Today was a busy day at the property and also on my blog. On Saturday, Michael Neibauer of the Washington Business Journal visited me at the site to see the house that I am building. I gave Michael a tour and explained all the systems we are using to speed up construction yet have more accuracy. He took a photo of me at the front door so I'm glad I got my haircut on Friday. Back in December he wrote an article explaining that there has only been 12 new homes built since 2010. Since 2015 the city inventory of single family detached homes has been stuck at 9,131. At the end of this year our home will be 9,132.
I did not realize how unique our new home was to Alexandria. There has literally been no new construction for two years in the city. When I turned on my computer at the office this morning the first email I saw was from a fellow Architect friend who I met last year while participating in the Christopher Kelley Leadership Development Program. She emailed our group a link to an article in the Washington Business Journal. It was Michael's article on our house!
"There's one new home going up on a vacant lot in Alexandria. One"
This was exciting! It almost got me to forget all the stuff I have to do with the house.
Back to reality I need to get my permits for Sewer Lateral connection so that the work can be done next week. As well as buying more materials and products to make sure construction is not held up. Today we received another 15 samples from Build Direct for the wood flooring. Now that we have picked out the tile and cabinets we (actually Daniela picks all the finishes as she has a much better eye for this stuff) can pick out the right wood flooring.
I also visited the site today but I forgot to take my camera. I wish my cell phone could take photos. Yes, my cell phone is old school and is actually just a phone. Now that I've had an article written in a reputable website I think I need to upgrade. No more excuses except that I need that money to buy materials.
Jose is pretty close in finishing the backfill except for the front of the house where we have the sewer and water stub out. That will be backfilled once we do the sewer connection. Also, Thermal Comfort is ridiculously fast and all our minisplits should be installed by the end of the day or tomorrow morning. I appreciate speed and precision.