Pre-Drywall Meeting

This past Friday we had our pre-drywall meeting! Everything is moving so fast! It's crazy! We're only 6 weeks away from our expected close date!

The fact that we're only 6 weeks away from our new home is:

a) Exciting!! - I cannot wait to get out of our apartment! The smallness of our apartment just makes everything cramped, cluttered, and messy. I was cooking this past weekend and I was getting so frustrated with having no room, but then I got even MORE excited for our new home and new kitchen with counter space and cabinet space and storage and I could go on and on!

b) Nervous! - You know how much stuff we still have to do? A lot. I'm supposed to be whipping up a kitchen table from scratch, and I haven't even bought the wood yet. Oh, and that couch? Still stripped down to the bare bones sitting in my parent's living room! Oh, and have a mentioned that I work full time and I'm also in graduate school? Oh, and I'm taking two accelerated courses versus my usual course load of only one course! I'm going to be a lunatic!

We've been trying to get prepared though. We've started packing a little bit here and there. It's a little difficult, because you don't want to pack up stuff you'll need in the next 6 weeks. I didn't think I would need my vegetable peeler, so I packed it. Guess what? I've needed it twice!
We also looked into cable providers. If you have a really new development, I highly recommend looking into this ahead of time. The only provider we have is Verizon Fios and then a local small cable provider. We'll actually need them to come and dig a line in our yard for the hook-up so I'm going to schedule that ahead of time. Our PM said it's probably best to do it ASAP after closing before the sod is established so you can just lift up the sod instead of them having to dig up the yard.
I also got some folders and dividers and I'm going to try and organize all of our paperwork. I want to have all of our medical stuff, house stuff, and pet stuff organized so important stuff doesn't go missing during the move.

Meeting Details

We had our meeting at around 1:30PM on Friday. My boyfriend got there around 1:00 and so did the Guardian rep so they went through early before I got there. One tip I have is to make sure you know where you want all your cable, data, speaker hookups. For example, if you're having cable hookups for TVs in bedrooms think about where you're going to put the bed so you know where you might want the TV. Once I got there I corrected some of the places my boyfriend put the hookups! Lol! He just kind of plopped them on random walls.

Once that was done we went through the house with our PM. It wasn't as thorough as I thought it would be. It was more just a time for us to ask him about stuff or tell him about anything we saw. I think he normally walks through with people more carefully, but since we had our own inspector coming it wasn't really necessary to make us walk through everything twice. We noticed a few things like the second fan in our master bath wasn't installed, but he already knew about it. It was sitting downstairs in the garage waiting to be installed. We couldn't think of much else so then we just waited for the home inspector to come by and he told us to just give him a call once that was over.

Our inspector showed up a little bit later. He was a really nice guy. We started in the basement and worked our way up. He looked over everything very carefully and very slowly which was good! I'm glad he took his time. Overall, he noticed a few things but everything looks pretty good! Once we were done our PM came over right away and we showed him some stuff that we found. Here are some things he noticed and our PM's response:

• Wonky looking wall in the basement. This isn't a structural wall but would definitely affect how good the wall looks cosmetically once drywalled
• PM will definitely have this fixed
• "Sleeve" on gas lines should be longer
• He'll check in on the code and ask the plumbing guy to look at it and confirm
• Flex duct seemed to be too long (14 ft)
• Code recently changed in our county to allow flex duct longer than 14 ft
• Missing nail plates (these are metal barriers they put on the wall where beams are close and there is wiring - this helps prevent someone from accidentally puncturing any of the wiring or gas lines when putting up drywall)
• He'll have them installed no problem
• Recommended we get more insulation downstairs near the HVAC system in foyer - apparently it gets really loud in Ryan Homes, which I have heard about before.
• Apparently, they started putting insulation inside of these ducts a few years ago to help with the noise. He said he'd ask if we can have more put in.
• Gap in lumber making up the peak over our garage
• He'll have that fixed
• Uneven roof on the side of the house
• He said this was fine because everything is tight from the inside.
• Crooked vents (dryer vent on the outside of the house was crooked)
• These will be fixed
• Return and supply of HVAC system too close upstairs. Right next to each other - doesn't make sense
• He's not sure why this happened. He said he'd look at the blue print to see if they were installed in the right spot. If they were, then he'll ask why it's like this on the blue print, because it doesn't really make sense.

