Rooms Remodeled

After living in our home for over a year, we have grown very tired of looking at that cheap, flat, off-white paint they spray everywhere.  So after our 1-year drywall touchup was complete we decided to start painting some rooms.  We started in the dining room.  The color scheme we chose was a bright white and pale green combination.  On the lower half of the room we added chair rail and picture frame molding.  Crown was installed around the top and we cased out the door openings for a more finished look.  We were able to obtain the exact same moldings RH uses right at our local Lowes.

Next we painted the morning room.  This is kind of a teal color.  The official name is "Duckling".  We are pretty happy with it.  One bit of advice for anybody who hasn't starting painting yet.  You will not get 400 square feet of coverage that a gallon of paint usually provides.  The thin coat of cheap, flat paint on the walls is very porous and the walls will soak the paint up like a sponge!

Stay tuned for more pics of our family room upgrades and details on our latest service request that they have completely ignored!

Latest Development on the Theft Issue

I am pleased to report that, with the help of our local service manager, who was actually our PM during construction, the flooring contractor has done the right thing and issued us a check for the amount of the pilfered cash.  It is unfortunate that this incident occurred in the first place, but I give this gentleman credit for making this situation right.  The subcontractors Ryan uses in our area all seem to be honest, hard working individuals and this man is no exception.  I will certainly let my neighbors know they do not need to worry about him.  He does nice work and is a good guy.  He just had the misfortune of trying to help somebody out who could not be trusted in this type of environment.

Update on our Theft Issue

Unfortunately RH's position on this is just for us to file a police report.  They don't seem willing to offer any help or resolution beyond providing the name and phone number of the contractor who employed the perp.  So that is very unfortunate.  We did not contract directly with this person, Ryan Homes did.  It was not our choice to bring in this particular sub, this is who they sent.  We chose Ryan because we felt it was a company we could trust to build us a decent home and utilize honest workers to achieve this goal.  We are very disappointed with the way this issue was handled by RH.  We all know that filing a police report will do absolutely nothing in regards to getting our stolen money back.  They want to place an additional burden on us which would be certainly be a futile effort.  As previously stated, we have no physical evidence linking the man to this crime.  Without that, the police could merely ask him if he stole the money.  And criminals are dishonest so he would certainly lie to the police when asked.

But wait!  This is where things get interesting.  While browsing one of our local news channel websites the other day I was greeted by a headline stating that 2 local burglars had been caught after a month-long spree.  Upon clicking the link the mugshot of one of the Ryan subcontractors popped up on the screen.  The very man who had been in our home the day the money was stolen.  Gee, is there any doubt in any lucid individual's mind that this fellow stole our money?

10 Month Review and the Missing Money

Hello fellow bloggers.  It's been a while.  A lot has happened to us in the past year since we moved into our new home.  For the most part we have been fairly happy with our home.  While there are several issues that still persist, most of the bigger problems have been addressed.

As you all know Ryan Homes schedules a 10 month final review to address any lingering concerns or issues with the home.  We had several.  Numerous floor squeaks, a garage door that didn't seal due to a hump in the floor slab, loose shingles, waves in the roof, nail pops, sticking doors, sagging cabinet shelves, a hump in the kitchen floor, several bad seams in the kitchen floor, discolored siding, etc.

A few days after our review the flooring contractor was scheduled to come out and fix seams and eliminate the multitude of squeaks that existed due to a shoddy underlayment application.  At the same time, a tile contractor was there to fix some issues in the master bath.  The flooring sub brought a helper with him.  A younger individual who apparently was his nephew.  While the "repairs" were being attempted I was bouncing back and forth between the kitchen and the master bath.  After coming downstairs into the kitchen, where they were working, I realized I had left my wallet on the island.  I decided it would be best to move it into my office at that point.  At the time I didn't think anything of it.  The subs finished the work and left.

