My First Frustration

Okay - pictures - I have good reason for my delays! I have them all taken - they just need uploaded and added on here and I hope to do that in the next couple of days.

I do have quite a few updates, though. I cannot believe we have a yard. Sure, it's a little patchy here and there and we're still going to seed-over at the end of the month, but we are very, very impressed with what came of the hydroseed sprayed by Ryan Homes. In fact, my husband has had to mow two times already!

We have come across several things here and there that needed tended to by Ryan Homes. At our 3-week review our PM walked through the house with us, going over everything that I had noted that needed touched up, fixed, etc. There were no questions asked at all and he was more than happy to schedule the appropriate parties to fix what needed fixed. Here is an idea of what was on our list:

• Stain needed touched up on stair banister
• Dents in hardwood slats by basement
• Scratches in hardwood in half bath
• Laundry room door not latching
• Fridge door swings open super fast - needs adjusting
• Screw holes needed patched and painted on the exterior of the slider in the morning room from where the safety gate had been prior to getting our deck built
• Microwave vent won't turn off, so we had to unplug the microwave
• Garage door working intermittently

Almost everything is scheduled for the 27th of this month to be fixed. This includes the flooring company coming back out to replace the slats that are either scratched or dented. We ended up having to call GE Appliances about the microwave. A tech was out within two days and had the part needed shipped to our house via FedEx and is coming back to replace it. The garage door company was out last week but couldn't get it fixed. They think there may be an issue with the outlet that the opener is plugged in to, and suggested we have the electrician look at it. Our PM was at the house today with the electrician and I don't have an update on this yet. I hope it's fixed.

Since these things are being handled quite efficiently (the delay until the 27th was our choice due to our inavailability), I am not frustrated with them.

But there is one thing I am frustated with.

This past weekend, even those of us in Northeast Ohio felt the strength of Hurricane Earl as he brought 45-55 mph winds through the area. My husband and I laid down for bed Friday night and you could have easily convinced me there were people right above us in the attic moving around ... or hanging off the side of the house right above our heads, pulling siding off. We can't exactly explain it, but I can say that it was LOUD. Loud enough that we were able to pick up the sounds easily on our phone's voice recorders so we could play it to our PM. Granted, I know the winds were strong, but never in my life have I been in a house - let alone a NEWLY constructed house - and heard noise like this. Then it happened again Saturday night. And again Tuesday night. Friday and Saturday I may have been willing to give a free pass to because the wind was very rare and strong ... but Tuesday night was nothing out of the ordinary. My husband even went up into the attic at one point to make sure everything looked intact - it was THAT loud.


So today when the PM came by for the garage door, my husband was going to talk to him about this. I am very, very curious to hear how this conversation went. I honestly don't know what they could do - but I do know that it makes it almost impossible to sleep in there when it is going on. So we shall see ... this is definitely my first large frustration.

Green Beginnings!

Landscapers arrived last Thursday (which was 9 days after receiving our keys, for those of you curious) to re-grade our yard, spray the hydroseed, and lay our front mulch beds. It was a pretty funny sight that evening; there are five of us that had our landscaping done that day and everyone was out in their 'yard', fiddling with hoses and sprinklers, getting the seed as wet as possible as we're all anxious to have some grass growing. We were fortunate at the old house to never need to water the lawn ... and we hadn't yet come across our two garden hoses ... so my husband quickly ran to Home Depot and spent close to $70 on two hoses and two sprinklers, one of each for the front and back yards. What we wish we had known was that the very next morning there would be a really nice 75' garden hose and fancy sprinkler left on our front porch by the landscapers. Darn it - would have been nice to save that money. So just a heads up - you may want to hold off just 12 short hours after your lawn is sprayed, as you'll most likely receive this as well (maybe check with your PM to make sure).



