Basement Bathroom & 10 Month Review

Today is our  10 month review.  We had sent a small list of things to our PM of our items.  I thought it was a relatively small list.

1) Various nail pops & cracked drywall - expected
2) Some cracked caulking around the sinks and master shower - expected
3) Venting problem with microwave.  This winter our microwave has been exceptionally cold.  Like 36 degrees cold this morning.  That's refrigerator cold. The PM pointed out that the vent is on the west side of the house - since the wind blows from that direction we are fighting a losing battle. I get it.  They did do something to the damper so that hopefully its a little better.
4) Cold air coming from fireplace.  I understand this is going to happen as well. They took a quick look at it and taped some spots where cold air was  coming in, so it should be better.
5) Driveway cracks.  They'll fix this when it warms up (it's -3 degrees here today). It sounds like they should be able to just replace sections of it rather than the whole driveway, which is preferable.  We'll see how that goes.  That's really the only major thing.  

Overall I've been really pleased.  Our PM has been great.  A few weeks ago we had my son's 10th birthday party, a sleepover.  Have Mercy.  The kids were playing ping pong in the unfinished part of the basement.  Someone got a bit wild and pulled some of the insulation off the wall.  It's held on by these nailed washer things.  My husband wasn't able to find them at the hardware store.  I asked the PM where we could buy them and he brought us half a dozen. Perfect. They probably cost Ryan homes, like .10 each,  so it was nice.

The PM was also impressed with our basement bathroom.  We finished it up right before the wild sleepover so the boys sleeping in the basement would have a bathroom to use.  My  husband did it all himself and I'm so proud of him.  It turned out great.  The PM even joked about Bob becoming a professional drywaller.  Bob emphatically replied 'No!'

I'm not sure what we spent on the bathroom, my husband says he has the receipts and plans on figuring that out.  We tried to choose cost effective options.  The tile was purchased at Lowe's for $5/square.  If you've looked at tile that's a great price.  I think  the vanity was less than $120.  We had replaced the bath fixtures in the master bathroom - we didn't like the way the installed ones sat in the granite.  Husband kept bumping his hands on the back of the sink, so we purchased two that had a longer neck for his big hands.  So, we  were able to repurpose one of those.  The other one was given to my sister in law who had a leaky faucet in her bathroom.  The towel rack, tp holder, and cup were purchased on clearance for $10 for the set from KMart.  I can't remember where the wood finish tile was purchased from.  My dad is a retired electrician, so he did all the wiring for us and had a fan for us to use. My husband did the plumbing - our neighbor had previously done their basement bathroom so he had all the necessary PEX tools for us to borrow; so that cost us a 12 pack of beer.  :)

New Tile Choice

Last night we drove up to Rite Rug to see our other tile choices.  I was less than impressed that Ryan still only allows us to chose from a small portion of tile that Rite Rug offers.  Even so far as to limit us on size, for example, one board had 4 different versions of the same tile.  A one inch square, a 5/8" square and two rectangle sizes.  However, we were only allowed to chose from two of those four sizes on that particular tile.  WTH?  We have to be extra careful with our choices because the main tile is already in, the cabinet is in and the granite counter top is installed.  This means that the tile that we pick has to match all three.  This right away removed some of our choices.  We were able to pick a tile that matched and that we are happy with, but boy, it sure would have been nice to know our first pick was unavailable before now.  

I made a quick stop back at the house before going to Rite Rug.  They have already stained the banister.  They have also installed the plumbing hardware. The tubs were filled with water to check for leaks.  And the correct brick has arrived.  

Cabinets are in!

I went by the house this week and I actually squealed when I saw the kitchen cabinets were in. 

Full picture of the kitchen

Kitchen

Wall that the fridge goes on

Banisters in, need to be stained

Guest bathroom vanity

Master bath vanity

Master shower

You can see in the master shower where there are some missing tiles. We go to Rite Rug tomorrow to look at the tile again. I asked the PM is we had to chose a 1" tall tile. He seemed confused by the question. I was afraid that since the original design was for that size tile we would have to stay with it. He said it would've be a problem. 

Outside Colors and More Choices

Sometimes I am amazed by how similarly my husband and I think.  Generally speaking, we usually have the same ideas in mind.  With all the choices we made this weekend, things could get ugly quick.  There were no big arguments and neither of us felt the need to dig in our heels about anything. The outside brick choices is a great example of this.  Going into the meeting we both immediately agreed we didn't want any dark brick colors.  Ryan homes had 3-4 reddish brick color palettes and 2 lighter choices, so our choices were narrowed down pretty quick.  The brick color we chose is called Sugar Creek, we liked it because it had a bit more variation in the colors of the brick throughout.  

Once we had the brick color picked out, we then had several different color schemes to pick from for our siding, shutters and doors.  The siding will be mainly on the back of the house and also on the second story of the sides of the house.  We decided to pick shutter colors first.  We narrowed it down pretty quick to a bright red, dark green or... jeez.  I can't remember the third color.  Anyway, the red shutters are paired with a light siding and a black door.  The green shutters were paired with a green door and a darker siding. I love the black door.  We both preferred the red shutters.  Neither of us were crazy about the light siding.  So, we drove around the neighborhood again to be able to see some examples of the siding choices.  After that, we decided that the light siding choice was ok so we went with that color palette.  

While there to make our final color choices we had some other final choices to make.  There were a few things that we've been waivering on. One is the side load garage.  Long story made short, we decided to stick with the side load. We also added a wet bar rough in for the basement, a gas line to the back yard, water softener rough in and decided the final placement of our ceiling fan rough ins.  One thing we didn't realize we would be doing this soon was the placement of the extra outlets.  We had priced in three extra outlets.  After reading through blogs and suggestions of people who had built I wanted to make sure we had some in a few of the closets as well as the master powder room.  I really wanted to to put one in the pantry.  Bob thought I was nuts.  So, I let this one go.  I did have one put in the master closet, the laundry room (I really can't believe there wasn't one in there!) and the powder room.  This was the one area that we disagreed on and I stood my ground.  

The master powder room has a door, it is on the same wall as the vanity, which is where we would normally put a night light.  I'm afraid that the night light won't shine into the powder room. I don't like peeing in the dark and I don't like flipping a bright light on in the middle of the night.  (Really I'm not sure men should be peeing in the dark either.  Darkness can't help aim, am I right??)  An extra outlet in the bathroom is, in my mind, necessary.  We also realized there was only one outlet in the garage.  Not good.  Originally I thought my dad could add these, but after talking through it, the walls in the garage will be insulated and dry walled, we we don't wan to have to mess with that later.  A total of 6 outlets were added.  This is a relatively small cost in the scheme of things and I think we'll be very happy we did them. Moreso, I'm afraid we'd regret not doing them.