Well its been a few months since we posted and a lot has happened.
Double mortgage free - we closed on the old house about a month ago. What a wonderful feeling that was. The closing went well and the new homeowner was a nice young man that we know will take good care of the house for many years to come. Maybe he will be as lucky as us ... and meet his future partner and start a family. Also, he is a cop...so we hope he continues the fight with the neighbors to clean up their yard/houses.
Driveway - This past week RH stopped by to put the final top coat on the driveway. We looked into extending the driveway (20x20 area), which would allow for additional parking. However, they wanted an additional $3500...we said no way. That was highway robbery. We plan to eventually put in a concrete driveway and we will extend it at that time.
Landscaping/Grading - We submitted a service request for the poor landscaping/grading. Finally, we had someone stop by this week. We have several swampy areas and grading issues that is causing standing water. All of these issues that RH and the Project Mgr were well aware of in the Fall prior to closing, but we were told they would handled it in the Spring. Also, a lot of settlement around the house where they will need to come in to add additional soil. We expressed our disappointment with the quality of the grass seed, but were given the standard ... this is part of the basic landscaping package. They did agree to come out to add seed to the areas where the grass didn't take. However, they said since this is the busy time of year, they couldn't guarantee a when. I suggested by mid-June; he said it is unlikely. This makes me very angry because we are holding off on planting additional flower/shrubs in the beds until they provide additional topsoil/mulch.
2 of the street trees that were provided/planted by the township are not doing well either...RH told us that we have to take up the issue with the township. We plan to talk to other neighbors who seem to be having the same problem with the street trees to see if we can go to the township together.
We haven't started painting because we have been so focused on trying to get the outside work done. The weather has been so nice that we couldn't pass up spending the time in the yard. However, we just recently found out that we are expecting our 2nd child (due Nov 21st), so we have to at least address painting the bedrooms. The plan is to create a Tinkerbell fairyland room for our daughter in what is currently the guest room. Once she is transitioned, we plan to make her old room the nursery and the playroom will become the new guest room. The playroom is being transitioned into to the finished basement. After all of that, we will focus on the Master bedroom/bathroom.
So much to do...so little time. Until next time, happy building...happy living.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
COMPLAINT: SWITCHES/FLOORS
We love our new home. Almost everyday we discuss on how we are going to put our personal touch on it. However, there are 2 major items that we are very frustrated about.
#1 being the light switch issue, which I just read The Ravenna Rant's blog (http://ravennarant.blogspot.com/2012/02/light-switches.html), which pretty much addressed this issue. We have an electrician in the family that will hopefully be able to help us out to fix some of our frustrations with this. However, we don't want him to touch anything until after our 10 month inspection. We don't want to give RH any reason to indicate we voided a warranty by changing things around.
#2 Every room (and I mean it, every room) in the house has a squeak in the floor and it is getting worse. At the 30 day post-settlement inspection, we brought it to the PMs attention, who informed us that this is normal due to the settlement of the house. RH fixed a few of the squeaks at the 30 day post-settlement inspection, but the squeaks came right back. The PM indicated that we should let the house settle before we have RH fix any more squeaks.
We held off on installing the hardwood floors on the main level until after we moved in, but we don't want to install them until we know the problem is fixed.
It is so bad that I can hear my cats (one is 6 lbs and one is 12 lbs) walking around at night. We just moved from a 108 year old house, that I expected the floors to squeak, but that house had less squeaks than the new house.
Is this happening to others? Any feedback/advice is greatly appreciated.
#1 being the light switch issue, which I just read The Ravenna Rant's blog (http://ravennarant.blogspot.com/2012/02/light-switches.html), which pretty much addressed this issue. We have an electrician in the family that will hopefully be able to help us out to fix some of our frustrations with this. However, we don't want him to touch anything until after our 10 month inspection. We don't want to give RH any reason to indicate we voided a warranty by changing things around.
#2 Every room (and I mean it, every room) in the house has a squeak in the floor and it is getting worse. At the 30 day post-settlement inspection, we brought it to the PMs attention, who informed us that this is normal due to the settlement of the house. RH fixed a few of the squeaks at the 30 day post-settlement inspection, but the squeaks came right back. The PM indicated that we should let the house settle before we have RH fix any more squeaks.
We held off on installing the hardwood floors on the main level until after we moved in, but we don't want to install them until we know the problem is fixed.