The landscapers told us not to have super high expectations from the hydroseed, but to keep it watered morning and night in order to get the most out of it as possible. Last night I was walking down the driveway and when I looked closely, I was able to see a few little strands of grass here and there. I called to my husband to see it - the beginnings of our lawn! Well lo and behold, I am not sure what exactly happened overnight, but this morning when I stepped into the garage from the house and put the garage door up, I could see grass slivers everywhere! It's like the amazing, growing grass! I am sure that we'll have to still re-seed mid-September ... and we're still a ways away from actually having a yard full of grass, but this was some major progress and I am impressed!

I've Been MIA ...

I've been DYING to get on here to blog and post updates since our official move-in, etc.  We are still without phone and internet service at the house and will be without it until this Friday, so I'll be doing a LOT of catch up with pictures, etc. at that point.

We're all in and pretty well settled with the exception of a few more boxes to plow through.  It is really starting to feel like home and I am absolutely loving the house.  I do have several topics to write more on, which I'll do this weekend, but I think some of it will be good tips and advice for those of you going through this process.  We've already come across some lessons learned, albeit rather minor.  Here are the top three topics I want to make sure that I remember to talk more in depth about:

1. Guardian - Advice if you purchased surround sound pre-wiring, security system, and/or outdoor speakers
2. Unpacking process
3. Yard installation (hydroseeding and mulch)

Can't wait to blog more soon!

Keys, Keys, Keys!!

This afternoon we'll receive the call that we've counted down to for three months now - KEYS!  I was just looking back at my calendar and saw that we listed our old house for sale back on March 13th.  It will have been exactly five months to the day when we officially move into our house this Friday.  That's incredible to me.  In five month's time we have listed a house, sold a house, and built a house.  Extreme Makeover Home Edition has nothin' on us!  :)

I meant to mention this in my Pre-Settlement posting yesterday.  I am a nut about child-proofing our home and I am sure this is a little gadget that all moms are all too familiar with:

Seeing as how I feel that the number of outlets in this house is about 4-5 times the number we had in the old house, I stocked up on this outlet protectors the other day.  While they're really pretty cheap, I was relieved to hear yesterday that I can return them, and save the energy of plugging them in to all the outlets in the house!  The outlets that Ryan Homes now use have this little wall behind the opening for the outlet prongs.  The ONLY way that this 'wall' will open up is if both of them are pressed on at the same time, as it would be if you were legitimately plugging something in.  So no little fingers can go where they shouldn't!  This is brilliant to me.  My joke was that we're now safe with outlets unless my daughter gets ahold of TWO knives!  Anyhow, I love this, as I always hated scratching up outlet covers when the time to remove a plug came around.

Closing Day!

Happy Closing Day to us!!  This morning our paper chain officially has one link remaining - and that one will disappear tomorrow when we receive our keys and officially own our new home!

This morning we had our Pre-Settlement meeting with our project manager.  This meeting took exactly two hours and we were given a LOT of information during that time.  Information such as specifics about appliances, the AC and heating, hot water tank, fireplace, warranties, who to call when, what specific cleaners to use on what, etc.  As we walked room-to-room, we noticed a few more things that needed to be touched up and our project manager was happy to say he'd get right on them and they'd be fixed by tomorrow.  They were all minor things, such as:

- A little paint on the carpet of the master closet
- A chip in the door trim on the inside of the master bathroom
- A smude of paint on the handrail on the stairs
- Etc.

A couple things that I learned we need to do that I didn't realize, for whatever reason:
- Concrete sealant.  We have to apply a concrete sealant to our driveway, garage floor, walkway to front door and front stoop.  This is to keep away the absorption of water.  It is very important we do this before freezing season begins.  I have no idea what this will cost, but do know that you simply roll it onto the concrete with a paint roller. 

- Grout sealer.  I had just assumed this would be done by Ryan homes, but it isn't.  It isn't a huge deal and I plan to head to the house tomorrow night and do this myself while my husband is handling larger jobs.  We need to seal the kitchen, morning room, laundry room, and master bathroom.  Not a huge deal.

