Charlottesville New Construction: Ken and Dawn's Dream Home is finished!

Despite my good intentions, I have fallen way behind in keeping you up on the progress on Ken and Dawn's dream home. The house is now DONE and they moved in Mother's Day weekend.  It was a great project and a great process.  I am excited for their family.  

Here is a slideshow of the home build from sheetrock to settlement.   I know Ken and Dawn have added some personal touches in the meantime - custom paint and the backsplash in their fabulous kitchen - for example.  Can't wait to see the house again.

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Charlottesville New Construction: Catching Up!

I've been super busy with business and travel for the last few weeks, so an update on Ken and Dawn's dream home in Northern Albemarle is long overdue.  In just the space of 3 weeks we've gon from the pre-sheetrock inspection, with the home completely framed and roughed in to sheetrocked and sided.  Have a look below and I'll update you again soon!

 

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Charlottesville New Construction: the frame rises!

The first floor of this Northern Albemarle home is framed and the second floor is going up today.  

My clients, Dawn and Ken, visit the site daily: it's exciting to see the house rise out of the ground.  We're all espcially delighted with the siting of the house on the lot and the final grading/shape of the yard: it is even better than imagined!

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Charlottesville New Construction: foundation!

A little progress update on the home my clients, Ken and Dawn, are having built in Northern Albemarle: The foundation is in and the yard is taking shape.

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Charlottesville New Construction: digging a hole!

Dawn and Ken's dream home is moving apace: the lot has been graded, a few trees removed and the foundation was dug when I was up there at 8am this morning.  I heard a rumor concrete was going to be poured today, so I'll check back in on the site soon.  

In the meantime, Dawn and Ken were making Kitchen selections today: surely one of the most fun parts of building a house!  I cannot wait to see what they chose.

 

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Charlottesville New Construction: Ken and Dawn's Dream Home is underway!

I am really excited to be helping Ken and Dawn and their 3 boys build their dream home.  

I started working with this sweet couple in early fall and we looked at quite a few resale homes over the course of several months, even making an offer on one older home, before deciding to build.  

Like all first time home buyers, Ken and Dawn are on a budget, but we were lucky to find a great lot, very well priced, for sale just a few miles from where Ken works and in one of their target school districts!  

The final piece of the puzzle was selecting Piedmont Realty and Construction to build the home.  Dawn and Ken had heard about Piedmont, had seen their homes online and were very impressed with their product.  Drew Holzwarth, Piedmont's principal, was able to offer us the floor plan they wanted, with some great standard features and even quite a few desired upgrades, at a surprisingly affordable price.

The lot is a beautiful 2 acre parcel in a quiet Northern Albemarle subdivision.  The home building process so far has been extremely smooth, efficient and enjoyable.  Drew and his team - Greg Slater of Real Estate III,  and Jodi and Brandon of Piedmont - have been super. Ground breaking tomorrow or early next week!  

Here are some photos from the contract signing, our pre-build meetings and of the lot we will be building on!

As an aside, these two young parents, both military veterans, have really impressed all us older folks with their parenting skills: I have never met 3 more well behaved, polite and cheerful children !

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Charlottesville Dream Home: Unique Details

I visited Ed and Susan's dream home in progress yesterday to get a look at the much anticipated staircase.  When we were working with the team at Gaffney Homes developing the floor plan, Susan was very sure that she did not want the front foyer of the home to feature a large dominating staircase.  The solution we arrived at was to place the stairwell is a side foyer or "stair hall", adjacent to the entry hall, creating a unique interior courtyard or gallery with a flowing open staircase tying all three levels of the home together. This design feature is truly wonderful, elegant and unusual. It has created some wonderful spaces for artwork to hang as well.  You can read Susan's take on the stairs on her Dream House Blog.

In addition, I got a glance of several other great details of the home coming together: the window seat in one of the family bedrooms; the open loft on the upper floor which will be a study/play space for the kids, open to the stairs yet still private; the wonderful brick fireplace in the basement and the beginnings of the gas fireplace for the screened porch.   A delightful bonus space has turned up in the unfinished attic: the high coffered ceiling in the great room below has resulted in a perfect raised "stage" in the attic and I can already envision the musicals, plays and productions to come!

It was also interesting to really be able to study the exterior of the home from angles one cannot see "on paper" and to see how nicely the roofline harmonizes!

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Charlottesville Dream Home: a quick update

I am way behind on updating you on progress with Susan and Ed's house out in Ivy, but it is smoking right along.  Here are some pics from November. Next sunny day, I will head out there to snap some more. 

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Charlottesville Dream Home: The Foundation Goes In

 

Made a quick visit out to Susan and Ed's Ivy home site today to see the work in progress. The lot is transformed, the foundation has been poured, the plumbing lines were being laid today and the grading is ongoing.  Having stared at the floor plans for so many months, it is wonderful to now see the structure rise from the soil. I was surprised by how small the home appears at this stage: it sports a nearly 3000 sf footprint and features a lovely flowing design.  I am looking forward to seeing the individual spaces take shape.

On another note, the pears on the pear tree look ripe and delicious but the deer ( and bear, we suspect ) have cleaned all the lower branches leaving no fruit within reach!

 

 

 

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