2 weeks. 14 days!!

That's it. 14 days until we go to closing and have our keys! I can hardly believe that we have made it to this point. 5 months ago to the day, we walked into a model home on a whim. I would have never dreamed I was actually going to build a house. This will be our first home. Tomorrow is our 5 year wedding anniversary. So, this is all very fitting. In case you weren't aware, the 5 year anniversary traditional gift is wood. So here you go honey, here's a great big hunk of wood! 

Please excuse the car in the driveway, the landscapers were still there when I drove by this afternoon. Yesterday they gave us a mailbox and poured our driveway. Today, they "installed" our lawn and landscaping! It is looking AWESOME!! I have not seen inside since May 20, and it feels like an eternity until our PM gives us his "grand reveal" on June 13. 

I love that our PM takes pride in his work and wants to do a grand reveal. It took a lot of faith, and there have been days that I have nearly caved and begged him to let me inside. However, I know that we will be so excited for our pre-settlement walk through on the 13th!

Now for a brief update... I know my last post was quite the rant. We were pretty upset. We were not getting the solution we wanted. (for the opener to be removed and for us to be credited the $550) After not getting an answer in the time we were told we would and then getting a no, we decided to just put it out there in our blog and social media. I will say that RH did notice. After some back and forth, we were able to get the garage door opener removed and was credited the $550. We are so happy about this. We immediately went shopping and got the garage door opener we wanted, on sale and got a military discount on top of that. We are so pleased. Now, if I can just get it installed. 

Here it is:

Chamberlain 1.25-HP Belt Drive Garage Door Opener

All is well in the world again. So much stress over something so small. 

2 weeks!!!!!!!

The Great Garage Door Opener Debacle

I had been holding off on writing this post because I was holding out hope that it would be remedied. 

I feel silly even writing about and getting upset over this, but at the end of the day, it comes down to paying for something we never wanted.

In our area, a garage door opener is an option, an extremely overpriced option. They charge $550 for a basic garage door opener. We researched and found a smart garage door opener that we could purchase and have installed for around $330. It is significantly nicer and would cost us $220 less, not to mention the extra $3/month for 30 years. This means the garage door opener through RH would cost us $1080 over our 30-year mortgage. 

Since our 30-day final change meeting, we have repeatedly said we didn't want the garage door opener in our options. We thought it was removed from our list. Our 14-day and 30-day meetings were both rushed and hectic. Our SR was out a lot leading up to them between the massive snow and his wife having a baby. Somehow removing the garage door opener was missed by us & our SR. We thought it was taken care of and our SR missed it. 

However, the mistake was never caught. We mentioned it at the 30-day, the pre-construction, the pre-drywall, and our most recent walkthrough. No one ever said to us, "hey this is still on your options list" until our most recent walkthrough. Our PM said he thought we were getting one, but he would look into it. 

Next thing we know, I drive by and notice the exterior keypad. What the heck?! My husband contacted our PM. He said it was on the list and was installed, but he had no problem taking it out if RH would credit us for it because we are paying for it. Thursday we called our SR. He said he would talk to his supervisor, but he didn't think they would do anything. He remembered us saying that we didn't want it but not specifically requesting it being removed. Uhm....? Yeah, okay. He promised to call us back. Friday afternoon, we hadn't heard anything, so my husband called. Our SR said he didn't know anything yet, but he would call us before the end of the day. He never called us back Friday. Figures. (This not-so-good communication has been a trend.) My husband called him Saturday, and he said that his supervisors said no. We then requested his supervisor call us and speak with us directly. Well, she's off until Tuesday, but our SR said she's just going to tell us the same thing. 

Are you serious Ryan Homes?? You're going to make an upset customer over a $550 garage door opener?? 

I genuinely don't understand why this is so difficult. We were told it was "against the rules". WHAT RULES?! Where are these rules?? 

Meanwhile, the garage door opener we actually want is on sale. We don't know if we should go ahead and buy it or not. Our PM is going to give us more information on the garage door opener that is installed when he goes to work on Tuesday. We want to know if it is a chain or belt, what brand, etc. to see if it's worth keeping and just purchasing an add-on to make it a smart garage door opener. Our PM seems to be the only one in this loop that has any sense of customer satisfaction and desire to make us a home we love. 

I don't think we are being unreasonable. We're not asking for something for nothing. We're asking for something to be removed that we never wanted. (and said we never wanted from the beginning) 


Any thoughts? Opinions? Ideas? Am I being ridiculous? Would you be upset? What would you do??



Thanks!

Long time no update...

I haven't been able to update because I haven't been able to get inside the house. My schedule has gotten so crazy these days. On top of that, it has been raining for the past 2+ weeks. This meant a delay to get our siding up. However, we drove by last night on our way home from a weekend out of town and an evening spent at the vet. We finally have siding! They were able to get it up between our 2 rain free days, Saturday and Monday. It was too dark, but I went by today and snapped a picture after work. 

Our Irish Thistle siding 

I also saw the electrician was there earlier and WE HAVE LIGHT! This is super exciting!

One month from today is our closing date! We can't wait!  Guess I better get moving on this packing business. 

Picture-happy progress!!

We drove by tonight! (And by drove by, I mean we stopped the vehicle and walked around the house gawking with a camera like crazy people.) Our neighbors probably think we're nuts! HA oh well! I know the neighbors to the left of us, and they're very nice people. My husband has met the neighbor to the right and they seem nice too. Driving through, we usually see a lot of children playing and the adults gathered around talking. I think we picked a great neighborhood. It's a smaller neighborhood, and I really like that. 




Anyway... without further ado... PICTURES:

Front 

I believe in love at first sight! HA!

We have a front door!!  

Is this normal? Is this the moisture barrier? I have no clue. I intend to ask.

I am guessing the black stuff is the moisture barrier/grading indication. Not sure?

Our door off the morning room is in! There will be a deck here also. 

Our morning room!! (Notice anything odd about the 3 windows?)

If you said one of the windows was different, YOU ARE CORRECT! My husband didn't notice this, but I sure did. I have no clue what happened, but I do intend to say something about it. Not a big deal.

Windows on the other side of the morning room. These are usually an upgrade, but they are standard in our community, like most of the extra upgrade windows. I love it!!

Side of the house

Other side/back corner

Back of the house. It looks so big!

There were some geese friends in our neighbor's backyard.

There's the pond behind our house.

Our goose friend. I love that nothing will be built behind us!

A view of the stairs and some of the framing.

A view into our mudroom/kitchen/morning room/family room

Here you can see more of the family room

The progress is actually so crazy to see! We are in awe of our dream becoming a reality. We couldn't be any happier! This journey has sometimes been so stressful, but I am certain that it will all be worth it when it's finished! Until then, I will keep documenting this transformation!

(Tips, thoughts, and advice are definitely welcome)

Some Assembly Required

This week as been the most exciting so far.

It started off like this:

Some Assembly Required

 Our LOVELY pile of wood! It's a beautiful sight!

These were taken Tuesday evening:

Driveway & Garage

Basement

Basement

 Does anyone know what the black cable thing is? Is it electrical or is it Fios? Or am I just completely wrong? haha.

Here's a link to another 360° photo sphere of our "basement":

https://goo.gl/photos/1tqnyUkRSGEhQhn19

Here are the pictures from Wednesday night, framing day 1:

I imagine we'll be fully framed by Friday, maybe? This is so exciting! It is finally starting to feel real. We can see the house coming together before our eyes! It is no longer just a drawing and list of choices on paper. 

Stay tuned...

(P.S. Any advice, tips, or wisdom is much appreciated!!)