10 Month Mishap

Ryan Homes sent us our date for our 10 month inspection a few months back. Of course, the date on the paper wasn't good for us. I called to re-schedule and it was a breeze. Unfortunately, due to work schedules, we had to call and reschedule….again. 

Two days before our scheduled 10 month inspection, the project manager called and said he was sorry but that he needed to reschedule on us this time. Ok, no biggie. I took the day off of work, but I just retracted the day and put in a slip for the new date. Thursday morning comes and I get a call from A telling me the workers are at the door and ready to work. Say what?!?! The project manager told A that he never called me to reschedule and does not remember ever leaving me that voicemail. A sent them away, because we obviously hadn't prepared since we received a new date for a few weeks away.

I was ready to call the PM and kindly remind him of our conversation, but he beat me to it. Shortly thereafter, I received a voicemail from the PM apologizing and stated he made a mistake and forgot to take us off his schedule for that day. Ok, thanks for the apology, but darn we really could have had our inspection that day.

We also received our one year inspection notice as well, with about 15 orange post-it notes. Ha, I;'m going to need an entire roll of painters tape to mark all the issues that need to be fixed. Thanks for thinking of me, but you can keep your post-it notes!!!!

I will be happy when all of this work gets done and we can put it all behind us. I'm ready to paint!!!

Likes & Dislikes, Wishes & Future Projects

We have been in the house for about 9 months already and we've noticed things we really like and things we could change. I probably have more dislikes listed here than likes, but it's minor things. We will most likely change them on our own in time. I'm just being nit-picky. Don't get me wrong though, we love our house and are very happy. I also have some things that I wish we would've done when building.

Likes

1. We are really happy with the lot we chose. We enjoy not having any houses behind us and the fact that there is always going to be 5 acres of common space behind us- no houses to be built in the future. We have some pretty cool views too and that is always a nice surprise when you look from the morning room windows! Eventually we will get a deck and that will be nice to sit outside and watch the sunset. 

2. We love our neighbors. We have gotten close with 2 of them and we have tons of fun doing things together! We haven't met some of our neighbors, but the others ones that we have introduced ourselves to seem pretty nice. 

3. We are happy with the open floor plan and we are so glad we purchased the peninsula island. We eat dinner there almost every night. It has become the catch all counter lately, but I am hoping to set up some sort of organization spot for all of the mail and stuff. 

4. The size of the kitchen is great and I enjoy having a walk-in pantry. 

5. I love the light in the master shower. It makes taking a shower much nicer, because you can actually see and it's not dark and dreary in there.

6. Although we don't use the morning room a lot, it is nice to have and makes a big difference with space. That was a must have when we saw it in the model home. 

7. Of course the master closet is nice! So much room. 

Dislikes

1. I really don't like my laundry room. I hate having to pass it to get to and from the garage. It's in the way when I bring groceries in, it isn't really a laundry room to hang clothes, keep baskets, etc. I really wish I had a separate room and it'd be even better if it was upstairs. I could have gotten that with the Venice model, which sometimes I wish we did. A thinks it's fine, but he doesn't do as much laundry as me :) 

2. Our microwave is always freezing inside. And when it rains or is windy that's all you hear. It sounds like it is raining inside of the microwave. I'm going to request something gets done, because it just doesn't seem normal to me. 

3. Our carpet sucks. We did not upgrade, however the carpet we have doesn't seem to have even held up to normal wear and tear…. and it has not even been a year yet! There are spots that are so flat, it looks like 10 year old carpet. It's not fluffy anymore. We take our shoes off always and vacuum every two days to keep it looking nice. I'm highly disappointed with the quality. I'm hoping there is something they can do about that. Wishful thinking.

4. I don't like the noise from the shower upstairs, when you are sitting downstairs. The water sounds like it's in the next room over. That's normal in most houses unless you live in a mansion. A nit-pick, but something that I just don't like. 

