Update

It was quite the summer for the two of us. Lots to do and not enought time. Before we moved in, we did potlights throughout the house and painted everywhere. There isn't much furniture. We've got blinds/drapes for all of our windows.

Most of the builder repairs are done now with the exception of the kitchen. The first time the cabinet company came back, not only did they not manufacture the replacement panels, but the also replaced some with new, damaged panels. I'm not impressed with them at all. Thus, we're still waiting for more replacements...5 months later.

A sot of our living/dining room. You can see two of the three colours that we have for our walls. Also. there is a 7" crown moulding throughout our main floor except the kitchen.


A shot of our family room.


Our kitchen. There are still no handles on our cabinets because we're waiting until everthing is completed.

Repairs Still Ongoing...

Just a quick update:

It has been quite the ride for the past few weeks. The drywall company came back and fixed the seams on the ceilings, but the rest of the ceilings were a different matter. As I mentioned above, the paint job on the ceilings was terrible and couldn't simply be sanded down and repainted. Instead, the drywallers were forced to come back and literally came back and plastered the entire ceiling throughout the entire house! They came back the next day to sand it down, but there is still a lot more work that needs to be done as there are a tonne of imperfections remaining.

Throughout all this, however, I must say that the post-closing service remains tremendous. So far, I have nothing but great things to say about the service team. They seem to care only about making the customer happy and little about what the cost of resources or labour to fix things.

For example, we've had to delay our electricians coming in to install potlights due to the ceiling issues. The original plan was to have the ceilings fixed by today and the electricians coming in on Wednesday. Once they were finished, we would have to patch up the holes left by the original light fixtures and then repaint as necessary. Given that the original schedule can't happen anymore, Madison has agreed to us having the electricians come in and do their work, and the Madison will have the drywall company come back and patch the old fixture holes for us, and the painters will be brought back in to repaint the ceilings.

This is what I call customer service. I've always believed that customer service is about what you do when you screw up. Everybody makes mistakes, but what you do to address them tells me what you or your company is about.

The drywallers will be back in two days to do some more sanding, and I hope to have the electricians in sometime shortly after that. We're probably still another two weeks from moving in.

Possession

We closed the house last week, which was on time. There are some things left to be done, but no big deal. Below are some comments.

Pre-closing:

• Pre-closing service was excellent. Our customer service rep at head office has been nothing but courteous and helpful, and the sales office folks have been great throughout as well.
• The people at the site office were good as well. We made changes to the kitchen layout when we bought the house, and when they first started building, they built it to the original spec and not our modified spec. After a visit to the site office, everything was fixed without hassle.

PDI/Post-Closing:

• The rep that we had for our PDI was excellent. She found a lot of stuff that we didn't see and took her time to explain things to us. I was expecting someone that wanted to find as little as possible in order to minimize work.
• We are disappointed with the fit and finish of the house. There are many - and I mean many - details missed by the trades. For example, nail pops beside where window trims go were not filled in.
• The guy who painted our house was just brutal. The ceilings are so inconsistent. When painting, it looks like the guy slopped a tonne of paint onto the roller and started rolling. Ofcourse, the paint comes out the sides of the rollers, and you can see the "tracks" on the ceiling. Furthermore, there is wall paint on the "side" of all the window trims. He didn't bother to mask or use a brush for the wall area close to all the trimwork. I will be asking them to re-paint the entire house.
• We opted for smooth ceilings and found a tonne of seams. I must say though, that the drywall company has been very good about it so far. They already came and did some work on the ceilings. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they'll turn out nice.
• We ordered dark kitchen cabinets, and as a result, it really shows imperfections. The cabinet company came to inspect them, and approximately half of our cabinets need to be replaced due to scratches and chips. There are some others not being replaced that have scratches, so we'll see how they turn out when they use the touch up pens. I won't accept anything less than perfection though.
• The service from the service department has been very good so far. They respond quickly to my inquiries when I call them.

That's about it for now. I'll update soon.

Almost Complete

It's less than two weeks away to our closing. Since we were last at the house, the final outside trim was installed, the walls were painted, and the carpets were installed. The work remaining is pretty much just small touch ups.

