Special Thanks and Pics

My Ryan Homes experience has been full of ups and downs, but now that we’ve been in our house for over a year, I want to thank some of the people who really did an amazing job!  I’ve also added a few updated pics of what we’ve done in the house.  Enjoy!

First, our sales rep.  Chad was awesome!  He made the beginning of our RH experience very enjoyable and exciting.  He was patient and willing to work with us as first time builders.  He always answered emails, phone calls, texts, whatever.  He never tried to pressure us into anything.  He was always honest and up front with everything.  I can say without a doubt that if I were to call Chad today with a question, he would do anything he could to help us out.   If I could give Chad more than 10s on his survey, he 100% earned them.    If you are in the Richmond, VA area…..find Chad….he is the BEST!

Next up.  MIKE P!  I cannot say enough good things about my service manager and his assistant John.  I know they are so glad that we are out of our 1-year warranty, lol.   Mike is seriously one of the kindest and patient people I have ever met.  When we would be extremely upset, he would make sure he could do everything to ease our frustration.  I don’t know other SM’s, but I can say that Mike is one of the best Ryan Homes has to offer.   He is the #1 example of what a service manager should be.  He seriously goes above and beyond and we are truly thankful that he was who we worked with in our community.  John is one of the hardest working men!  I know that’s his job, but he did great work in our home.  I greatly appreciate being able to work with both of them. 

 

Here are some pictures….I feel like I haven’t posted any in a while.  I'm so excited we will be painting soon!  I can't wait to get rid of these flat paint walls.

Living room

 

 

Dining room

 

Family room

 

Loft/play room

 

 

My little DIY chalk board project!

 

FED UP!

I haven't  blogged in a while and unfortunately, this isn't a loving review of my current situation.....

It’s actually sad to feel this way but after trying time after time to overlook and hope things get better…but NO!  Things have not gotten better and the more time goes on, the more those “Ryan Home Myths” seem to be our reality.

We have been in our home for a little over 1 year. We closed on February 20, 2015 and today is May 9, 2016…

From our poor project manager who came off as a cheap used car salesman only trying to hit a quota to our sad excuse of a NEW HOUSE…I would say NEW HOME, but it doesn’t feel like a home.  It feels like that house on Money Pit...

From day one we have had issues.  Our banisters on our stairs were the wrong color.  He pulls another set from the storage container that are supposed to be close to our stain…better yet he claims they are new.  I mentioned how bad the banisters felt and was told that’s just a product of the material. The finishing’s are not done right they have cracks and chips, but yet again we are just supposed to accept it because that’s how it is.  You know what I think- he had an extra banister laying around from another mix-up so let’s try to pull one over on the new homeowners. As long as he gets his 10’s on his survey everything will get fixed…yeah right…

Next issue…flooring…we have the carpet in the entire upstairs minus the bathrooms and laundry area. Downstairs we have vinyl and carpet.  We have questioned the flooring since the framing stage.  When we noticed nails in the subfloor were not actually in the studs we were told “Oh that’s normal.  That’s why we screw and glue the floors as well”.  From week 1 we have had issues with the floor.  At the top of the stairs we had a crown in the hall between bedroom 2 &3.  Workers came and pulled the carpet up brought in a new piece of plywood and sander to try and fix the area.  The crown is gone but now it’s like a depression…I know it may seem like I’m complaining but as a public school teacher I took a huge risk to go with Ryan Homes and trusted them with my savings and my families future with this investment. 

Our floors to this day are not right…we have pops and creaking in almost every room.  The kitchen, and upstairs bathrooms are the worse.  You can almost bounce on the floors and hear them pop and squeak.  My house sounds like a 100 year old home, yet it’s not even two years old.  The service manager and his team have tried and tried to fix our floors.  They have been in the crawl space trying to shim the joist, they have cut holes in my ceilings trying to fix squeaks upstairs. These guys have put in countless hours trying to get it right…but you know what even they are puzzled as to why our floors are so bad.  I can tell you why…poor project managing…they sub contract out to the cheapest bidder in certain areas and they are trying to meet deadlines as opposed to building quality homes.   

