Once you hit the 90-day mark in the construction of your new home, you are in the “home stretch”! At this point, just about all of the “rough” work has been completed and all that’s left to do are the finishing details.
This is the exciting part of construction where your home really begins to take shape and you will start to see it as a finished product.
How much time you have left from the beginning of this stage to completion really depends on the size and complexity of your home, but your builder will do their best to keep you posted on this moving target.
Let’s take a look at some of the important milestones in this final phase.
Early Finishing Details
The first finishing detail that you will notice right around the 90-day mark is the drywall finishing. This is very detailed work and the best drywall finishers are absolute nuts when it comes to perfection.
In Florida, it is very popular for many homes to have a textured drywall finish.
Two popular texture options are the “knockdown” and “orange peel”. These textures add depth and durability to the home and do a great job of hiding any damage that might occur over years of living in the home.
Once the drywall is finished, you will begin to see doors and trim installed throughout the house.
While that is happening, the painters will likely start on the home’s exterior, and then the entire interior will be painted once the exterior is finished and the doors and trim are installed.
Later Finishing Details
As the finishing details of your home are completed, some of the next steps you will see include tiling, cabinets, cement work, and countertops.
Depending on some of the decisions you made regarding tiling, this is probably the most involved process at this point in construction. If you happen to catch the tiling work in person, you will no doubt be impressed with how good the workers are at knocking out whatever tile pattern you have chosen.
Once the tile work is completed, the next step will be installing the kitchen and bathroom cabinets, followed by the countertops.
Once again, you have most likely already made all of the decisions at this point and you are just going to be sitting back watching your vision come to life.
As the cabinets and countertops are installed, you will really be able to envision yourself living in your new home.
While the tiling, cabinets, and countertops are being installed inside the home, the cement work will be completed on the outside of the home.
This includes grading, building forms, and pouring the cement for your driveway and any sidewalks around your home. This cement work generally takes about one week to complete.
Near-Completion Walk-through
During these finishing stages of construction, homeowners are encouraged to visit the construction site as often as they like.
The best time to do this is on nights and weekends so that you don’t slow down the progress.
These walk-throughs will allow you to monitor all of the detail work first-hand, and they will also allow you to begin to see what the finished home will feel like.
Final Details
With the home almost entirely complete at this point, you will see the final detail crews begin to complete the last projects.
These details include drywall touch-ups, painting touch-ups, installing carpeting and hardwood flooring, and landscaping. Aside from the flooring, this is all very minor detail work that just shoots to make sure that the home is absolutely perfect before it is deemed finished.
Carpet
The carpeting is usually not installed until about three weeks prior to closing.
While this might seem like it is cutting it close, there is a very good reason.
The builder wants to be sure that as few workers as possible walk across your newly carpeted floors before you do. They wait until just about every other set of boots has completed their work before installing the carpet to ensure that no accidents tracking dirt across your floors take place.
Final Inspections
At this point, you will be eager to complete your final walk-through and start moving into your new home, but you will want to be patient and let local inspectors take a look first.
After the home completes its final round of local inspections, it will be issued a “Certificate of Occupancy” which deems it fit for you to move in.
There will also be a final survey conducted to make sure that the setbacks are exactly where they are supposed to be according to the original plans.
Following that, Skytec will come in to give the home a HERS rating that evaluates the home’s energy efficiency. ICI Homes are known for always having above average HERS ratings.
Final Walk-through
The last step in the construction of your new home is the final walk-through.
After every subcontractor and inspector has completed their work and signed off on your home, you have one last chance to go through the home one room at a time to make sure everything is exactly what you expected.
Your job here is to be as picky as possible!
Point out any small imperfections and the builder will be happy to take care of them.
The builder will probably take about one week to fix any imperfections you pointed out, and after that you will be ready to close and move into your new ICI home!
The satisfaction at the end of the long process of building a new home from scratch is a tremendous feeling; so make sure you take some time to enjoy it.