Guardian walkthrough and the innards of the house

This week, we had our guardian (low voltage) walkthrough, in order to confirm that the options we selected are indeed, what we wanted, and that the locations we originally envisioned made sense. Let me add, that the guy (Paul) who we did our walkthrough with, who was also the same gentleman we sat down with and made our original selections, was awesome and helpful as usual. 

Is it just me, or does one not hear guardian and envision something or someone different, then the "low voltage" folk?

These guys?

Maybe someone like this guy?

Or even this?

Definitely not this:

But I digress, the walkthrough was short and sweet. In our case, possibly because we hadn't selected but so much, it was essentially just a confirmation of which walls did we want the various low voltage outlets (hdmi, coaxial, usb, ethernet) on and where did we want our speaker pre-wires.

We selected 4 speakers or 2 room packages I believe. Two are split between the morning room and kitchen, as in, 1 in each, centered along a line. And the other two will be on above the nearest window sills along the same wall as our family room TV. After we determined where they would be placed, we walked into each room where we asked for a low voltage outlet, and specified which wall they would be placed on. 

That process was surprisingly a little tense I felt like. Mainly because you have to picture where you'll want your bed or viewing angle, or desk to be, without any actual furniture! And then sort of live with it. Granted, you can one day go back and rip out or snake cables through the wall at your discretion, but I'm more of a "put thought into it the first time and live with it" individual.

In any event, it gave us the first official opportunity to walk the house and go up and down our stairs (temporary ones) and go into each room. And it was uber exciting!!!! I'll throw some of the pictures beneath.

Keenan, walking the earth. Dreaming of mowing all this grass soon

End of our property line looking towards the house

Shout out to Lot 13!

Master bedroom. You can see the hints of the trey ceiling

Master bedroom looking out the sitting room window

What will one day be our closet...or really, Ashley's closet...

Standing in the kitchen and looking into the family room

Morning Room

The roof! The roof! The roof is...

Ryan Homes started installing our roof!



I will confess, blogging, with any sort of frequency and relative content, is more work then I imagined. Between work, kids, actually having to check on the home site, and then making time to report back on progress (or lack thereof), it's well, a LOT (13...see what I did there?)

We don't need no water let the !@#$ burn! Sike...don't do that. Please don't

Ashley doesn't like the hip roof as much I do. But she does like having a roof, so I guess there's that medium ground :)

But what does she know :) 

Side profile shot

The good ole back of the house. You can see the morning room and family room

What is this hip roof you speak of? One might ask, well, good question!
According to good ole wikipedia:
A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus it is a house with no gables or other vertical sides to the roof. A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid.



To whom it may concern, there are actually (and obviously), pros and cons to the roof choice of your new construction. Some of which can be found summarized here: http://www.roofcalc.net/top-15-roof-types-and-their-pros-cons/

In any event, the house is inching faster and faster into feeling like a home!

The Guardian (low-voltage wiring) appointment

Our Guardian appointment was with the HS Technology group, who are in responsible for helping you decide on the wiring for your new homes' audio, networking, cable, and security needs.
As an electrical engineer, I stem from a breed of folk who tend to be O.C.D. about, well, electricity and wiring, IT, and home networks, etc.. I'm also (no surprise) a gamer (when life allows), and to that extent, so is my youngest son.

Between us two heavy internet users, along with the world of streaming, and two plus other people in the house, let's just say I had specific ideas on how we'd set up our dream home and man cave for optimal efficiency! After reading other bloggers' posts about the Guardian appointment and their experience, I had somewhat of an idea of what to expect and what they actually could and would do.

So while I sort of was hoping for them to help me achieve something like this:

What I thought of when envisioning the Guardian appointment

At the end of the appointment, it turned out to be something more along the lines of this:

Much better idea then what I had in mind, and way more cost efficient

As mentioned, I'd be as transparent as possible with prices, and thus here's a link to the pamphlet that was sent to me: Ryan Homes: Low-voltage pricing

In an ideal world, with unlimited money, I would have had HST do a lot more. After all, they showed us a room they've done that looks like this:

It's actually more impressive in person

That's not to mention what's in store when you walk into their bathroom (also, equally impressive!!!).

Well, we went into the meeting with somewhat of a very reasonable budget and idea of what we wanted to do in each of the 4 major categories as we saw them:

1. TV placement
2. Home Audio
3. Networking
4. Home Security

After arriving at our appointment, we were greeted by Paul, who was, fantastic as a consultant. If there was a rating sheet or survey for him, he'd get a 10/10. No pushiness. Nice order and flow to helping him walk through each of the major categories. And he took the time to explain what can and can't be done, including an extended tutorial of helping Ashley visualize where the wires went when it came to TV mounting!

Ashely before meeting with Paul

When it was all said and done, due to budgetary constraints, we selected the following:

• 2 HDTV pre-wires (family room and master bedroom)
• 3  CAT6 outlets
• 6 RG6 (cable) outlets (1 for each bedroom and one for the family room)
• 1 pair of speakers in the family room
• 1 pair of speakers in the kitchen

The rationale behind our selections went something like:

• Let's get the TV mounted over the fireplace in the family room and master bedroom. In my mind, we're just paying them to hide the cords. In the other rooms, we'll just have to be clever about TV and wire placement.
• CAT6 outlets in the family room, master bedroom, and living room (which will become my study)
• Cable outlets in each room
• Since we wanted speakers (or at least the wiring) in the family room, it made sense to also get speakers in the kitchen so people (and the morning room I suppose) don't or won't have to ear hustle to hear what's going coming out of the family room speakers!
• Editors note: I think, We elected to have the router placed in the basement as a central location from which we can route the LAN cables to the family room, MBR, and office. I just can't remember if it's there in the basement, or upstairs in the living room (office)

We left the meeting under budget, and feeling good about our selections. I need to clear one or two things up (such as where exactly did I have the router placed?) and whether we get in wall/ceiling speakers. However, those are things that can be addressed at pre-drywall!