It is so bad that I can hear my cats (one is 6 lbs and one is 12 lbs) walking around at night. We just moved from a 108 year old house, that I expected the floors to squeak, but that house had less squeaks than the new house.
Is this happening to others? Any feedback/advice is greatly appreciated.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
UNDER CONTRACT and UPDATE ON LIFE
It took 10 months (305 days to be exact), but we are finally under contract. The inspections are scheduled for the end of this week and hopefully, by the end of April we will be double mortgage free.
On another note, I can't believe it has been months since I have been out on the blog. It looks like everyone is moving along very nicely on building, closing, and settling into to their new homes. Welcome to all of the newbies, I will be checking out your progress. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
Our community is finished; the last house closed a few weeks ago and everyone is moved in. Several lots still need trees and landscaping, which RH will probably start working on within the next month. I will take some pictures this weekend and update the "Our Community" page. Also, we had our HOA meeting about a month ago.
Now that the weather is getting a little warmer, we have been meeting with landscapers to develop a plan for the yard. We are also working on narrowing down the paint colors for the inside. We will post our final color choices later. We haven't bought much for the house, we still need window treatments for most of the windows and we need to purchase a new bed for the master bedroom; we already purchased a king-size mattress --- LOVE IT!!
Also, RH finally finished hooking up the custom tub in the master bathroom. We will post some pictures later. We love the tub and shower...well worth the $$$ spent.
We had to address a few service issues:
1) family room ceiling - the tape on the seam where the ceiling meets the slope is coming down; RH had a contractor come out a few weeks ago to fix it. It looks good, but I read other blogs where this is a trouble spot and may need repaired more than once. We will keep our fingers crossed.
2) solarium HVAC - had a minor gas leak. The gas company came out and shut the unit down. Thank God, we had the other 2 units to warm the house. It took RH almost a week to come out to fix the leak.
Other than that, we are tracking all of the other minor issues that we will address at the 10 month inspection.
I promise to post more and to add some updated pictures. I really missed blogging and following all of the blogs.
On another note, I can't believe it has been months since I have been out on the blog. It looks like everyone is moving along very nicely on building, closing, and settling into to their new homes. Welcome to all of the newbies, I will be checking out your progress. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
Our community is finished; the last house closed a few weeks ago and everyone is moved in. Several lots still need trees and landscaping, which RH will probably start working on within the next month. I will take some pictures this weekend and update the "Our Community" page. Also, we had our HOA meeting about a month ago.
Now that the weather is getting a little warmer, we have been meeting with landscapers to develop a plan for the yard. We are also working on narrowing down the paint colors for the inside. We will post our final color choices later. We haven't bought much for the house, we still need window treatments for most of the windows and we need to purchase a new bed for the master bedroom; we already purchased a king-size mattress --- LOVE IT!!
Also, RH finally finished hooking up the custom tub in the master bathroom. We will post some pictures later. We love the tub and shower...well worth the $$$ spent.
We had to address a few service issues:
1) family room ceiling - the tape on the seam where the ceiling meets the slope is coming down; RH had a contractor come out a few weeks ago to fix it. It looks good, but I read other blogs where this is a trouble spot and may need repaired more than once. We will keep our fingers crossed.
2) solarium HVAC - had a minor gas leak. The gas company came out and shut the unit down. Thank God, we had the other 2 units to warm the house. It took RH almost a week to come out to fix the leak.
Other than that, we are tracking all of the other minor issues that we will address at the 10 month inspection.
I promise to post more and to add some updated pictures. I really missed blogging and following all of the blogs.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
SERVICE REQUEST #1 (myryanhome.com)
We made our first service request via that RH website (http://myryanhome.com/ServiceRequest.aspx).
The door knob on the door between the garage and laundry room fell apart. At first the lock stopped working and then the handle on the garage side fell off. We placed the service request and received a call from RH the next day. The RH service rep. will be here tomorrow morning to fix it.
Then tonight we noticed that in our family room the tape on the seam where the ceiling meets the slope is coming down. We know of one other blogger having the same problem. Is there any other bloggers having the same problem? We will ask the RH service rep. to look at it tomorrow, but I'm sure we will have to place another service request to get it fixed.
We still have a few outstanding items from our 30 day post-settlement that need to be completed. One of the issues is the french door to the study is bowed and we are waiting for a replacement door. We have been told several times that it has been ordered and it should be here soon. It is so frustrating because we plan to have the family Christmas party on the 18th and hope everything is fixed by then.
