One of the reasons we bought the lot we did was because it is in a neighborhood with municipal sewer and water connections. That meant we could skip the hassle and expense of digging a well, which can cost anything from $20,000 to $200,000, and a septic system. When we excavated the foundation we ran the sewer and water lines from the house to out near the road. That meant all that was left was to cut into the road and connect the house lines to the municipal sewer and water connections. Seems easy, right?
Not so much. Starting in late July, when we were targeting a mid-August move-in, we learned from Shaun he was having trouble finding an excavator who could make the sewer and water connections and also make our timeline. We eventually put Gigi on the case, calling various excavators around the state to see if they had any availability. We didn’t pull the trigger on one who had availability in late August, hoping that another who had an early August window would be able to get it done.
We would later regret that decision.
A lot of contractors just weren’t returning calls. Others would walk the site and then ghost us. When we finally got a bid, it was both slow (late August, again) and expensive ($40,000 – we were hoping for something more like $15,000).
Then another prospect was risky – turns out he was getting sued by some other clients for shoddy work, and the county wouldn’t approve him for the work anyway.
Our mid-August target move-in date came and went. Interior finishes were coming along, but building inspectors are sort of sticklers for having running water.
After months of waiting on bids and trying to coordinate with a dozen different contractors, we finally got one booked and bonded. That was the good news. The bad news was that he couldn’t get us scheduled until the end of September. Add on mechanical testing and inspections, and we likely wouldn’t get our certificate of occupancy until mid-October.
This was Not Great News. School started for our kid at the end of August regardless of where we were at with our house. Which meant we needed to move into temporary housing for a couple of months, since we didn’t want her to spend a couple of months at one school only to jump into another.
Interior Finish Progress
Meanwhile, or interior finishes were coming along. We were happy with our tile choices once we got them installed. Our big blue shower tiles were particularly impressive. One surprise was that the combination of herringbone plus a shower ledge (thanks to our exterior wall) took about 40 hours of work.
Powder room floor 
Herringbone 
Bathroom Floor 
Big shower wall tiles 
Master Bath Floor
We also started to get the kitchen cabinets set in place. The blue pops nicely against the light grey walls.
