Week 10

23 more days!  This week has been exciting.  I drove by earlier this week and there were boxes in the garage, so I took a peek (and I didn't go in, lol)!  Doors and cabinets! YAY!

 

 

Our deck went up this week.  I think at some point we will make it bigger, but it will do for now.  It’s definitely 100 times better than some things I’ve seen.

 

 

 

 

Here is our kitchen!  It’s all coming together.  I love the cabinets (maple cognac).  I think they look great.  So much space for all of my wine glasses....and other things that go in the kitchen.  Can’t wait to see how everything looks with our granite and appliances. 

 

 

We also have paint!  I’m so glad they don’t paint the walls white.  We don’t plan on painting until after our 10-month, so I'm glad it's a nice beige color.  I know a lot of people paint as soon as they move in, but I'm too nervous!  I already hate painting enough as it is, and I’m not interested in doing any touch ups due to nail pops, cracks, or other house settling stuff. 
 

 

Oh and we have a garage door and 2 out of 3 columns! One was cracked, so it's on the way!  I absolutely love this elevation.  

 

So what's next?  Driveway and walkway, bathroom tile, plumbing and lighting, granite, and I'm sure a lot more stuff that I can't remember.  I feel like a kid on Christmas morning! 

Early Week 9.....They are watching us!

Ryan Homes that is!  Yup, they read our blogs.   Am I the only one who didn’t realize this?!! LOL! Guess that was really naïve of me.

How did I find this out?  My PM….in a meeting we had today.  I greatly appreciate my PM calling me to have a meeting after my request and after he read my blog.  While my Week 8 post wasn’t the happiest post, it was honest and how I felt.  After our meeting today, I do feel better.  He explained the water on the floor….a long explanation but a plumber came out to make sure there were no leaks.  He explained that wood that looked all crazy on the porch….they use that wood for nailing the vinyl stuff.   He explained all the workings of drywall and let us walk in the house to take a look.  We also discussed the trim above and around the windows….hopefully they can remain white.  It just looks SOOOOO much better.   

I’m not happy that I’ve been banned from the house without our PM.  I hate that policy.  I really do think that at this point in construction we should be able to visit our sites as long as no one is working.  While I do understand it’s a liability issue, it does put a damper on the excitement of building a new home.   It’s my house that we are building, but it’s not MY house.

So what’s coming up?  Garage, columns, drive way, and paint.

We are still set for a closing date of February 20^th!  Exactly 30 days away!  Wow time has flown by.  It seems like yesterday that I was driving by our empty lot wondering when they were going to finally start!

Here are some pictures of our walk thru today. 

Dining room and living room

 

Family Room

 

 

Kitchen

 

 

Morning room

 

Bedroom

 

Master

 

Bedroom

Week 8

This week was a busy week for our Naples.  There is a lot to talk about so this post will be LONG…..

After our pre-drywall meeting our PM told us the following time line for this week:  Insulation would go in on Saturday and siding and drywall would go in on Monday.  He also said the concrete in our garage would go in at some point this week. 

Since a lot of things will be happening to the inside of our house I told our PM that I wanted to start meeting weekly to see the progress.  Our PM told us at our pre-construction meeting that we were never to enter the house without him.  We honestly have followed his instructions and stayed out of the house.   Since my husband and I both work, I told our PM that we would not be able to meet until 4:00pm or later for our meetings.  Our PM wasn’t too excited about this and FINALLY gave us permission to go into the house after hours and on the weekends.  Note that I have taken full advantage of his offer!

So on Monday, I went to the house to see what was going on!  Insulation had been installed.  There was one minor problem….that leak that I talked about last week was still there.  I brought it up to our PM and he basically said that everything will be perfect before we move in.  No drywall.

 

Tuesday, I drove by the house and they had started working on the siding!  They had completed the back and sides of the house.  They work really fast! Still no drywall. 

 

Here are some cell phone pictures....

 

 

We had a snow day on Wednesday so I didn’t stop by the house.