All in all we are absolutely, 100% thrilled and content up to this point.  I cannot believe that this is OUR home.  Even today I kept trying to convince myself of that, but kept falling back into the feeling that I was simply walking through a model or someone else's home.  I cannot wait to start getting our things moved in and settling down - just one more day until that begins to happen!

This afternoon we will drive out to the mortgage office and sign our papers.  Tomorrow, early afternoon, we should receive the call that our keys are ready to be picked up!  At that point we'll head directly to the house (with both cars already loaded) and start getting some little things unloaded and the painter will meet us there as well to get his work started.  On Wednesday we have several deliveries lined up as well as Dish Network coming out to install a new dish and set up our cable. 

It is really taking all of my will power not to try and convince my hubby to go to Home Depot and rent their $19.95 truck so that we can grab our mattresses from storage and just camp out in the new house prior to our formal move-in of this Friday!! 

I took a lot of pictures today - some of which will probably look like repeats - so please bear with me.

Morning room.

Kitchen

Living room

Living room, into dining room

Looking down the upstairs hallway.

Upstairs full bath.

Master bedroom.

Master bathroom.

Basement, looking into playroom.(In the Florence model this is typically unfinished storage, but Ryan Homes allowed us to do some minor customization by finishing the area and adding the French doors.  We still have a LOT of storage space left!

Basement, looking into playroom.

Basement.

Basement full bath.

Basement, looking back at full bath and under-stair storage.

Playroom, looking into additional storage.

Playroom!  (I am DYING to get my hands on the setup and decorating of this room!)

Playroom, looking out into living room.

This pretty much sums up how we ALL feel - so excited that we want to do somersaults!

Our Dates are Finalized!

We are less than a week away from our closing!  It feels as though this will be the longest week of all throughout the entire process, due to our extreme excitement. 

• Monday. 8/9:  Pre-Settlement meeting with our project manager; Sign closing papers with mortgage company
• Tuesday, 8/10:  Receive keys!

Movers aren't coming to our house until Friday, so in the days in between we'll have the painters coming in, deck and patio guys doing their thing, and we'll be unpacking some boxes that we've had here at my in-law's house.  All of the new furniture we ordered as well as the washer and dryer will be delivered earlier in the week as well.  Things are finally coming together!

My only piece of advice at this point in the game for those of you going through this process is to really communicate at this point and don't wait for your sales rep or PM to communicate with you.  We weren't getting a completely clear answer as to when we'd get our keys versus sign our closing papers.  Our sales rep said keys on Wednesday, but our PM said keys on Tuesday.  This was an important detail to us since we had painters and contractors to schedule.  After asking our sales rep again, she said some people get keys on the day that they sign the papers, some don't - at that point it is more up to the mortgage company.

After hearing that, we decided to just contact our mortgage company ourselves and ask.  Turns out they provided us with a phone number and contact name and told us we had to call and schedule a meeting time to sign all of our papers.  We would have never known this had we not taken control of the situation.  I'd hate to think that maybe we could have been delayed had we not taken this step.  So when you get to this point, just make sure to over communicate.

We Have Carpet!

This evening's visit to the house revealed that all the carpet has been installed.  I am so very happy with our selections.  I took pictures, but am running out of steam tonight, so I'll get those uploaded tomorrow. 

All that remains left to be done are shutters, gutters, a small bit of siding on the side of the house, fridge, microwave and stove set in place (they are currently sitting in the morning room), and our French doors to the playroom installed.  Other than that, just cleaning and the remaining 'punch outs' by our PM.

I've left a message for our Guardian rep this evening and am hoping to hear from him tomorrow.  In the living room we opted to have them do wiring for us to hang a television on the fireplace and then run all the component cables, as well as speaker wires into the hallway closet, where we're be placing all components up on a shelf (I completely prefer things hidden rather than making an area look cluttered).  I expected to open the closet and see speaker wire tied off, but instead I found myself staring at what appears to be a LOT of component jacks, labeled 'front speakers', 'rear speakers', 'subwoofer', etc.  No wire to be seen.  I am just a bit confused as to how we will hook this up to our home theater receiver, as I've always connected straight speaker wire.  Maybe I am just completely missing something here or someone out there reading this can help me out.  If not, I hope Guardian has an answer for me in the morning.

