Our House Has Blue Chicken Pox

We weren't looking for new homes when we first started our house hunt (in fact, we were specifically avoiding them because they're generally priced higher and you usually have to install things like blinds, grass, fences, and sprinkler systems yourself), but when we found this great deal full of freebies like the sprinklers and blinds, it was too good to pass up. 

Now that we're buying a new home though, we're SO glad we did! When you buy a new home, you get to meet with the construction manager guy about a week before closing for an "Intro Walk." We went to the house, and he walked us through the whole thing and showed us how to work the breaker box, where the water and gas cut offs are, how to program the sprinkler system, etc. He even took Jeff up in the attic and showed him whatever it is that lives in attics. It was really nice. 

My mom and sister came with us because they wanted to see the house. We told Karoline she could run upstairs and claim whichever bedroom she wanted to be "her" bedroom whenever she comes to stay with us.

She likes this one. :o)

The best part of the process was that the construction guy gave us a roll of blue painter's tape and told us to put a piece of tape on ANYTHING that needs to be touched up (chipped paint, scratched cabinets, etc.). Then he left and told us we could stay there as long as we wanted. The poor guy didn't know that he was dealing with a couple of perfectionists (oh, plus my mom and my sister!). 

Jeff inspected every inch of the tile! And he found some paint drops on it!

We stayed there for quite a while and put blue tape all over the place! Every last little speck on the wall was taped. We taped places in the bathrooms with sticky caulk spots, we taped little scratches on the kitchen cabinets, we taped places where the wall texturing didn't look quite right, and we taped a weird-looking dent on one of the entryway tiles.

Our house has blue chicken pox!

We even found a missing glass shade on the dining room chandelier, so we taped that too!

The sweet construction man came back later to lock up the house, and he only made a couple of comments on how crazy we went with the blue tape. :o) After seeing where we had taped, he's going to have the painters come back and touch up all the paint spots, he's calling the cabinet guy to come refinish the cabinets, and he's having the tile man come in and pop out the dented tile and install a new one. 

It was fun to see the house again. It finally rained in Houston (we've been having a serious drought for quite some time), so the landscaping all looked green and lovely. We have a few green leafy bushes in the front yard, and we were pleasantly surprised to see that they had all produced beautiful white flowers! I SO wish I had a photo of them, but I don't. Here's a photo of another part of the front yard though (looking out the sitting room/piano room window):

We only have a couple more days until we get the keys... so exciting!

Happy homeowners (almost)!