Thursday they had started putting the siding on the front of the house.  The concrete for the garage had also been poured.  It all looks really nice.  Since no one was working, I decided to take a little tour of the house.  Our drywall had been delivered and was sitting on the floor in all of the rooms.  Now, back to that leak….you know the one in the kitchen???  Well someone thought it would be a good idea to put our drywall on that leak and now water was leaking on the drywall.  I also noted another spot in the kitchen where water was leaking from an above pipe.  As I was leaving, I noticed something going on with some of the wood in the roof of our porch.  I took pictures of the leaks and the porch and sent them to our PM…I’m documenting everything.  There is no way you will say I didn’t tell you or that you didn’t know! 

 

 

Here is the first leak and drywall

 

2nd leak:

 

 

 

 

Here is the porch thing I was talking about....what's the deal with that separated wood by the recessed light? 

 

 

Well here we are today….Friday!!  I have played phone tag all day with my PM and have sent him another email, to which I expect no response and I’m sure I won’t get a phone call until Monday at this point (did he forget about that little survey at the end of this experience?).  Our siding is done and it looks really nice.  I am pleased with mostly everything.  I just really wish Ryan Homes would do something better than the tiny samples they give you to pick out colors for an entire house!  Now that we can see the colors on a much larger scale, we actually like the white trim that is currently on the house.  We originally picked beige trim.  We think it will be too much beige in the end if they paint everything beige.  Since we were at the house we visited our SR at the model and he basically told us since our garage door is beige that the trim has to be beige.  He also said that after we close we can paint it any color since we don’t technically have an HOA (another post for another day).   So my question is this….if we can paint it after we close, why can’t you just keep it white like we want??!?!?!?  Well I emailed our PM again….and of course you know how that goes. 

Here is the siding with some white trim:

 So let’s rewind to earlier today….I was thinking about the house and wondering why drywall hadn’t gone up.  I remember my PM stating that there were some inspections that were supposed to happen this week and then a light bulb went off!  We must have failed an inspection L

After some research on my counties inspection website, I found out why we had a delay.  They failed the counties framing inspection.  This is disappointing for a couple of reasons.  1) Our PM never said anything about this failed inspection 2) Our personal inspection happened minutes before the counties inspection and the only thing our inspector noted was some water under the house.  Now I know our personal inspector might not check for the same things as the county inspector, but it is still disappointing.   They finally passed the framing inspection on Wednesday….the drywall was delivered on Thursday….and WE FINALLY HAVE DRYWALL TODAY!

 

Living room looking into dining room

Family Room

 

Kitchen

Morning Room

 

 

I’ve been reading RH blogs since before we signed our contract in September and there is one complaint that is pretty consistent amongst a lot of bloggers…..the quality of the drywall job is pretty bad.  I know nothing about drywall and the process, but I did note some things when I walked through our house this afternoon.  There are several places where the drywall just doesn’t look good.  I know we are in the beginning phases and there are several more steps, but I’m starting to wonder if we will be another blog that has drywall issues.  Should there be gaps in the drywall?  I know they use mud and tape to make it smooth and look seamless, but won’t gaps show as the house is settling?  This is another item added to the list of topics for our PM. 

Here are some pictures of what I'm talking about....

 

Remember that wood on the porch roof?  Well this was put up today, so I guess I’ll never know if it was actually fixed. 

 

Oh, in one of my many emails to our PM I asked if our closing date would be pushed back since drywall was delayed.  In a voicemail he said that we are still set for February 20^th.   Is that date even possible at this point?  He even told us that it was 5 weeks to closing AFTER drywall was complete.  We are exactly 5 weeks to closing today….and drywall started TODAY!

OOOOOH, and one more thing.  We did receive our official letter about our new home orientation and closing….our new home orientation is scheduled for February 19^th and closing for the 20^th.   Isn’t that too close?  What if we see things during our new home orientation?  They will have no time to fix things before we close.  I emailed our closing person and they said they would see if they can move the orientation back, but it’s pretty much set in stone. 

Wow, I told you this would be long!

