Gruhapravesham - Jun 27, 2011

Our new home Gruhapravesham was on Jun 27, 2011 per the muhurtham suggested by the priest at the SV Temple.

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Burying in the Foundation

On monday I called the PM and said we were surprised to see the foundation was dug and work had commenced - we needed to bury something* in the foundation.

He knew it and said he had made a note of that somewhere but obviously had forgotten and needed to check with the excavation guys as to what the schedule was. He got back to me very quickly and said yes they were starting to catch up. Additional work was scheduled on Tuesday morning and said if we needed to bury something be sure to go to the site after 10 in the morning and speak with the guys on site.

The next day V and D went to the site buried in the site.

Another surprise....

So we waited another week until Sunday of March 6th. We went by that Sunday to show the site to our friends and what did we see.....

The foundation was already dug up, concrete was poured on the eastern end. See picture above.

We were surprised as our PM had told us that he would inform us a day or two in advance of the digging of the footers because we wanted to bury something in the foundation.

Anyway we were happy as not all the footers were poured, we went back thinking we would call the PM the next day and understand what was going on.

Quick update

I called the PM as it has been 2 weeks since our Preconstruction and there has been no activity on our lot.

Our PM sent me a quick email back saying that the excavation guys were running a couple of weeks behind because of all the snow and bad weather we have had in the last weeks. He said the work might be started back in the next week.

Long Silence....

So after the pleasant surprise in February with the initial excavation in progress, followed by the pre-construction meeting, things suddenly slowed down to our surprise.

Everyday, after work I drive up to see if there was any further progress to the construction beyond the excavation. However, there has been no activity.

Let's wait and see what happens.

Our Floor Plan

Our first floor plan - we are getting the Optional Sun Room Upgrade.

Our second floor plan - we are getting the upgraded laundry option on the second floor-the size of the master closet is reduced.

The Pre-Construction Meeting

Our pre-construction meeting was scheduled for today.

We went into the meeting thinking we needed to have a list of questions; I tried to Google a list of questions for the pre-con etc. I was surprised that there was really not a good resource to go to.

So in the end over the weekend – I just ended up typing a list of questions starting for topics such as: Blue-prints, Construction schedule, Garage, Basement, Family Room, Kitchen, Morning room …. etc.

Our meeting was scheduled for 9 30 am and we showed up at 9 15 am. D dropped V off at day-care and I drove straight from home.

We were early… some of our key contacts showed up a few minutes before 9 30 am. We entered the Model Home at the C community. We had never fully explored this community so we kind of toured the model. The coffee was brewing and this model home was incredibly big…. Open kitchen, a cathedral style morning room etc.

Anyway back to our pre-con – Our Production manager (PM) introduced himself. He seems like a very nice guy … straight forward and easy to talk to. We sat back at the kitchen table and there were tons of photocopies of different things: Agreement copy, Construction material description, Warranty information, Covenants of our new community, Our selection list (updated).

Our PM went over every single selection and we discussed all the details. It seemed pretty straight forward as we did not have a ton of upgrades. Our biggest upgrade is the Morning room addition with the vaulted ceiling. There was not much to discuss.

We went over the site plan….talked about the plot… distance of the home from the street, side homes, backyard space, easements etc.

We wanted to confirm our selections for the location on the utilities - needed them underneath the stores for the most energy effeciency. We also realized our basement was going to be quite big and had to pick out the location of the egress door. As you have guessed we have a walkout basement.

The total size of our lot is 0.33 acre but a good chunk (i want to say at least 0.1) seems to be on the sloping hill on the back. I dont know how I feel about that really because we will have plenty of useable acreage to begin with anyway and we dont have to worry about mowing and maintaining the back yard as much. D wants to plant some perennials or fruit trees along the peremeter of the back. We will see!

Shankusthapana Day

So today was the Shankusthapana and Bhoomi Puja Day.

We brought all the items that we had on the previous day received from the temple priest at the temple along with an idol of Ganesha to our site today.
The priest had suggested the Muhurtham time between 10:30 and 11:55 am today. This was the auspicious time per our Nakshatram I think. Anyway, this was all handled by D in consultation with the templepriest.

So we left home around 10:30 am, it was a bright sunny morning but it was quite windy.

Reached the site and quickly realized it was quite muddy. V and my shoes got quite muddy.

See pictures below.

Seeking Divine Help

We went to the site today … picked up a few stones (wanted to get some bricks from Lowe’s but there weren’t any) from the site. Went to the temple and the priest performed a puja with the stones, offerings (nd, silver, and gold), and kumkum. He also gave us some flowers and holy water to sprinkle on the site. D collected kumkum and ash from the temple. It just feels right to know we are able to do this to our first home.

It is a daunting task and definitely could use some divine help.

The Surprise - Excavation

So went to the temple this morning for Suprabhatam.

On our way back we decided to stop at our site. Lo and behold we realized the entire site was already excavated and there was gravel on the driveway. We were pleasantly surprised.

The waiting begins!

Its Jan 4th.... we are back from a refreshing trip East where we visited our extended Family.

It was an extended family get-together near Boston and it was great. We all had a good time.

We have some our family in-town for a week long visit. We are waiting on hearing back from H about our permits and the pre-construction schedule.

Happy New Year! This year will surely be exciting.