it seems like its been a while since I posted, and there hasn't really been that much to report.  I passed by the house and got to see the three men who are paid to stand around and look at the foundation:

Oh yeah, the foundation has been put in place.
  
It started with what is called a chain wall (shout out to Marc and Barbara for being able to identify it - because Penny and I had no idea)

On top of the chain wall is rebar and concrete blocks

From what I understand, next is the slab.