Cat5 cabling

One thing that I'm regretting not doing as part of my upgrades is the Cat5 networking. Originally, I was going to do everything via WiFi but now I want to set up a media centre PC and a server/NAS so that I can stream music, videos, etc around the house. Would have been nice to have the stability of a Cat5 cable. I'll try running the cables myself. Maybe I'll be able to sneak into my house one night before they put up the drywall. Or maybe I'll catch the guy who is doing the wiring and slip him a little cash to do it for me. hehehe...

Furniture Shopping Frustrations

So, I've been hitting up a bunch of furniture stores across Ottawa. I can't believe how hard it is to find something that I like. What I'm encountering is that the stuff is either the wrong size, wrong colour or wrong price (i.e. WAY too expensive). I'm trying to keep within a set budget but maybe my budget is a bit too presumptuous in terms of what I can get for the money. I want to get something that is decent quality so that it will last. I also want to avoid Ikea-ing out my house. I pretty much need everything for the house so I'm trying to prioritize what is more urgent than otehrs. I'm going to focus on the main floor first such as kitchen table, dining room table, coffee table, etc. The one thing that I did buy was a couple of bar stools for my raised breakfast bar. I got them from Mobilia.

Appliances chosen and ordered

After many weeks of researching and price watching, I've ordered my appliances. Just to recap, my townhome comes with three standard kitchen appliances but I have decided to upgrade all of them. Mattamy gives you an appliance voucher to be used at the Brick worth $1372 in my case.

Fridge - I went with a French door style fridge. I really like the design and layout of these. I also decided to go with one that has a water and ice dispenser. I think it will be nice to have that handy and maybe it'll inspire me to drink more water. The model I went with is the LG LFX23965. My price through the Brick was $2225.

Stove - After living with a smooth top stove with convection, I decided to go with something similar. I looked a bunch of different models but the Whirpool models caught my eye because it has two large 9" elements. Many of the other models only had one larger sized element. I went with the YWFE361LVB. I had the Brick pricematch Future Shop who is selling it for $1049.

Dishwasher - I had mentioned before that the key feature I wanted in a dishwasher was quietness. With an open concept main floor, I wanted to minimize the amount of noise from the dishwasher. I decided to go with a Bosch model 45MO6U. My pricing through the Brick was $850.

All of my appliances are black in colour. Interestingly, the offering of appliances is black is a lot less these days. Everything is seemingly stainless steel. Anyway, so in the end, my appliances don't match brand name wise so handles may not be exactly the same. But functionality came first when it came to choosing my appliances. I'm pretty happy with my choices. I also ordered a microwave too through the Brick, a Panasonic NNSD767B.

Mattamy U

I was at Mattamy U this evening. I sign in and was given a little sticker with my lot # and my name. I was supposed to stick it on the community map so that people can see who was in attendance. The funny thing is that the map they had wasn't of the entire HMB community. It cut off at Grand Canal St so none of the townhomes were on there. I chuckled to myself and just went and sat down.

The presentation itself wasn't the most exciting but it was nice to meet the builders and chat with them afterwards. Really nice guys. They all came from the Mattamy in Toronto. I wonder if there was any truth to those rumours that Mattamy cleaned house in Ottawa because of all the delays and trouble they were encountering and then brought in people from Toronto? I met my new customer care rep, Steve Cochrane. He's been good at answering my emails.

I also met my direct next door neighbour in 505-5 and a couple of other folks in 507 and 501. Apparently the people in 507 were given a delay notice of a month when they were supposed to close in June. The people in 501 said they are closing mid-July.

Overall, this is a neat idea from Mattamy to have this kind of session. I don't think any of the other builders do this.

Coming along

I must say that things are moving along nicely. The entire street is. Here are a couple of pictures of my house and Burritts Rapids Place so far.

Deadline passed!

Well, the 90 day window for Mattamy to give me notice of a major delay has come and passed! So, I'm taking that things are more or less on schedule. And if they delay me at this point that I will be entitled to some sort of compensation. At least, that's the way I think it works. I read through the Tarion form and it's a hard read. Damn legal mumbo jumbo.

Bathroom Fixtures

I bought the bathroom fixtures which I had deleted. I went with the 'Preston' line by Moen. I picked them all up from Home Depot as I had this 20% off coupon. I found this coupon on buildinghomes.ca but I don't think it was for public distribution. Rumour has it that it's for employees but nowhere does it say that it was for employees only. The trick here is to use the coupon in the self-checkout lines. You basically scan the coupon in and then it takes off 20% off your order. Funny story is that I tried using it at the Barrhaven location and the cashier who was overseeing the self-checkouts came by just as I was about to finalize my purchase. She asked me where I got the coupon from and I just said that a friend sent it to me. She told me she'd have to check with her supervisor. The store was pretty busy and her supervisor just told her to let it go. Sweet! I was also successful in using the coupon at the Baseline location and picked up a bunch of dimmer switches, decora switches and outlets and a few other things. I think I saved around $100 with all the stuff I bought. Good deal!

Mattamy University Invitation

I got an invitation from Mattamy to attend their Mattamy U session on April 23rd at the Nepean Sportsplex. Basically what they do is gather people who will be closing roughly around the same time and have an information session. They'll go through the building process of a home, warranty process, talk about the community, etc. What is neat is that you get to meet the construction managers for your house and ask them questions. I'm looking forward to it! Hopefully, I can get a better sense of whether I'll delayed or not. The April 17th deadline is just around the corner.

Good Friday!

Yay! Framing has begun on my block. It is indeed a Good Friday

Foundation is backfilled

Wow, some good progress is being made on the townhomes. My foundation is backfilled. Others are also coming along well with some of them starting to be framed. April 17th is the magical date whereby Mattamy must give me notice of a major delay. I'm going to dread coming home to a letter from Mattamy.

Foundation done!