With the holiday season underway, we have been busy with all that goes along with that. Also, I (HW) returned back to the work force after being off for the past 10 months and my hubby (WW) started traveling again for work. So we haven't had much time to keep up with the blog, but every once in awhile we take a peak at what everyone is up to. There are so many new RH e-neighbors that we want to shout out a huge "Welcome" to and so many of the RH e-neighbors have closed on their homes that we want to tell "Congrats" and for the RH e-neighbors that are still in the building process...be patient, its sooooo worth the wait to make sure it is done right the first time.
Well its a busy night in Pittsburgh...we are trying to watch the Steelers and the Penguin game at that same time. Talk about multi-tasking at its finest.
The door knob on the door between the garage and laundry room fell apart. At first the lock stopped working and then the handle on the garage side fell off. We placed the service request and received a call from RH the next day. The RH service rep. will be here tomorrow morning to fix it.
Then tonight we noticed that in our family room the tape on the seam where the ceiling meets the slope is coming down. We know of one other blogger having the same problem. Is there any other bloggers having the same problem? We will ask the RH service rep. to look at it tomorrow, but I'm sure we will have to place another service request to get it fixed.
We still have a few outstanding items from our 30 day post-settlement that need to be completed. One of the issues is the french door to the study is bowed and we are waiting for a replacement door. We have been told several times that it has been ordered and it should be here soon. It is so frustrating because we plan to have the family Christmas party on the 18th and hope everything is fixed by then.
With the holiday season underway, we have been busy with all that goes along with that. Also, I (HW) returned back to the work force after being off for the past 10 months and my hubby (WW) started traveling again for work. So we haven't had much time to keep up with the blog, but every once in awhile we take a peak at what everyone is up to. There are so many new RH e-neighbors that we want to shout out a huge "Welcome" to and so many of the RH e-neighbors have closed on their homes that we want to tell "Congrats" and for the RH e-neighbors that are still in the building process...be patient, its sooooo worth the wait to make sure it is done right the first time.
Well its a busy night in Pittsburgh...we are trying to watch the Steelers and the Penguin game at that same time. Talk about multi-tasking at its finest.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
UPDATE ON HOUSE FOR SALE
Well here is the update:
We were about to drop our Realtor and take the house off the market until after the holidays and then place the house back on the market with a new Realtor.
However, we receive some feedback from the couple that took a 2nd look at the house, which was the Realtor told us not to expect any feedback until after Dec. 11th. Why that date, who knows. So we hang in limbo.
Then last week we received a call from the Realtor that another couple wants to look at the house on Saturday (12/03/2011). To date, we have not received any feedback.
The good news is, we are receiving some traffic....however, we are sooooo beyond frustrated that we have to hang in limbo.
I (HW) is beyond frustrated with the current Realtor and is sooooo ready to move onto another Realtor. I have already made a few calls and will be ready to jump at a moments notice.
To be continued....
We were about to drop our Realtor and take the house off the market until after the holidays and then place the house back on the market with a new Realtor.
However, we receive some feedback from the couple that took a 2nd look at the house, which was the Realtor told us not to expect any feedback until after Dec. 11th. Why that date, who knows. So we hang in limbo.
Then last week we received a call from the Realtor that another couple wants to look at the house on Saturday (12/03/2011). To date, we have not received any feedback.
The good news is, we are receiving some traffic....however, we are sooooo beyond frustrated that we have to hang in limbo.
I (HW) is beyond frustrated with the current Realtor and is sooooo ready to move onto another Realtor. I have already made a few calls and will be ready to jump at a moments notice.
To be continued....
Saturday, November 26, 2011
TWO WEEKS AND NO FEEDBACK
We reached out to our Realtor again today and still no feedback. We are beyond frustrated ... we will provide you with more information in a few days.
To be continued....
To be continued....
Monday, November 14, 2011
ANXIOUSLY WAITING
On 10/30/2011, we finally had another potential buyer look at our previous house and we received some good and bad feedback. With no surprise to us, they expressed concerns regarding the neighbors and they needed some time to do some research on the school district; however, they really liked the house. Last week, we received notice that they were interested in taking a second look at the house on Sunday (11/13/2011). We are anxiously waiting for a response.
To be continued...
To be continued...
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