Tidbits of advice....

Sorry for a 3rd blog today but I'm on a roll!
For any of you shopping mortgage companies, I highly recommend getting two rates and then bringing them to NVR. We had an awesome rate from Wells Fargo of 3.125 and NVR matched it, and waived the normal fee to get this rate. Plus, a credit of $1,300 at closing. As much as I have not loved our NVR rep, we couldn't pass up this rate and credit. Before we brought them this offer, their "best rate" was 3.375. So, shop around!
Oh, and one more piece of advice: Walk the ENTIRE square footage of your home before the floors are installed. Listen for squeaks. We did this and found a couple, including a very loud squeak in the master bedroom, right next to where our bed will go. That would have driven me nuts, hearing that everytime I got in or out of bed! Our PM wrote in huge letters on those particular boards to have them fixed.

Floors and cabinets and railing, oh my!...

I am SO excited about all that has happened this week. Dan was in Ecuador all week but after talking, he called our PM on Tuesday night to express our concern that things were going a bit slowly. All that had been done at that point was the tile in bathroom and kitchen. Well on Wednesday, the hardwood was installed and on Thursday.......the day of miracle work.....!!!! Serioulsy, with approval from our PM, I met a Sherwin Williams color expert at the house at 1pm (more on this in a bit) and there was 6 guys there. Here are some pics.

Not all of the cabinets are in yet. To the right will be the sink area that overlooks the family room. Our PM said there was a piece that didn't match so he has to reorder that but they need to measure for the granite so he is installing the bad piece just for now. He said he didn't want me to freak out...Hahaha! He already gets me!

Stove and Microwave area

And the beautiful upgrade of hutch (the four cabs with glass and bottom cabs).Fridge will go in that ladder spot.

Our 18x18 tiles in kitchen. There is a bunch of sawdust on the tile but you get the picture... I LOVE it! With a dog, I did not want hardwood in the kitchen and personally, I like the mixture of materials.

 

 

 And my gorgeous railing!!! The wood will be stained later but I just love it! Dan and I watched the guys install this...literally only took about 45 minutes! It would have taken us 3 months...

 

As I promised, here is info on a great offer from Sherwin Williams.. If you buy a $75 gift card, their home color expert will come to your home and help you with paint colors. Any of you who know me, know I am a paint freak, and probably do not need help but I really loved her help. These are not final color selections but I will probably end up using many of them. I love warm and soft colors because I

am digging on grays right now. She helped me find color family's that worked well together. She was there for about an hour and a half.  I recomment bringing pillows or samples of colors that you are using in particular rooms as a starting point.

Top: Morning room (Not sure about this yet)

Right: Office and bathrooms (pic doesn't show well but it's a bit more earthy than the other gray)

Bottom: Entry and maybe accent wall in great room

Left: Great room and kitchen

 

Lelands Room

Gray walls with one large orange stripe around top and skinnier navy stripe below it. (I love doing stripes!)

 

Kayt's room

Same gray as her bro but red on one wall and accent on another wall

 

 

Master bedroom and bathroom:

Not sure about these yet. I love the beachy feel and these colors remind me of that...I am a California girl, after all!

 

Basement:

I really want a fun, vibrant basement. A place for the kids. The purple doesn't show well but it's called Plummy. That will go on two walls with the lighter gray on the other walls. The red will either go on a small wall or just use as an accent color. The dark gray is for the media room.

 

OK, thoughts and opinions please!

 

Update on Rant and a Warning!

This is the recurring sump pump mess!

Ok, update on my rant about the sump pump alarm: After my frustration with not getting details on the issue, I must say, I feel much better now. Yesterday was just all-around stressful, besides worrying about this, we got a call from Guardian that really was the straw that put me over the edge (more on that later). And, I do have a teenage daughter that may have stressed me out yesterday. Needless to say, by 9am, I was a mess!!! But, the good news, our PM is really great. He called me at about 9:30 and said he was at the house. He said that every night the Handy Man comes around to all the houses to close up. He is supposed to check that all the cords are unplugged that the workers used all day. The workers keep unplugging our sump pump and so the battery backup kicks in. With all the water we've had here, it keeps dumping water out. In addition, the plumber hadn't attached the 5ft ground pipe that will take the water away from the house. SO, PM called the plumber, he is coming out today to do that and the Handy Man is now aware to check the sump pump so this issue should be resolved now.
As for the tile in our bathroom: Here is a pic of the discoloration.