We are so fed up we wish we could just give the home back and move.  I really wish the CEO or COO would come walk my home and tell me that this is an acceptable Ryan Home finished product.  We’ve even been told “we don’t promise you a squeak free home”.  Well you know what a few squeaks might have been ok.  However, it’s quite embarrassing to have people over and when they walk around your NEW HOUSE they stop and ask is everything ok?  Is it ok to walk over here?  It’s just sad and extremely frustrating to put your trust in people and they constantly fail you. We are past our one year walk-thru and our floors are still horrible.   Seams from previous repairs are undone.  Floors still popping, squeaking, cracking…..it’s bad.

What’s next?

Drywall.  So after your first year you get a courtesy drywall repair for nail pops, cracks, bulges etc.  Well let’s just say ours didn’t go well.  Our Naples is 3011sqft…we asked on the day of our walk through would they be sending a crew or just one person.  We were told they would send a crew.  Well they sent one guy and his female assistant.  Neither spoke fluent English, so trying to explain or address our issues wasn’t easy because of the language barrier.  To speed this up…they did NOTHING to repair nail pops.  They scrapped over it and then added putty.  After the putty dried they sanded certain areas and then attempted to paint.  Needless to say after arriving at 8 it was approaching 6:30 and they weren’t close to being done.  But here is the main problem…they used the wrong paint on our home and so therefore it looks like someone played Tetris on our walls and ceiling.  They also left a HUGE mess and missed several spots.   There’s more but honestly I’m just tired of it…Thankfully, the service manager came two days later and was appalled.  He had our house cleaned (which was amazing) and is sending a new TEAM to come work on our drywall.  Hopefully this TEAM doesn’t leave their trash behind for me to clean, they actually REPAIR the nail pops, and they use the correct paint. 

 

Here is the ceiling in my daughters room....See all the paint squares?

 

Some of the spots they missed the first time around.

 

Lastly because honestly I’m just sad and frustrated…yesterday I noticed a stream of water running between my house and the neighbors.  So after looking into I find that a pipe is leaking under my home in the crawl space.  Leaking is an understatement…..Of course I’m worried it’s not covered but plumbing is covered for two years.  I read the manual over and over before calling.  I even had my husband read it when he came home.  All of this to be told oh no it’s not covered by the plumber and Ryan Homes.  The plumber says you must pay $95/hr to get the work done.  I was furious so I called back to Ryan Homes customer service and the gentleman proceeds to try and find any and every way to not cover the repair.  I point out the pages in the homeowner manual where it says it covered.  He puts me on hold to try and find the exclusions.  Then he says he has to call me back so he can go and check somewhere else to prove me wrong.  Thanks again Ryan Homes. Way to make me feel appreciated. NOPE you’re still up to the same tricks…get your money, get through your first year and then kick us to the curb.  The customer service guy calls back 10 minutes later….yeah I can’t find anything to dispute your argument…Really, so I would lie or make this all up?

Dear RYAN HOMES…I really hope you fix your practices and I really hope you fix your customers service. Most of all I really hope you fix our issues!  I really hope you start making your customers feel appreciated and thankful they chose you. Because right now I DON’T.  SAD, MAD, AND FED UP!

10 month review

 

Well it’s been several months since I’ve blogged.  Today was our 10 month review and it went really well.  First, I seriously have the best service manager RH has to offer.  He has gone above and beyond and is always truly genuine.  He will get all 10’s on his survey and guess what!??!  He NEVER mentioned the survey during our time working with him.  I really wish that he was the person we dealt with during our building experience.   He has made us feel a lot better about things that have been done that we knew were not correct.  He is prompt with service calls and answers any questions we have.  Mike, you are AWESOME!

The floors were the biggest item.  There were several spots throughout our home that needed attention.  The issue that I have with the flooring is that a lot of these issues were pointed out during framing.  When we pointed out the nails that didn’t make it into the studs we were told that it was fine because they used glue and screws in addition to the nails.  WRONG!  So note to those in the framing process….if you see nails that were properly placed, say something and have them fix it then.  It’s a lot easier to repair when you aren’t dealing with carpet, vinyl, or whatever flooring you choose.