Overall, everything went really well! We even have a garage door installed! Yesterday, after my boyfriend and his cousin were done "celebrating" an Eagle's victory, I picked them up and we went to look at the house. They had all of the cable and data wires hooked up already. The only issue we saw is that they put the rough in's for the rear surround sound speakers too far up. We want them behind us when we're watching tv, and right now they're positioned above where the couch will be vs behind the couch. Technically, we're not supposed to go into the house so we shouldn't know this yet, but I feel like we should say something about it before the drywall goes up.

Front - Garage door, window trim decor, and wrapping added

Right

This week they'll be putting in drywall and our PM said our siding should be up by the end of this week! Sooo excited! Oh, I also asked him about sod care and if he had any tips and he said he gives us a whole manual on house stuff, including a section on sod, so we should be all set! He's been really great with everything. We definitely had a few hiccups during the entire process but our PM has been wonderful.

 

A Pile of Wood

We went by the house this past weekend and right now it doesn't look much different than last time, but everything done was very important.

This past week they water proofed the foundation. Pretty boring to look at but very very important. They also filled in our porch and our basement floor with concrete. This also means we passed our first two county inspections on schedule! Woo!
The most exciting thing we saw at our homesite was the giant pile of wood! Wood = Framing. This is when it starts to get exciting and look like a house! So pumped!

We also creeped in some of our neighbors yards that are mostly done. We noticed that they give us a lot of trees (unless our neighbors paid for some hefty lanscaping package). It's awesome that we get some trees, but the placement of the trees? That's a different story. They're planted in a perfectly straight line, all about 4 ft apart. It just looks unnatural to me. I know some people like lanscaping like that, but for me, I like trees to look like they naturally popped up where they are, AKA I like when nature looks natural. Hopefully, he'll let us choose where to put our trees because if not, I'll just be digging them up and moving them right after we move in.

The model in our community will also be done next week. I'm pretty curious to see what it looks like all finished so that will be cool. The sod at the model home is already dying though .. this scares me. Sod scares me. I'll probably be researching "how to keep sod alive" for hours, like a crazy person, closer to closing. If anyone has dealt with sod and has any tips I would love to hear from you! No one I know has ever had sod. All we heard is that it has to be watered non-stop, but also not too much or it will die. lol!

Our PM told us earlier last week that he would be off on Friday so we didn't get a call from him last week. I'm guessing he should be calling today on updates/schedules. My boyfriend will also be making his argument for pendant lighting or their need to commit to using Trex decking since that is what we have in writing. I'm hoping they're willing to just throw in some pendant lighting (I highly doubt they would pick using/paying for Trex, a brand name, before they would throw in some lights), but who knows. Most companies would do it no problem for customer service reasons, but Ryan Homes? Not always that easy to convince. I don't really understand their resistance to this type of customer service. If they had just said "We quoted you the wrong brand, and we really appologize. Can we throw in some extra outlets or lights to make up for our mistake?" we would be much happier and much more likely to recommend them as a builder to people we know. I guess they do fine without that word of mouth marketing, so it's not that important to them. As someone who works in marketing I find this odd, but whatever.

Anyways, here are some updated pictures!

Right

 

Left

Center

 

Basement & Pile of wood

Our Pile of Wood! AKA Our House's bones!

PAINTING

Quick question for everyone: Is anyone considering painting before their 10/12 month inspection? I know they recommend waiting a year until you paint because there will definitely be nail pops and repairs made to the wall over the first year. We were talking to family this weekend and they were just saying how much easier it is to paint before you have a bunch of stuff in the way and you're unpacked, so we were thinking maybe we should paint now and then just touch up the areas that are repaired? What are you guys planning to do?
 

Pre-Construction Meeting ... FINALLY

Warning: This is a long post! The list of questions looks a bit excessive but I thought it may be helpful information for future home builders!

We finally had our pre-construction meeting yesterday! After we got delayed for a month it felt like it would never come! It was pretty good. We kind of knew what to expect just from reading a ton of blogs about the experience.