5. Why is there one floor vent in the master bedroom and 2 in the morning room!?!?!? Our room is never the same temperature as the rest of the house. It's either too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter. I would think there would be 2 in the master since it's a much larger room and 1 in the morning room since it's not near as big. 

6. And the vent in the master closet….Why is it behind the door? If you keep the door open, the vent is blocked. If you close the door then you're heating/cooling your small closet space. Is that really efficient?

7. I wish we had a porch out front to sit on. That little stoop isn't made for more than two people to sit on. It would be nice to relax on a patio set in the spring and summer. Oh well. 

8. I don't like having only one outlet in the master bathroom. I can't even plug an air freshener in, since I need the two outlets for getting ready in the morning. I don't want to keep plugging and un-plugging things each day to switch out a hair dryer and an air freshener. 

9. Our yard is like a rock garden. I picked up a lot of rocks in a matter of minutes. They said they would pick all of them out at grading, but obviously not. Again, this is usually normal in most houses unless you purchase some premium soil or what not.

10. I can't seem to find a place for the trash can that is hidden. I suppose I could use the pantry, but I'm not sure if I want smelly trash in the same area as my good food. Right now it's just in the kitchen along the wall, but it just doesn't look very pretty.

11. I really think the cabinets above the refrigerator are useless. They're far back and I should have asked to have them flush with the refrigerator. In order to get anything in those cabinets you need a step stool and have to reach way over the fridge. Just seems more of a pain than what it's worth.

12. I really dislike those wire shelves that are in the closets and pantry. I know they're standard, but they're a pain. I did see on Pinterest where someone put those peel and stick tiles over the shelves and it helped with the wiring so things wouldn't fall through. I may try that to make it more of a full shelf than a wire shelf.

13. I don't like the placement of the towel bar and toilet paper holder in the master. The towel bar is right above the TP holder, so when you hang a towel, it hangs right over the TP, blocking it and getting the paper damp.

I Wish...

1. I wish I would have gotten the rough-ins for lights. We are going to pay a lot of money to have some do hardwiring now so we can hang up some lights in the rooms.

2. I really wish we would've chosen to purchase a fireplace. It would be so nice in the winter, make the living room cozier and just a nice focal point.

3. I wish we would have chosen to put some exterior flood lights on the back of the house. It would just brighten the back yard up a bit at night.

4. I wish we would have purchased the two extra windows on the side in the morning room. We don't like that we can't look out to that side of our yard. 

5. I wish I would've asked to have the doorbell chime and thermostat placed in a different area. They're both on on wall and in a random spot that it just looks weird. I'm not sure if they could have done it or not, but it would be nice to have them sort of out of plain view. 

Future Projects

We have a lot of projects that we would like to do. We just need to hit the lottery, LOL :) Until then we'll just keep saving money and completing one thing at a time. 

1. Can't wait to paint! That is going to be first on the list. Only a few more months and goodbye white walls!

2. We want to build a deck.

3. We'd like to put hardwood floor throughout areas of the house and tile in the kitchen.

4. We'd also like to replace the carpet in the living room with a more fluffy carpet. 

5. Replace the standard lighting fixtures.

6. Landscaping in the spring.

7. Put a backsplash in the kitchen.

8. Finish the basement.

9. Put the epoxy kit we purchased last year on the garage floor.

10. Possibly put knobs on the cabinets. We haven't made a firm decision on that yet. 

11. Hang the TV's on the wall in the living room & master bedroom.

12. Create a space in the mudroom for coats/shoes/calendar, etc.

13. Replace or frame the mirror in the master bathroom. I've seen a few things on Pinterest- a simple wood frame makes the construction grade mirror look so much better. 

10 Month Review Fix-It List

I can't believe our 10 month inspection is coming up soon! We got a letter in the mail today that said they have scheduled it for mid February. I haven't completed my survey yet, since I am waiting to see how they do fixing all of the problems we have encountered. I hate to be picky, but we paid a lot for our house and I want it to be right. I know it isn't ever going to be perfect, but they can do the best they can to make it look decent. My list includes some drywall and flooring things that will hopefully be fixed at our one year inspection.