The yard.  OH the yard.  I’m so tired of this yard.  I put this on my 10 month review and got a phone call about it.  I said there were holes in the front and that the grade in the back STILL is not right.   The holes were supposed to be taken care of and they would take a look at the grade.  The landscapers came out and said they were here to fix holes and the back yard.  I was excited!  Finally, some acknowledgement about the crappy job in the back yard.  As they worked we were told how the grade was incorrect and they were going to fix it.  Then about 15 minutes later we were told they had the wrong house and the back yard wasn’t getting anything.   It would have been nice to know that the landscapers were coming in the first place, but hey they came.   I would love to see some documentation on what the grade is supposed to be between the houses and in the back yard.  I know without a doubt that it is not correct, but it was made “crystal clear” to me that RH would not do anything else to the yard.  As stated in a previous blog post, if the president of RH came to my house there is no way that he would agree that the yard is what it is supposed to be.  NO WAY!

Here are some pictures of our beautiful back yard….or rock garden.  

 

 

 

Other than the yard and floors, we didn’t have anything else really major.  Just some caulking and discussion about drywall.   Now the drywall repair will be a beast.  We have several nail pops and cracks.  Hope they drywall people are prepared for some serious work.   I will blog about that when that time comes.

A Few Tips

So now that I’ve gone through the Ryan Homes experience I think I have some tips for future home buyers and people who are currently building.   I’ve read a lot of blogs and have seen people have amazing experiences and others who’ve dealt with crazy things.  Overall, I’ve enjoyed our experience.  If I were to rate my house I would give it a 7 out of 10…..not too bad.

So here are my tips!

Document your experience

Whether you blog, post pictures on social media, or keep a journal….document this experience.   I do enjoy going back looking at the pictures of our progress.   I’ve used those pictures when certain selections were not correct and having those pictures helped tremendously.

Ask Questions! Speak up! Trust your gut!

During this entire process we asked a ton of questions.  If we didn’t understand something or didn’t like something we made sure to question it.   If you see things that you don’t think are correct, say something!  Don’t assume they will fix it.  If you don’t speak up you might be disappointed later when it’s not right. 

Go in your house!

So as you know, we were banned from going into our house and we were really good about getting permission if we wanted to go in.  If I could do it all over again, I would’ve went into the house ever day during the building process.  I think that not being able to go in the house definitely made me feel like they were trying to hide things (like the hole in our kitchen ceiling).  Why wouldn't you want me to go in my house?  I do feel that if we went inside and looked every day that we would have caught more of the lack of detail that we are currently seeing.  

 

Know all of your options and what you want

When we were looking around at various models we knew what we wanted.  My husband and I looked for a house for at least 18 months before finally signing a contract.  We knew we wanted an open concept, more space, a decent sized yard, and other various details.  When we met with our SR we knew exactly what model we wanted but it wasn’t offered in our community, so we asked and it was approved.   With knowing your options, I suggest you visit various model homes in your area.  This will help you see layouts, granite colors, cabinet options, and all the little things that you think are included but aren’t.   When you visit these places, take pictures and write down the things you love.   Take them back to your SR so you don’t forget!

 

Pay attention to detail

My husband said it best…..our home is good but it is not great.   Our house has the potential to be great and could’ve been great when we closed if they paid attention to detail.  Each contractor comes in and does their job.  Everyone’s job depends on the person who came in and did work before them.  If the first person didn’t do their job correctly, the next contractor is not going to fix that and do their job.  We have trim work in our house that was not cut or measured correctly.  At first glance it looks fine, but when you really look at it, you see that they did a bad job.   We have a running list of items we want fixed before our 1 year warranty is up and we do not feel bad about it.

Inspectors and inspections

A lot of people don’t realize that our homes go through a lot of inspections during the building process.  A lot of people also don’t know that the inspections going on in your house are public record and you can look to see if they pass or not.  While ultimately, all houses must pass all the county inspections before you close, it’s still good to know what’s going on with your house.   Our house failed several inspections before closing.  While I know everything was repaired, it’s still crazy.  We hired our own personal inspector because of all the Ryan Home horror stories and not to mention we were living in a Ryan Home townhouse that had some issues. While our inspector didn’t find anything major, he did find things that needed to be fixed.   I’ve read about other people who have had water issues, termites, and various problems with their home and how they didn’t hire an inspector.  Spend the money and get your own inspector.  This person works for you and not Ryan Homes!

So-called Ryan Homes Starter Lawn...

Hey Folks!  It’s been a while!  We are settling nicely into our new home.  Things are coming along well.  Of course there is a long to-do list of things we want to do to our home, but those things will come in time.