Fast forward to later that evening.  My wife and I had gone out to dinner at a local restaurant.  Everything was great until the check came.  I opened my wallet to pay the bill and saw that ALL of my cash--$150--was GONE!!  I was shocked and appalled!  I immediately realized what had happened.  While I was upstairs tending to the tile guy, one of the flooring contractors went into my wallet and cleaned it out.  We paid the check with a credit card and left.  I was fuming.  I felt so angry and violated.  We talked to a few family and friends.  The consensus was to report the incident to Ryan Homes.  Since this happened in my home, and not a 7-11, I did not have the benefit of reviewing surveillance camera footage.  Therefore, I had no proof.  So I neglected to do anything.

The next day I saw a couple of my neighbors outside and brought them up to speed with what had happened.  I knew they had flooring issues as well and wanted to make sure they were on the defensive when this sub came to their homes to fix their floors.  One of my neighbors, was so upset by this that he drafted and sent a letter to Ryan Homes alerting them to the problem.  Shortly after, I received a call from someone in their warranty department in Virginia.  Her response was to say she was sorry and that I should file a police report.  Well seeing as how it took the police 2 hours to arrive after my wife was involved in a hit and run accident a couple of weeks ago, I knew their response to a situation like this would not be rapid.  I cannot afford to lose half a day to play RH games.  Furthermore, without any proof or evidence, their course of action would be to ask the perp if he stole the money, which he would most certainly say he did not and that would be the end of it.  So basically RH is just passing the buck.

I just wanted to let all of the RH blogging community to be very careful when RH subs are in your home.  They will send anybody (lowest bidder) in and nothing is you have (especially cash) is safe.  Keys, credit cards, jewelry, personal info, etc should all be hidden and the contractors should be continuously monitored while in your home.  Do not let them schedule 2 different subs simultaneously or if they do make sure you have the manpower available to keep an eye on them.

Just a word of warning.  Please be careful!!  Hopefully this will help prevent any similar incidents from occurring.

The Shower Saga and Other Issues

Since moving into our new home nearly two months ago, we have discovered numerous issues, most small, some rather large.  The biggest problems being centered around our master bathroom, one part of the home where we spent in excess of $7,000 upgrading.   The first time we used our soaking tub, we noticed water spots on the ceiling the next morning.  This happened because one of the intake lines for the air jets was hanging down onto the floor and allowing water to escape.  Not only did this create water stains on our ceiling, it also compromised the floor under the tiles because immediately after this happened we noticed a loose section of tile and the shower pan would creak every time you walked thru the room.

So at our "30-day" post-settlement followup, which was actually more like 20 days, the RH handyman scraped out the grout joint , which should have been caulk, between the shower pan and floor tile and re-did it with caulk.  This, they claimed was the source of the noise.  Immediately after that, we used the shower stall and noticed more wet spots on the kitchen ceiling, as well as water damage to the drywall next to the shower.  Great the tub leak is fixed and now the shower starts leaking!

The PM stated it could be a "weep hole with a back-pitch onto it", so he arranged for the Kohler rep to come out and look at the pan.  The rep decided there was nothing wrong with the pan and it was installed incorrectly.  To fix it the original tile installer was called back to tear out the first course of tile and caulk properly.  Since no one actually read the installation instructions, they were not aware that the pan had small channels to divert water to the weep holes.  In order to prevent water from flowing past these channels and out of the pan, an L-shaped bead of silicone caulk was to be installed around these channels.  We only discovered this when I pulled up the Kohler installation instructions on my iPad and showed them to the PM and tile installer when he was here.  This was after the tile installer argued with the PM as to why it leaked and how he did everything by the book.  Not to mention the tile installer did not remove his shoes in our home and scratched the paint on our front door.  So he makes the repairs and reinstalls the tile.  Turns out it was the wrong color tile.  Same pattern, different dye-lot, so it was quite a bit darker than the existing tile.

We told PM we were not happy, don't put shower door back on, tile needs to be fixed, AGAIN!  He sends a different tile guy over to repair it.  This time the tile matched, but the grout joints did not line up, the tiles were not flush with each other, and in the corner it looked especially bad where the tile tapered down from a 1" wide piece to less than 1/2".  Long story short it looks like crap!  And to top it all off, while myself and my wife were looking at the tile, my wife was cleaning up the tile installation dust and debris that had made it into the soaking tub and discovered a large CRACK in the tub!  We are beyond pissed off and are very tired of not being able to use our bathroom!  The PM contacted the tile installation company who said they were going to send somebody else out, but this guy hurt his knee and was waiting to hear back from the doctor.  This was two days ago, we have since heard nothing.  Now it has been nearly a month since we have been able to use our shower.