First thing we did when we got there was drive around the development. When we first bought our lot there was only a line of twin houses built a few years ago by another builder (Ryan Homes bought the rest of the land from them), but there were NO Ryan Homes houses yet. Last time we were there, about a month ago, the model had most of its siding and then there were a few foundations poured, but that's about it. Yesterday, there were like 5 houses! They aren't all done but they are all at least framed. They put these homes up so quick, it's crazy!

Then we went inside and met our project manager for the first time. His last name is Roof .. Really? How do you not become a home builder with the last name Roof? Anyways .. he seems like a nice guy, and most importantly, he seems like he really takes pride in his job. He also has a sense of humor which is very much appreciated by us! I don't know how to talk to people who don't have a sense of humor! He's also a dog person like we are so he understands our concerns about putting a fence up ASAP.

Here are some things we discussed:

• We started off with basic introductions and then we went over our options. He confirmed we're getting the Palermo, Elevation E, all siding, and then confirmed all of our options. We just had to let him know if we were good to go. Everything was correct so we signed and then moved on. I'm hoping we didn't miss anything!
• He talked about when/how he will update us. He'll start off by calling us every Friday (maybe Monday if he doesn't have time on Friday) and let us know what was accomplished that week and what to expect the upcoming week. He personally prefers talking on the phone because he said its more personal, and he wants to get to know us a little bit. After the first few weeks he's fine with contacting us strictly through email if we prefer that.
• We had a whole conversation on when we are allowed to visit. He said he only wants us to go inside the house when he is there too, because it can be dangerous ... buuuut his work hours are basically my work hours so I may have to break those rules a little bit .. maybe. I honestly think they say that to avoid liability if you do get hurt and because they would rather you not snoop around and tell them what's wrong all the time. He explained that he normally notices something that is wrong early on but it doesn't mean it will get fixed straight away (but it WILL get fixed because he doesn't tolerate sloppy work).
• Timelines: He should be able to break ground this week sometime. He is just waiting for the approval to get started. He said once he gets the approval he normally starts the building process that day. He'll call us the day they break ground or the day after. From that point it should only take about 100-110 days until close which would put us closing around the last week in October.
• Questions - We compiled a list of questions and sent them to him ahead of time in case he needed to do some research. He had them all printed out and ready to go so we just went down the list one by one. I'll post the list at the end of this post.

Highlights

1. We're getting sod in the front AND back yard
2. We are now getting a double vanity in the secondary bath too! (they allowed a last minute change)
3. The door to our office is one of the doors with windows (not a solid door like we all thought)
4. Deck (trex materials) is brown with white railings. Stairs will be center facing the back yard.Our PM also described our deck as a HUGE deck! Love it!
5. We have plenty of room from the side of our house to our property line to add a double gate to our fence.
6. Our egress window is basically just a big walkout window (will not include a well/won't be covered) because our property is sloped enough that it could almost be considered a walk out. This will bring in a lot of natural light into our basement! 

Here is a list of our questions and their answers - this is a list we compiled from looking at MANY blogs

General

• What is the best way to reach you?
• Phone and email
• Can we visit the site whenever want?
• We need to visit when he is there
• How many inspections are there?
• About 12-13 inspections - This includes the big three (Foundation, Pre-drywall, and Final inspection) as well as the many inspections our county requires (he said he failed inspections once because he provided someone with 12 shrubs vs the required 13)
• What do we have to do if we want our own inspector?
• Just let him know that we have one coming around - he didn't seem to mind us wanting our own inspector
• Will you provide us with weekly updates? How?
• Yes - By phone at first and then in whatever way we want (email, phone, text, etc)
• Are you going on vacation at all during our build?
• Yes - He's not sure when but he will give us a heads up and give us a contact while he is gone