The pics don't show the obvious difference very well but in person, it is. The inside color is different than the trim color. The trim has more red/pink tone and it is like this all through the bathroom. Our PM also looked at it and called RiteRug. Their manager is coming out later today to look at it. I'm not sure how it will be resolved but I will keep you posted.

Now for the WARNING: So, I got a call from Guardian yesterday morning (Guardian is who Ryan Homes uses for security systems, surround sound, and some other things). He was in freak-out mode telling me that he just heard from NVR (our lender through Ryan) and they just had this policy change stating that anything that is not permanently attached to the home cannot be included in the mortgage. Well we chose to have Guardian do the complete surround sound wiring for our media room, which included a receiver, fancy remote, and sub woofer. We initially tried to pay for these items out of pocket so they were not part of our mortgage but were told it all had to be included. Now, NVR will not include these 3 items so at closing we have to pay for these. Frankly, we are just fine with it BUT, we did not budget for this. It just came as a shock because we close in 3 weeks! The Guardian rep felt terrible and was told that NVR would contact us to tell us about this...which they did not, so he was a bit frustrated. I called our NVR agent and it was all news to her...Boy, I sure love the communication here:(.  She immediately called her manager who told her that this info is correct but that we should have been told about this months ago. She is not negotiating with Ryan Homes to see how this will be settled, without us having to pay for this unexpectedly. We will see how it goes.
So, any of you who used Guardian for such items, you may want to make sure where everything stands. Our Guardian rep said he was making multiple calls today to break the bad news to people. Part of me wonders if this was an oversight on his part from the beginning but I'm not sure. Just check with your lender!
Next post will be all about the amazing work that has been done this week!

Not a RANT...maybe just a lower case rant..

Remember on Saturday when I posted pics of the crazy water pouring out of the pipe on the side of our house and the sump pump alarm going off? Well I stayed calm and pleasant about it, calling our SR because our PM was on vacation. She called another PM and said he will come out and look. So on Sunday evening, still have alarm going off and water pouring out. Monday, evening at 6:30 this other PM calls me to let me know that the sump pump had gotten disconnected somehow and that caused the problem. Said it was fixed but that the pipe coming out of the house needed to be directed farther away from the home so the water would not run back in. He was going to have our PM call me on Tuesday to let me know what they were going to do. OK, well I'm fairly patient. I wait all day Tuesday, figuring he has lots to catch up on. No call. Wednesday, I go to the house at 5pm to meet with a window treatment company (more on that in another post) and guess what....the alarm is going off again and the water is pouring out again. Still not call from PM. So much water has been pouring out that it is causing water cavities in the mud (like underground streams) so I am worried that this is compromising the foundation and will make the house settle unevenly on this side.
AND.. supposedly the flooring was to be done by Monday, the stone fireplace was to be done, and the trim done by end of the week. Tile guys came Monday and Tuesday, but ran out of tile for kitchen so they can't finish yet and the it appears that the trim pieces around my tub and shower are not from the same lot at the larger pieces because they are not the exact same color...more pink. I am hoping that maybe it was the low light and haze from the grout that makes it just appear this way, but my gut is telling me the colors are wrong. Hardwood was done today. No sign of masonry guys or trim guys but we literally are supposed to close in 3 weeks and I cannot see how that is possible while still doing quality work.
Also, saw a couple nails popping up on the roofline, the ceiling pattern looks rushed, uneven, and too textured, the egress window well was installed crooked and it has to be leveled. I pointed that out at our drywall meeting but it hasn't been fixed yet. And here's a good one, the huge mound of dirt that they shoveled to the back of our small lot now has straw on it, as if it's going to get seeded. Does someone really think we want half our lot to be a hill the size of the house in our backyard? Umm NO!
Tomorrow morning, there will be a bright and early call to our PM. I gave him plenty of time to "catch up" on all his other homes. Now he needs to come to mine.

Dirty water.... Not a pretty sight!

After spending 5 hours taking my Ohio State Boards (that was fun), I grabbed my daughter and drove by the house....and when we got out of the car, our neighbor pointed to the side of our house and said it just started gushing water.... This is what we see...

It would pour out for a couple minutes, stop for a minute, and start again. I was scared to walk in the house, but I did and all I could hear was the sump pump alarm going off... Ok, now I'm really nervous! Well the light switches aren't installed yet so I couldn't see anything in the storage room. Used my phone flash to see what was going on and to my relief, there was NO water down there!!!