Carpet installed in the living/dining room:


Family room:


Outside with all the trim pieces installed on the roof:

Cabinets Are In

We dropped by the house last week, but the kitchen company was working that day and wouldn't let us in the house. We went back today, and they were all finished. The cabinetry for the kitchen and both upstairs bathrooms is complete.

Just under a month until closing!

Kitchen - We asked them not to install any hardware because we'll be buying the rod-type handles and installing them ourselves. The 4 skinny cabinet doors right beside the entryway is a 24" deep pantry.



Kitchen - Good shot of the fridge gable.


Kitchen - This pic shows the pots and pans drawers as well as the piano-hinge cabinet in the lower corner.


Main bathroom


Ensuite bathroom - Cabinets are the same colour as our kitchen.

Still Going...

Progress continues to be made on the house. The tiling was completed last week, and the carpenter/woodworking guys are currently in the house completing the trimwork. Here are some pics.

One decorative column is done. As we were leaving, the tradesman was bringing the second one into the house.


Tiling completed in the kitchen.


Main bathroom.


Ensuite tub and shower stall.

More Progress...For the Most Part...

Some good news and bad news.

First the bad. We received a call today from North York Tile, the place contracted by Madison to do the tiling in the house. It looks like the tile that we selected for our main floor kitchen and powder room is out of stock. We need to go to their store and pick out a new tile.

The good news is that progress on the house continues. The drywall seams have been filled, and the bullnose corners have been puttied and smoothed. Things look nice.

A shot of our living room.


Here's a shot of the half-wall in the kitchen.


A shot of the kitchen and hallway.


A shot of the family room.

Drywall Is Up!!!

Jo and I went by the house today, and all of the drywalling is now up. They haven't filled in any of the seams yet. The bullnose corner pieces were also all installed as well. I didn't get a chance to snap any pics cause there were workers in the house, and we weren't really supposed to be in there.

Anytime we pay for upgrades, I'm always slightly worried that they'll forget to do it. This is what happened when they neglected to build our kitchen correctly the first time.

Not a great pic, but here's a shot from outside. Notice there are a bunch of vertical 2x4's behind the metal column. The gap between those 2x4's is the doorway as per the original floorplan (see floorplan below).


This is a pic after I pointed out the issue to them and it was fixed. Notice that the doorway is gone, and there is now a half-wall in place.

Fridge Problem

It looks like our inexperience with homes is biting us in the butt. Here is the layout of our home.

First Floor: We changed the layout of our kitchen to make it flow a little better, but I don't have a scan of the modifications yet.



Second Floor: No changes to the standard layout except that we have a double door for the walk-in closet.



Here's the problem. If you look at the floor plan of the first floor, you'll notice that the fridge is right beside the wall (36" deep). Most standard fridges are 31-31.5" deep. If you have a left-hinged fridge door, there is a good chance that the door will end up hitting the corner of the wall. Since we have our hearts set on a French door fridge, this will likely be a problem. We're planning on getting a 25 cubic foot fridge as well, so it'll be the almost 36" in width as well and moving the fridge away from this wall won't be possible.

Here's my ghetto mockup of the situation on the left. Our only solution may be to tear the wall down and shorten it (on the right below).

A Few Pics

Since I just created this blog, I'll post up a few pics of how the house has progressed over the past half year or so.

September 14, 2006: Footings had been recently poured.


November 2, 2006: Framing is just beginning. When I was there, the tradesmen had just started.



November 21, 2006: Framing of the both floors has now been completed. These guys work so fast.


December 6, 2006: The roof has been completed, and windows have been installed.


December 21, 2006: In the process of bricking the house.





December 29, 2006: Bricking continued. Almost finished.



January 4, 2007: Bricking completed and now onto the inside.

Framewalk

Jo and I were able to do a framewalk on our house on Friday. It was very cool to be able to see how the house has progressed. Madison Homes seems to take great pride in their workmanship and service. We are very pleased with them so far. The electrical and plumbing is pretty much done, so the next step is insulation.

Here are a few pics:

Not sure if this is going to problem with cold drafts. This area is approximately where the stove is going to go.

View from the front door. On the immediate left is the living/dining room. Behind that "wall" is the kitchen. Straight ahead is the family room.


View from the back of the house looking into the kitchen.


Looking into our master bedroom. That's the washroom at the back.