I can't believe I'm posting this

Seriously, I'm shaking my head.  Astonished.  My sister in law and her fiance were visiting and wanted to see the house progress so far.  We got the key from the sales rep and walked around in the house.  Things look good on the inside so far.  The master bath tile is in and looks great.  The mantle is up on the fireplace.  The hardwood floor is complete.  In the family room, there are rolls of carpet which are supposed to be laid today.  So, I'm looking at all of them and they all say the same color; we had chosen a different color for the basement.  I'm wondering if it just wasn't delivered at the same time.  But, I look at the carpet and I don't think the color is right.  It's been quite a long time since we chose the color, so to be fair, I don't exactly remember what it looks like.  However, I did think there was some color variation in the carpet which this does not have.  We also remembered paying extra for the upgraded carpet pad, which does not seem to be what is there.  Little alarms start going off in my head. It's important to note that like the framing, the carpet appears to be delivered pre-cut by room.  Each roll has a size listed on it, which probably denotes which room it goes in.  I go home to check my flooring selection sheet.  What do you know?  It's wrong. So, the level 1 carpet that we ordered in the basement ONLY appears to have been ordered FOR THE ENTIRE HOUSE.  We had requested a different, nicer carpet to be installed in the rest of the house.  There was only one type of carpet pad throughout the house (not installed yet).  It doesn't have the plastic barrier that we remember the nicer carpet pad having.  I believe the carpet pad is wrong. That really makes me mad because if I hadn't been at the house during that time, I would never know that was wrong because I'd never see it again.  

My husband is in the construction industry. He understands mistakes are made and has told me the more important thing is how they respond to fix the mistake.  I've got to imagine even he thinks this is too much. To be fair, so far every mistake has been fixed without argument. This is the third major ordering mistake... that I know of.  I have to start thinking that way now.  Have they messed up anything else that I haven't caught??? I can't remember if I posted on the blog, but the wrong garage doors were ordered as well.  We are still waiting for the correct ones to be delivered. There is no way that Ryan homes is making any money on the sale of our house. The garage doors can maybe be resold or used in another project.  The carpet?  I don't know.  Would someone buy that as a remnant? Possibly. The brick?  That was a total EFF up.  All the labor wasted putting it up, taking it down, then it all had to be thrown away.  Astonishing. 

I emailed the PM last night and I'm sure he's handling it today.  We are set to close in 2 weeks.  How long does it take for carpet to be delivered?  Can we close if there's no carpet throughout the house?  Do I want to?  I wouldn't be able to move anything in.  I already have a moving company scheduled. GAH!!!! I feel my blood pressure rising.  It is my intent to call the SR this morning after she gets in, if the PM doesn't call me before then. 

Back to good news, for a minute. We met the other neighbors on the other side of our home. They are a bit older than us, with a daughter that is a senior in college. They have an adorable basset hound.  They seem very nice. 

And finally, here is a picture of my pretty house.  With the correct brick. It will look even prettier when the shutters go up and the door is painted.

Update: I spoke with the PM and SR.  Basically, I told them I needed someone to make me feel warm and fuzzy about keeping our closing date. (Hug me and tell me it's gonna be alright!) After making some calls the PM said that the carpet we chose is not an unusual carpet so they don't see any trouble getting it in.  It's been ordered but because it was just done they can't actually track it yet.  He told them they need it installed no later that the middle of next week. He also confirmed that the pad is correct. In the meantime, the crew is out installing the incorrect carpet today.  They are doing this as a precaution so that it does not delay inspection or closing. When the new carpet comes in, they will rip it out and replace it. My heart breaks a little bit for the wastefulness of this. He apologized for all the mistakes that have been made in the choices.  

The Tennis Match Begins

Our current home has been on the market for about 6 weeks.  Traffic through the house was slow after the first 2-3 weeks so we dropped the price a bit. Yesterday we had two showings at basically the same time.  Well, the first couple through made an offer.  Between their offer, their request for closing costs and a request for an appliance that wasn't in the offer, it came in a bit lower than we were hoping. So, we are going to counter offer and see what happens. 

In the news for our Ryan home, things are coming along nicely.  Brick laying began (again) Tuesday.  I drove by today and they were almost done. It truly looked like they may have had another hour of work or so left to do.  In addition, our fireplace was completed and it appears that most of the house has received its final coat of paint.  I was pretty hesitate about the flat Ryan white paint, but at first glance it looks much better than I expected.  It's not a bright white, but has some warmer undertones.  We realized driving through the other day that our house appears to be the only Ryan house that didn't get windows in the garage doors.  So, I emailed the PM about it; he said he was aware of it and they are working on it.  I guess it's one more thing that got ordered correctly.  Fortunately they have been superb in correcting the mistakes; I just really wish we didn't have this many.  I hope this is the last of them.  

Correct color brick!

Pretty stone fireplace!

The unfinished part of the basement has been insulated.  I didn't realize they do this, but it's probably required to meet the energy star criteria.  

Older son's room, freshly painted

Very basic stairs going up to the mudroom from the garage. 

We are 18 days from closing on this new house!  I just can't believe it. I probably sound like a broken record but I am so excited. Everything looks beautiful so far.  

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.  