Let’s get down to business…..this will be long.

I am EXTREMELY unhappy with our Ryan Homes “starter lawn”.  I will use that term lightly considering our “starter lawn” is more like a rock garden.  When we closed back in February, our entire yard was covered in snow.  It stayed that way for a few weeks because the snow kept coming!  Finally the snow cleared and we could see our yard.  I’ll start with the front….we got sod in the front and it looked nice from what we could see.  Taking a closer look, our sod is patchy, some of the sod is very thin, and then there are uneven places.  Told PM, he told us to wait until our 10 month.  Fine.

Now let’s talk about the back and side yard.  In our community, we only get sod and irrigation in the front yard.  On the sides, we get what is called a “starter lawn”.  This consists of dirt, grass seed, and hay.   Now we have a really big back yard.  Bigger than what Ryan Homes includes in their grading and starter lawn.  Our lot is unique because before there was a house on our lot, there was a huge mound of dirt.  This dirt was the holding place for a retaining pond on the two lots beside us.  Our lot also has a utility easement which they are currently doing a project.  There are several huge pipes in this area.  Now back in September/October, the pond was filled in with the dirt on our lot and the land was smoothed out.  During the course of our build, I noticed several places where water was collecting on the lot.  Our PM told us that we would have to get those places fixed since it was outside of the 25 feet.  We kept bringing it up, and he kept telling us the same thing.  The problem is, our lot past the 25 feet was disturbed by construction.  Why won’t Ryan Homes fix this issue? 

Now remember, we couldn’t see our starter lawn when we had our walk-thru and when we closed.  When the snow melted, I added our yard to the list of things that needed work.  At that point I noted that there were tons of rocks and construction debris.  I noted several places in our back that were holding water past the 48 hour mark and other things that were not right.  Our PM told us that he would send the landscaping company back out and they would power rake the yard and put down new seed, but we didn’t need hay.  He also told us about how great our back yard would look since we got two rounds of seed.  Sounds good, right?!  I know we were excited!   He also told us that he would talk to the developer about the holes/ponds in the back yard and that they would be fixed.  Well when the landscaping company came back out, something wasn’t right.  One of the guys was riding around on his machine smoothing out the dirt.  Ummmmm…..weren’t we supposed to get a power rake?  So my husband went outside to talk to the guy who said no one told him he was supposed to power rake, but his guys could rake the sides and back by hand.  When they were all done everything looked great and it was raining so that was even better! 

Now, here we are a month later and my yard looks absolutely HORRIBLE!  While I know it takes time to grow and establish a yard from scratch, Ryan Homes should be ashamed of what they consider acceptable.  The amount of rocks in the dirt they put down is unreal!  How is anything supposed to grow with a layer of rocks?!?

 I put in a service request about the yard and waited the 24-48 hours.  No one contacted me.  So I put in another service request with some additional issues with our front and back doors.  My service manager (SM) called back in less than 24 hours and had someone out that day to resolve my issue.  I asked my SM if he was responsible for the yard concerns and he said that my PM was….. My PM called about the yard and left a message.  I called him back and left a message and didn’t hear back before the end of business that day.    Another day went by….no phone call.  The weekend went by, no phone call.  Monday morning, I call him and we talk.  He says he will go by and look and give me a call that afternoon.  He calls back that afternoon and says that everything was done properly and that there is nothing else Ryan Homes can do.   I ask about the places that hold water and he said nothing can be done until the county is done with a project they are doing in our back yards.  He did offer to give me names of some landscaping companies who could come and fix my yard!!  SERIOUSLY?!?!?  So Ryan Homes won’t fix it and I’m supposed to pay someone else to come give me a starter lawn!

There are rocks everywhere and barely any grass.  There is still plastic and trash from construction in our yard.  In addition, since no hay was put down the second time they came out there is some erosion going on.  This is absolutely unacceptable.  This is what Ryan Homes considers a “starter lawn”.   We have a beautiful house, a decent front yard, and the crappiest back yard I’ve ever seen.  It’s really sad and disappointing.  And what’s even more disappointing is that Ryan Homes will not correct the situation.   Stuff like this is exactly why Ryan Homes has a bad name. 

 

Here are pictures......