 So the good news is, the pump works, alarm works, and back up works... But I did call PM right away. Got his voicemail, apparently he's in Vegas:( but the sales office called another PM and they are going to take care of it. My husband came by to make sure it wasn't an emergency and thankfully it wasn't... I just hope they figure out how best to deal with all that water. We think it is draining out of the sump, just to fill up again, and repeat. But seriously, that is alot of water and I hope they work it out Monday.
 

Ok, scare over... Now time to look around. The painters came in and did two coats of primer on walls and one on ceiling. It's looking like a house now!!

Standing in the morning room, looking into the kitchen and living room.

The big beam, which is annoying, is there because we added the morning room and 4 ft extention in the living room. Hopefully, It will be a good way to define the spaces...we'll see. 

 

 

All the homes we looked at out here texture their ceilings like this. Not just Ryan homes, but all the newer builds have it. It is very weird to us but we were not given an option to have flat or knock down texture (my preference). I know it's not popcorn ceiling....it's a veiny like pattern. Here is our master bedroom with the trey ceiling. The inside is flat, which looks way better. I really wish we had an option to eliminate the texture but I am sure the builders love it to hide imperfections...Heck, that's why I like makeup!

 

The stone is drying and I still like it...Yay!

 

Like I mentioned before, our PM is in Vegas. I guess he deserves a vacation too, but he did call Dan on Friday to give him the agenda for next week. The plan is:finish painting, installing trim, hardwood floors, stone fireplace, and tile kitchen. That's a big punch list but we are supposed to close in 3 and a half weeks so they need to crank it up now!

 

On a fun note, many of the NE Ohio cities rescheduled Trick or Treating until this weekend. Our city is tomorrow and we planned on bringing candy and sitting in our non-existent driveway to pass out candy....BUT, even better, our almost neighbor invited us over to their driveway to sit around their firepit and pass out candy...PERFECT! 



 

 

Post-Sandy update

Just a quick blog about how things are going post-Sandy. We are SO fortunate because our home already has power and the battery back up for the sump pump (which is mandatory in our city, so Ryan has to install) was working. Our house had no water damage! My husband and I were sure we were going to have water in the basement but when I got to the house on Tuesday, the drywallers were hard at work and said everything looked good......We are so blessed.
But, on our side of town of Cleveland, not everyone was this lucky.... Let me explain: It has been raining here since last Friday, Oct.26th so today makes 7 consecutive days of STRAIGHT rain, and I mean that it has not stopped for even 15 minutes! So the storm that came through here was blowing east, and Sandy came along blowing North and West. When the two storms collided, it blew all that wet back at us, but with 45-65mph winds. We live right next to Lake Erie so it was pretty intense. There is lots of flooding here and still many without power. NOTHING like those in NY and NJ, which we are thankful for, but we have seen the ServPro trucks in many driveways throughout town. Actually, my kids were out of school for the past two days and trick or treating has been postponed until Sunday.
Back to the house, I guess the good news is that we know our home is waterproof. If it hasn't leaked with all this rain, we should fair pretty well in the future. But, for those of you in the framing stage, which is SO exciting, I must say, the drywalling stage is pretty uneventful:) Once they get it up, the next week is basically all about taping and mudding. But, this is such an important stage because none of us was uneven, flawed walls, which is why I have been bringing homemade treats every few days for the drywall team. They have been so nice.
 I can't wait til next week because our PM says floors should be going in.... AND, cabinets and doors have been delivered so that is kind of exciting!

I guess this wasn't as quick as I thought...sorry. But, one more cool thing to share. I keep seeing this beautiful albino buck in the woods near our rental. The other day, it walked right in front of our car. Thought I'd share the photo.

Stone relief!

I have been pretty worried about the stone we chose. There is only one house in the whole subdivision with the Aspen stone and I wasn't loving it with the siding and shutters they had. It seemed so washed out and peachy. Our SR kept telling me it will look great with my choices but I have been skeptical. I really wanted a light gray siding since our house is one-story. I thought a dark siding would make it seem small. So, we chose Silver Mist and Aspen  was the only stone option available with that siding.
Yesterday, I went to bring more bribery, I mean treats, and to my surprise, the stone guys were hard at work. The stone was still wet, which makes it look darker. Personally, I loved it and wished it would stay that color but I know it will lighten. Today I went by and they had finished up.
Here is the front with the beginnings of our columns....Imagine the front door Black Bean, not dirty off white.

I really like the combo now! I hope it doesn't lighten up too much more.