Garage, Stone, Trim

The PM and SR called today to give me an update on the house.  The garage slab is being poured today.  Once that is in, they should be able to get the garage doors installed.  They are running the electrical trench to hook the house up to the meter. The trim work should be mostly complete by the end of the day.  It will be painted on Wednesday. Later this week the stone mason will be there to complete the fireplace. There was a wonky duct that ran under a joist in the unfinished ceiling of the basement.  This would have made it difficult to finish the ceiling of that part of the basement later.  That has been corrected. The correct brick should be delivered tomorrow.  I am still waiting to talk to the DG about the tile for the master bedroom.  Things seem to moving along great!  We close 4 weeks from today!

Bathroom Tile on Backorder

Yesterday I received an email that the accent tile we chose for the master bathroom is on backorder and won't be available until the end of April.  They sent an email with what is supposed to be the same tile but upgraded because it's diamond shaped instead of rectangle.  

Above is the tile we chose.  

This is the tile they say is the same.  I'm sorry, but I don't think it is the same. I think this one is blue and green, whereas the one we chose is red.  Sigh.

So, I've made a call to the sales rep.  I think we need to go look at the tile to figure out what to do.  I definitely don't want another situation like we had with the brick.  

In other news, the house is completely primed and the cabinets have been delivered.  They were supposed to install some of the flooring Friday but I haven't been inside to see that yet.  Here's a few pictures from this week.  

Picture of the brick after they started taking it down.

Brick we ordered (left) and the brick they put on (right) Not very close.  

Cabinets delivered!

Cabinets and doors!

Kitchen, looking towards the Pantry.

Master bath, the shower is on the left, closet straight ahead. 

Upstairs hallway, looking towards the kids rooms, with a big closet between.  

Younger son's room.

My craft/studio

Hallway looking towards the Master bedroom. 

This week's progress

We went back to the house Saturday evening and they had already began to tear the brick down.  They only brick that was remaining was by the garage; I think they stopped there because the dumpster was full.  Sunday I went to get preliminary window measurements.  Afterwards I stopped by the sales office to talk to the SR.  After talking to her about what happened, she mentioned that gal who does the ordering is pregnant and has 'pregnancy brain'.  She thinks she probably just input the wrong code since we didn't make any deviations from the recommended color groupings.  I feel bad for the gal...I hope she doesn't get in too much trouble, but man, what a costly mistake.  

Now I am beginning the process of window coverings.  Holy cow, that is overwhelming.  When we bought our current house the previous owners left all the window coverings.  We've only had to replace a few and we've generally selected inexpensive options. I'm now trying to balance getting quality blinds that will last a long time vs. inexpensive blinds that I can get up quick.  I feel like I want to get the bedroom window coverings up pretty quick, but I want to make sure I either don't spend a lot in case I don't like them or make sure I get something that will go with however I choose to decorate down the line. We have 22 windows and sliding door to cover.  I am also overwhelmed by the potential cost of this. I think we are going to go with a cellular shade option for the bedrooms for now and get the rest of the windows as well as curtains later.  I stopped in JCPenney, they have a designer that will come out and help you with the process.  Of course, I can't get the designer out until we close on the house and then it takes a minimum of two weeks for the blinds to come in after they are ordered.  

I emailed the PM today to find out what our schedule is like for the week. They are hoping to begin to put the correct brick up this week as well as pour the garage slab if they weather is nice enough.  They will also be priming the walls and ceilings and putting the vinyl and ceramic flooring in.  Next week the trim and cabinets should go in.  

Major Disappointment

We understand that in construction projects mistakes get made. We were prepared and expected that they would come up at some point. 

Coming into the neighborhood we saw the back of the house first.  I thought "Wow!  They've got siding on the back!"  Then we drove to the house and saw that brick is nearly completely.  Unfortunately, it's bricked in the completely wrong color.  When we originally went through the color selections, we very quickly ruled out dark brick colors. The color that we chose is Sugar Creek.  It's a buff shade of brick.  

So, basically, they put our least favorite color of brick on the house.  When I spoke to the PM the other day, I had no idea they were starting to brick.  Had I known, I would have made a point to go check it out.  I probably would have been able to stop it before it got too far, but he only told me they were finishing up dry wall.  

We texted the PM, of course he first assumes that maybe it's a different shade of the correct brick.  I get that; I'm sure that happens a lot.  The brick color can change a bit because of materials, fire processes, whatever.  This brick is actually called Allendale.  To make matters worse, the houses on either side of us are red brick houses.  We believe there is something in the HOA that says you can't have similar brick side by side and this one might actually match the house to the West of us.  

In less than an hour, the PM advised that the brick was shipped wrong from the supplier, something that's never happened as long as he's worked with this supplier.  The right brick will be shipped and it will be corrected.  I'm happy about this; we really did not want the red brick.  That would have been a MAJOR problem.  I feel bad that the brick is so far complete and they are just going to tear it down.  It feels so wasteful.  I hope it doesn't slow them down at all.  I imagine it will a bit.  :(

In good news, the drywall is mostly complete.  They were out mudding the joints while we were there.  Again, I was surprised they were working on a Saturday.  

I didn't take a lot of pictures of the drywall.  The top picture is the kitchen pantry and the bottom is the dining room.  Cool stuff.  Glad this is coming along nicely.  

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.