1. The 50,000 nail pops we have! Ok, so there isn't that many, but there are a lot. However, this will be done at the one year inspection, not the 10 month. 

2. The nice big crack in our basement floor. It was an issue when we purchased the home, but they said it wouldn't get any bigger since it was a crack they did on purpose. Wrong! It has split and split and you can even see some white plastic piece through it. 

3. The ceiling and wall are separating in the master bedroom.

4. The freezing microwave and loud noises it makes from the vent flapping in the wind and raindrops. 

5. Where the counters have been pieced together, there is a seam that is highly noticeable. There are also many spots where little chips are- one on each side of the stove is one area. 

6. Fix the molding at the bottom of the peninsula island. The little wood piece just fell off one day. There was all kinds of wood shavings underneath. Guess they didn't know how to use a broom. 

7. Fix drywall that is showing metal above the windows and on the overhead at the bottom of the stairs. Again, the one year inspection.

8. The outlet in the half bath hasn't worked ever since we moved in.

9. Some drywall in the garage at the bottom of the door/steps appears to have fallen off/apart.

10. The screen on the sliding glass door is super hard to lock. A lot harder than it should be.

11. Our master bedroom seems to always be a lot colder than the rest of the house.

12. When it gets a little windy, there is a loud whistling/humming noise below one of our windows in the family room. It almost sounds like a train.

13. There are a lot of drywall seams that have split throughout the house.

At the moment I can't think of anything else, but I will update as I remember. This blog post serves as my list that I can print when the time comes- I killed two birds with one stone :)

Water Works

There is whatever everywhere whenever it rains….. well naturally, since rain is water, but we have puddles and puddles of water. It gets annoying. Forget walking through your yard when it rains, unless you have some knee high boots.

Since I'm about 7 months behind on blogging, these photos are from last summer when we were still in the construction zone. The drainage holes had those bags/covers over them to prevent materials from going down the drain. However, they never removed them when it did rain, hence the result below. 

Notice the port-a-potty leaning over in the background…. 

I text the PM and said you need to get someone out here ASAP! 

I took these through the window, so there is a slight glare. 

It's even worse now, I just haven't taken any photos recently. 

30 Day Fix-It List

We did what our PM told us to do and made a running list of different things that will need to be fixed after 30 days. It sure was a good thing, because we found so much we would have never remembered it all. Mostly minor things, but things I wanted fixed.

1. Replace the molding around the door in the garage that leads into the house. Was someone using it as  nail gun practice?? I don't know why we didn't notice this at the Final, but regardless it looks like crap. ** The update to this… they repainted it. Refused to replace it, because paint was easier and cheaper.

2. The hose bib leaks. We happened to see the PM outside one day and we told him about the problem, so he had a plumber come by and fix it; we scratched this off the 30 day list. 

Here are some other photos of things they needed to fix. It was so long ago that I can't remember everything. We have tons of things to fix at the one year now, mostly drywall stuff. 

Critters

We don't live in the city, but I wouldn't say we live in the country either. We do live on what used to be farmland off a road that is off a main road…. so kind-of the outskirts I suppose. Anyway, we have had some critters visit us the past few months. I'm an animal person, however I don't like the animals I have seen!

BY FAR the nastiest thing I have seen. I hate snakes…. There was a hole between the foundation and siding leading to the garage, that we didn't know about, which is how it got in. Luckily he left and I quickly filled that hole with some foam. Gross. 

This guy looks like he belongs in the rainforest. 

& these things… about 25 have paid us a visit. They cut the corn field behind us and it has been cold, so they're just looking for a nice warm place to curl up, but I'd prefer it wasn't at my house! We lined the entire garage with traps, and we have been lucky enough to catch them all outside before they make it inside. I feel bad for the little mice, but I don't want any as pets either.