One of the people across the street from us appeared to be moving in this evening.  They are in the house that was always just about two weeks ahead of us ... and that still seems to be right on track, as we'll receive our keys in just thirteen days.

Time to go rip another link off of the paper chain ...

Two Weeks to Go ...

Why do I feel like these two weeks are going to just creep by painfully and slowly?  It is as though we're so close that it hurts.  On the very last day in our old house, I made a chain of paper links - the type we all made back in grade school to count down to a special holiday - to count down to when we should be in the house.  When I created that chain it had seventy-three links on it. Now just fourteen links remain.

Kevin and I both agree that we're most likely going to stop by the house every single day from here on out.  Tonight when we stopped, workers were still hard at work, installing siding and painting the exterior door frames and column on the front porch.  When we were in the house a few days ago, we made notes of all of the 'imperfections' that we saw - a ding in the wall, a smudge of paint on the ceiling, etc.  Today when we walked through, all of those areas (and more) had already been fixed.  This is what Ryan Homes calls their 'Punchout week'.  Technically it begins next week, but it is when the Project Manager goes through the house, scouring it for marks, dings, and anything that keeps it from being perfect for the homeowner to move into. 

Oh - and that kitchen hardware?  I actually love it.  I spoke too quickly last time, without seeing it with the stainless steel appliances.  It compliments them and the sink beautifully and I am glad we didn't mention anything to the project manager afterall.

I have new pictures to share and I can't stop looking at them tonight.  It still feels as though I am looking at someone else's home, or just walking through a model.  I still cannot fully comprehend and wrap my mind around the fact that this is going to be "our" home.  Our dream home.  My dream family.

One Piece of Advice ...

Our meetings last night went really well. We're pleased with what the patio guy can do and the price he can do it for. He has asked us to check with our PM about the dirt in the back of the house once it comes time to grade the land. He would like to come and place stakes where the patio will be and ask them not to touch any of that dirt - otherwise we're going to have to end up paying for dirt to be brought back in and built back up. Definitely not something we want to have to do. So we have that call to make.

The painter should be emailing me today with his final quote. He would start the very evening that we get the keys (Tues or Weds) and be finished by Saturday evening. We're happy to hear this.

All of the trim is up in the house now as well as painted, and all doors have been painted but not hung. Our cabinets were in place in the kitchen and look beautiful. One is damaged, but I am not going to worry about that right now, as I assume they'll be replacing it without me saying a word. I'll follow up, of course, but not going to let it worry me.

A current piece of advice for those of you going through the selection process for your colors, upgrades, etc is to document everything. Even the little details that you don't think will matter or that you're sure you'll remember. So much happens that you most likely will not remember. Specifically, I am bringing this up because of the hardware on our kitchen cabinets, as we believe it is wrong. Kevin and I both specifically remember saying that we wanted oil rubbed bronze hardware and this would make sense, seeing as how all of our light fixtures, door fixtures, and bathroom hardware is oil rubbed bronze. The hardware is brushed nickel, which I personally am not a fan of.
 
I went through EVERY piece of paperwork last night looking for something to show that we wanted the oil rubbed bronze, but it looks like right now all we have is our memory of it. I am not sure how well that will hold up when bringing this to our PM's attention. Worst, worst case, we go to Home Depot and pick out our own hardware and replace, but we definitely would rather have them put it on with no additional expense to us. I'll let you know the outcome.

Meetings Today

We are heading to the house after work today - I can't wait to see what was done over two days of time.  We're guessing that we either have a driveway and sidewalks, or all of our cabinets are installed.  We shall see!