 

 

Week 7....pre-drywall, interest rates, and closing dates

We had our pre-drywall meeting today!  We walked around and took lots of pictures.  They’ve added some moldings to the outside of the house.  I love our elevation!  Everything looked great.  I did realize today that we have A LOT of lights, which is a good thing.  I didn’t realize there were so many recessed lights already included in the house.   Since the attic access is in the loft and our ceiling fan pre-wire had to be changed to two recessed lights, our PM moved that pre-wire to our living room which was a nice surprise. 

During our walk through, I did notice a couple of things.  The good news, our missing window was finally installed!  We were a little worried they would start drywall without that window.  The bad news,  water on the floor from an above pipe.  Our PM tried to explain that it wasn’t a leak….ummmm, ok.  Our shower is/was full of water and ice.  Our PM said they were making sure the pipes weren’t leaking before drywall goes up next week.  There is water on the floor in the family room and a pipe with water coming from it.  How is it not a leak?!?!  We will definitely be keeping an eye on that.

We have the biggest lot in our community which was a major blessing.  The day that we signed our contract our SR took us out to the lot, but there was a huge mound of dirt on it so it was hard to really see what was considered ours.  Today, our PM took us to walk our lot and it is HUGE!  I’m excited that our kids will have a big yard to play in and that we will have space to entertain and do other projects.  We have a lot of ideas for the back yard, but those will come after I decorate the inside of the house!  Here is a picture from the back yard and an updated picture of the house.

 

Our back yard!

Updated picture of our house!

 

 

In other news, I received a call from our loan officer today saying that we were set to lock our interest rate!  I really didn’t expect to hear from him so soon.  Then he dropped a bomb…..our closing date has been moved to February 20^th.  I was in a state of shock, because we had just left our PM who said NOTHING about this change.  We were still under the impression that we would be closing the first week in March.  Our PM did tell us that after dry-wall goes up it would be 5 weeks until closing.  He told us that dry-wall would take about two weeks/10 days.  After looking at a calendar, this would put us closing the last week in February.    So I got off the phone with our loan officer and called our PM who confirmed this new date.   So we had our pre-drywall, locked our interest rate, and got a new closing date today….WHEW!  It seems like things are really flying by now! 

Our PM said that insulation will be going in tomorrow.  Dry-wall and siding will start next week!

Pre-Drywall Inspection

We had our personal inspection today and it went well.  The inspector arrived and got started before our PM got there.  I don’t understand why my PM doesn’t want anyone in the house without him, but I’m glad our inspector went on in and got started.   I’m happy to say that our inspector only found one thing that will hopefully clear itself. 

 

My family currently lives in a 12 year old Ryan Home that we didn’t build.  There are so many things that were not done correctly with our current home that it would not be smart for us to go without our personal inspector. Thankfully, we haven’t had any major issues, but the quality of work was definitely not a priority.  I’m on the board for our HOA and the stories people have about building with Ryan are crazy.   While this was 12 years ago and I do think that Ryan is making a better effort, I would 100% recommend that everyone get inspections during various points in this process just to protect yourself.   

When speaking with our inspector he did say that he usually doesn’t see many problems with pre-drywall, but problems with the finishes that are put in the house…..issues with drywall and various installations.   We most definitely will be using him again before closing and before our 1-year warranty expires.

Week 6

There wasn't much of anything new this week.  We did get to go inside the house finally!  Of course that was very exciting! 

We will have our pre-drywall meeting this Friday!  We also will have our personal inspection on Wednesday....let's hope they have been doing a great job on our house and he doesn't come with a list of items.

Here are some pictures from our visit!

 

Living Room

 

Dining Room

 

Family Room.....window is still missing.  PM said the window leaning against the wall was too small.

 

Kitchen

 

Morning Room

 

My favorite window!

 

Kids Bathroom

 

Loft with our attic access.  We requested the access be moved from the bedroom to the other side of the wall.  Our PM put it in the middle of the loft.....we were supposed to have a ceiling fan pre-wire here.  Since we can't have that, he agreed to do two recess lights on each side of the door.