Back Yard

Side Yard

 

Water

More water and pipes

 

This picture is from the day the landscaper came out....we had plenty of rain for those seeds to grow.

 

Rocks and trash

Anyone need some rocks?!

patches in our sod

Big hole exposing more rocks in our sod

 

 

30 days in.....

We had our 30 day inspection and overall I'm very pleased.  We had a very long list of things that needed to be addressed....some of which were on our list of things before closing. 

The carpet in our bedroom needed some work.  We could see the carpet pad at the edge of the carpet.  This was fixed today and looks much better.

The rails to our steps were replaced today.  We had a mini walk-thru before our official new home orientation.  During this time we noticed our rails were not the correct color.  They attempted to re-stain them and they just did not look good.  I'm very happy that our PM suggested that they be replaced.  They look wonderful now!

There was a hump in the landing at the top of the stairs.  They had the framers come back to repair this.  This was a very loud repair, lol. 

Our microwave has been a collector of drywall dust.  I'm positive that I've cleaned the microwave more than any other item in this house.  Every time we open it, there is dust.  I clean it and more dust.  So today they took out the microwave and found dust on top of it.  They cleaned it off and vacuumed behind the microwave and hopefully we won't have any more dust.

We had the crown moulding on one of our cabinets repaired.  During this, we discovered a hole.  Not too happy about that, but it was covered with the moulding.  I just think that some sort of patching should have happened before the moulding was put on, but that's just my opinion.   It was patched today so we are happy.

There were some other minor things like trim and paint and a tiny piece of tile, but nothing else major. 

In a couple of weeks there will be some more repairs.....

We have a crack in one of our cabinets.  Nothing huge, but its a crack.  Our PM has to order the cabinet and it will be installed along with the other repairs.

Our back yard looks pretty bad.  I know that Ryan isn't going to seed our entire lot, but we currently have nothing but mud and rocks.  Our PM is going to have the landscaper come back and rake the lot and put down new seed.  Hopefully we will have some grass in the upcoming weeks.

The exterior will be taken care of....it definitely needs some TLC.   There will be some painting and caulking and power washing.  It will definitely look nice when they are done.  The winter weather is to blame for this!

Overall our 30 day went well.  Our PM addressed every.single.item we pointed out.  He answered every question and we are very pleased with all the repairs.  I love our house!

Now for the fun stuff.  I'm definitely happy with the progress of our house.  We are down to very few boxes and are getting settled in quite nicely.   Hopefully we will get some curtains up soon!  We are trying to use a lot of the things we already had.  Of course I've purchased some new items and will purchase more at some point, but I'm trying to be thrifty.  We have a lot more space to decorate and we are on a budget.  I'm trying really hard to do one room at a time, but it's not working out so well for me, lol.  Here are some progress pictures....from my cell phone.

Dining room

 

Living room

Daughters room

 

Master Bedroom

 

Son's Bedroom

 

Kids bathroom

 

 

 

My picture wall....I'm very proud of this!

 

 

 

One room down!

We are slowly getting settled in our house!  I am so happy to have more space.  I keep trying to remind myself to take it one room at a time, but I've been all over the place, lol.

We have all of our blinds up.  I can't live without blinds....don't want people looking inside of our house.  We also had ceiling fans and lights put in all the rooms.  Ceiling fans went in the family room and our master.  The other bedrooms got simple flush mounts and the morning room got a "chandelier".  Here are a few pictures.

morning room

Fan in family room

Other bedrooms

We also have one room that I can check of the list.....the powder room, lol!  It's small and didn't take much to decorate.  I stuck with neutral stuff since we will paint it at some point.  Everything came from Target except for the scroll art work which came from Pier-1. 

We have also purchased some new rugs which I really love.  They also came from Target when they had a rug sale a few weeks ago.

I have such love for Etsy.  They have some really nice and unique things that you can't find at regular stores.  Since being in our house we have had a solicitor....which I really dislike.  I know its a new neighborhood and we will have them, so I went ahead and purchased a nice little sign in hopes that they will stay away.   I also love to have things in my house that have meaning.  So I also purchased a little something as a keepsake for our new house.   Here are some pictures from the Etsy shops.

We have a meeting with our PM tomorrow morning. to go over some things we want fixed in the house.....I'll go into more detail after our meeting.  Let's just hope it's a good meeting.