We have a meeting with the patio guy first.  We are pretty sure we're going to go with a Flagstone patio off of the deck, but want him to actually see the property and talk about the actual dimensions.

Secondly we meet with the painter.  We received our first estimate last week.  It was higher than what we thought it would be, but then again, we've never used a professional painter, so maybe our expectations were just unrealistic.  We want him to actually see the house and what we'd need done and are hoping that the quote will come down as a result.

Of course, I'll be posting new pictures this evening!  Just think - three weeks from today we get our keys!

Pretty Impressive

I know I've probably over-used that phrase during this process with Ryan Homes, but I really have been pretty impressed with a lot of things by them.  I was just going back and reading through old posts - to see where my emotions were in the beginning of this, etc. 

I came across this post, where we had just picked out all of our colors.  This post was written after a meeting we had on April 18th.  That was exactly three months ago from today and even on that date, Ryan Homes had given us an estimated date of taking possession of our house on August 11th.  And what is the date they are telling us now?  August 11th. 

Pretty impressive estimating to me.

Paint Colors and Master Bath

We stopped out at the house this morning to walk my in-law's through it, as they hadn't been there since the first few days of framing.  We walked upstairs and were so excited to see the tile surrounding the bathtub and for the shower walls had been installed!

Additionally, ALL of the tile that had just been installed yesterday is now grouted and complete.  Ah-maz-ing.

Picking things out for the house - the upgrades, appliances, furniture, flooring - has been such an easy process for Kevin and I.  We have really agreed very easily on everything so far.  I wasn't sure that picking paint colors would go as smoothly, but I was pleasantly surprised!  This morning we finally decided on our final colors and we are thrilled about them!

Here we go:

From left to right (shown on our carpet sample):

Morning Room and Half Bath color - Rustic Adobe

Main floor (minus morning room and half bath), all of upstairs (minus bedrooms) and basement - Croissant

Master Bathroom - Travertine

Master Bedroom- Beach House

Of course, the picture doesn't show the true, true color, but you can get a feel for the neutral look we're going for.  All trim throughout the house is white, which is why I've laid the white paint sample across the bottom, to show the accent.

Okay ... We Love It.

We drove past the house just after noon today to show our nephews and niece where we'd be living.  Again, I continue to be amazed at the speed of the work done.  The two houses across from us were getting their driveways poured!  And ours?  The brick is almost DONE!  Okay ... now I get why we were too late in the process to change to stone.  And you know what?  WE LOVE IT.

Additionally, while we were there, the GE guy pulled up and was taking appliances into the house right next door to us.  I have to imagine that he had ours on his truck, too.  Exciting!  We could see a lot of drywall had already been completed, but didn't want to get in the way of the masonry work, so we just tried to see what we could from the road.  We'll go peek through windows tomorrow!

I called our sales rep on my way out of the development just to tell her that we are very, very happy with how the brick looks. 

Redemption!

After playing phone tag with the Ryan Homes sales rep yesterday afternoon (no response to my email because that was to our specific sales rep, who was off work yesterday), Kevin and I decided to just drive out after work and discuss the stone situation in person. I was all ready to state my case, why it is only fair to provide us this option now, etc. etc ... and then to my surprise (and extreme pleasure), it was as simple as asking.


Me: "We noticed this morning that the house across the road has had stone installed on their exterior. We originally wanted stone, but were told that it wasn't an option. Our brick has been delivered and is to be installed Friday. Any chance that we can change to stone at this point?"


Rep: "Absolutely - let me just double check it's available for your model and then we can have you guys sign paper work. My manager just needs to give the okay, but as long as he does, the change can be done".

What?! It was that easy? Ryan Homes, redeemed! Glad that I only had to deal with about 8 hours of being upset about something - now I am thrilled! We are still waiting for the official phone call this morning that the manager gave his okay, but we cannot think for any reason at all why they wouldn't. And the price difference wasn't bad at all. Maybe that is because I was just expecting a lot more, but it was a $700 difference. Totally worth it, in my opinion, since this was our ideal preference and a part of the house we would never change once built.