In other news we have 4 loose stairs, several floor squeaks--some that have been fixed twice now, carpet pad squeaks,  numerous windows that do not open and close easily, land that was never cleared completely, a crooked mailbox post, and an I-joist that was damaged and compromised by the company that installed the gas line to the stove.

Other than that, we like our new house, just wish this didn't have to be such an ordeal to get these issues corrected and would like to see a greater sense of urgency in getting things taken care of.

Closed and Moved In

We closed on our home on June 19th as expected.  The closing went pretty well.  Probably about 45 minutes or so.  They tried to slip their survey in at the end and wanted us to fill it out at closing.  Since we had not spent any time in the finished house other than with the PM, we declined to fill it out on the spot.  The settlement agent made a joke that we would be put on the "uncooperative list" and our attorney recounted an episode of Seinfeld where Elaine was blacklisted by all of the local doctors.  At any rate things were pretty good in our new home at the time of closing.  There were a few very minor things, but most items were resolved prior to settlement.

There are some floor squeaks here and there, a bent window screen, scratched transom over the front door, the garage door tracks need to be aligned, some little paint touch-ups, etc.  The big item on the fix list is the whirlpool bath tub.  It leaked the first time we used it.  That was on a Saturday.  Sunday morning when we got up the kitchen ceiling was wet.  We emailed the PM and 9am Monday morning he was at our door with a plumber.  Turns out one of the air intake lines was hanging down below the level of the jets and drain so it was leaking water.  The PM corrected it and brought over a high volume air mover to dry things out.  He was going to have a plumber, tile guy, and sheetrock guy all come this week to fix things, but with our schedules we decided it would be best to let things dry out completely and then just let them deal with it on Monday at the post-settlement (30 day) follow up.

Other than the aforementioned issues, we have been very happy.  We installed some ceiling fans, pendant lights, a cable outlet in the study, an over-the-range microwave, and a garage door opener.  The flat panel TV is mounted to the wall in the master bedroom.  We also added some plants to the landscape and over-seeded the front lawn.  One big disappointment is the "topsoil" they used.  It is unscreened garbage and LOADED with rocks.  I raked most of them out of the front lawn but I think we are going to see how the back does with them, since it is a lot of work to remove them all.

We signed a contract with a paving company to add a third lane (12') onto the width of our driveway and extend it back alongside the garage just past the service door.  We have three vehicles and do not want to be jockeying cars all the time.  Besides the 18' they give you for a driveway is very narrow and does not leave much room once you've parked two vehicles side by side.

One other project that we hope to complete very soon is the addition of a deck off the morning room.  The "safety rail" they install in front of the slider is a little ridiculous.

There has been so much to do since we have moved in and we are nowhere near being done, but we will try to post some pictures once we have the time to take them, lol.

"Pre" Pre-Settlement Walk Thru

Yesterday we toured the house.  Things are nearly complete inside.  Carpet has been installed.  Paint is mostly done, minus a few touchups.  Door and cabinet hardware is installed.  Brushed nickel shower door enclosure is in.  Cleaning has started.  The appliances are all in.  Plumbing and electrical are complete.  Things are looking pretty good, but there are several punch-list items to take care of.  For the most part they appear to be small things.

Outside there are still several things that need to be done.  The porch columns and trim need to be painted.  The decorative oval louver over the garage has been moved to the correct location, however they had to replace the siding underneath it and did not have the correct color with them, so they pulled some pieces off the side of the garage that will need to be replaced.  Grading has been started but will still need a lot of work.  They planted trees in the back.  Not really where we wanted them, but they are in.  The brick paver walkway still needs to be done and is supposed to be started soon.  Sewer vent and clean out pipes need to be cut-down to proper length.  Lawn needs to be seeded.  So there is still quite a bit to be done outdoors, but it should mostly be done by our closing date on the 19th.