What a Difference a Day Makes

My last post contained pictures that were taken last Wednesday after work - the framing of the first floor of the house was complete.  For kicks, we stopped back by the house the very next day and were amazed.  Absolutely amazed.  I've heard that the building process for Ryan Homes is a well-oiled machine, and so far I am a big believer.  TWO days to frame an entire house, start to finish?  That is incredible!

Our project manager has been calling us faithfully every week with updates, which is very nice - and I guess that I would have this expectation anyhow.  He called Friday morning.  On Friday they were pouring the concrete in the basement and in the garage.  I was amazed to see that the house is completely framed and then the basement is poured.  I assume there is a very good reason for this, just not sure what it is.  And frankly, I don't care as long as things turn out right in the end, right?

Friday afternoon the plumbing inspector and another inspector would be out to look over things, then he said that the roof would start on Monday.  Well, we stopped out this afternoon, around 2pm, and saw that not only had the roofing started, but it was just about complete.  The men were just finishing up the last part of the morning room.  Again - incredible.  And we were out there Friday night (can you tell we're anxious?), so we know for a fact the roofing didn't begin until this morning.

The rest of this week will be electrical and plumbing work and we'll be meeting with our PM and the Guardian rep next week (day TBD) for our pre-drywall meeting and mark-out meetings, respectfully.  I can't believe that we have just about six weeks to go until we get to move into our home!

It's Starting to Look Like a House!

Wow - it's really starting to look like a house, isn't it?

We stopped out yesterday after work and were very pleased to see this progress. We're going to go out again tonight and again tomorrow afternoon, as we've heard most of the framing is completely done, start to finish, in three day's time. The weather forecast is excellent (other than scorching hot) this week, so I don't see a reason why we'd have delays!!

 

Front of the house

Left hand side.  Bump out is for the fireplace.

Back of the house.  Two living room windows and the morning room.  We'll be adding a two-level deck off of the morning room.  That may be one of our favorite parts of the house - windows on all sides and plenty of natural light.

Peeking through the living room window at our stairs!

Our backyard!  Nothing will be built behind us.  Ahhh, privacy!

Finally, an update!

I am so, so behind on my postings! We broke ground on Friday, May 28th and I've been delightfully surprised at how quickly things are going. That afternoon we drove out to admire our big dirt hole. Knowing that no work would be done over the weekend or on Memorial Day, we didn't drive back out until Wednesday when we were shocked to see this:

Then we just happened to swing out there on Thursday and saw this:

We also met the couple building directly across the street from us. Small world - Kevin went to high school with the girl and graduated with her brother. She and her husband have a 17-month old son and another baby on the way, due in August. They were super sweet and it made us even more excited to get settled in to our new home!

These are two other houses across the street from us, as of last Wednesday. They are about two weeks ahead of us. It blows my mind to realize this is where we should be around Wednesday of next week!

According to the message left by our project manager, this week they will be backfilling around the foundation, and next week they start framing. I understand that the framing is done in an amazingly short 2-3 days. Incredible!

The best piece of news was when I received a phonecall from our sales rep last night. Understanding that things can and do change, she wanted to share that she received the latest production schedule and that we're slated to have a finished house at the very end of July. JULY! I can officially say that "next month" we'll be in our house! Unreal!
We are going to drive out tomorrow after work to see any additional progress. I can't wait!

We've Broke Ground!

We received a phonecall on Friday morning that our basement was going to be dug that day.  As you can imagine, Kevin and I had to restrain ourselves from jumping in the car immediately to watch all the excitement.  We kept ourselves from driving out there until about 2:30pm.  When we got to our lot, the it became very real that we are now proud owners of a huge hole and several piles of dirt!

I assume that no work was done over the holiday weekend, so I am excited to see what happens over the course of this next week!