Outside

• Driveway - Width/Length — Can we make it wider?
• Width is 18 ft and length is about 31 ft. We can make it wider on our own. He recommended we do this through the same person they use since they lay our garage in two phases (Put in driveway and then let it settle for a few months and then come back to put on top coat). He said by using the same guy we'll avoid getting charged extra for a top coat on the addition.
• Lawn - Sodded/Seeded?
• Sodded in the Front AND back yard
• Outside Lighting - What's included? Where?
• Two lights on either side of garage, two recessed lights on porch, one light by sliding glass door from morning room
• Hose bibs - How many? Where? Can we choose the location?
• Two are included — One on either side of the house (1 towards the back on the garage side and the other towards the front of the opposite side) — No, we cannot choose where these go
• Outlets? How many? Where?
• This is done by code - There has to be an outlet every 6 feet
• Landscaping - What's included? Can we choose? Can we opt out?
• We get a very beginner package of some shrubs and mulch in the front yard. We cannot choose and we cannot opt out.
• House positition on lot - Direction of home
• Southwest
• Yard size
• Front Yard - about 31 ft to curb and about 80 ft wide
• Back yard - About 50 ft deep and 90 ft wide
• Distance from neighbors
• About 20 ft
• Distance from side of house to property line (need to know because we want a gate for our fence)
• 10 ft
• Fencing - Can we have a privacy fence
• Yes - We had this confirmed by our Sales Rep
• Will there be sidewalks? Will you be putting them in or is that up to the community?
• Yes - PM will put in sidewalk in front of our house but the rest of the community sidewalks are up to the community
• Deck - Can we see the plans for the deck? What are the colors of our deck? Can we pick stair location on the deck?
• Yes - We looked at a rough sketch of deck dimensions. It will go around the fireplace bump out. It will be brown with white rails. We were allowed to pick the stair location - We chose the center going out to our backyard

Garage

• Is the garage sheet-rocked?
• Yes (but not insulated)
• In there a rough-in for the garage door opener?
• Yes
• How many outlets in garage?
• One on the wall / One on the ceiling
• Is garage at a pitch (so water will easily flow away from the house)
• Yes

Construction

• Extra support in high traffic areas?
• Yes & No - This is taken into consideration when engineers design house but they do not put extra support on top of that
• Where is the Attic access?
• In laundry room
• Can you not install the quarter round so we can install it when we put in our laminate flooring after closing
• No - The only reason is because they would not pass inspection if they did not install quarter round

Cosmetic

• Flooring Breaks- Where are they? (We were only concerned about where our Great Room carpet started)
• Lines up with hallway (matched PDF) 
• Location of egress window - Can we move it so it is not under our deck/in the way of where we want to put our wet bar rough-in
• Yes! - We moved it to the side of our morning room compared to being in the middle of the morning room. He also confirmed that our egress window will just be a walk out window because of how our property is sloped (it's almost a walk-out lot but not quite)
• Are windows standard sized?
• No - We can measure once drywall is up
• What color paint is being used for the house?
• Two-toned paint - an off-white color
• If you have extra paint can you leave it so we can do touch-ups where we see fit?
• They won't leave cans but the paint manufacturer can send a free touch up kit with the paint used

Kitchen

• Size of spot for fridge
• 30" wide x 6 ft tall - This is an estimate! If the fridge we see is very close to those measurements then we should wait to buy it (ex. 28in-30in wide) but if it's a decent amount smaller than 30" we should be good.
• Will cabinets be flush with fridge or other cabinets? Can we make it flush with fridge?
• They will be flush with other cabinets - No we cannot bump them out
• Backsplash - Can we forego the 4 inch backsplash extended from the counter?
• No - This would have needed to be a custom request (not sure why ... ) but its easy to take off (it's glued to the wall).
• Do you provide fire extinguishers?
• No
• How many smoke detectors? Where?
• Smoke detectors in each bedroom, each hallway, and one in the basement. There is also a CO2 detector upstairs by the master bedroom
• Can we choose placement of recessed lights in the packages we bought?
• No - Only time we can choose locations is if you choose to buy extra recessed lights

Office

• Is the door to the office a solid door or a door with windows like we saw in the model
• To everyone's surprise its the window door! Yay!!

Bathroom

• Single bowl vanity in the secondary bath - How big is this vanity? We were under the impression that it was a large vanity but just had one bowl.
• Single bowl vanity is only a 30" vanity. We talked about this and showed them our PDF that showed a solid line for the vanity (only showed a dotted line for the bowl and said "optional bowl"). Because of the confusion they let us change this option last minute so we're now getting a double bowl vanity in the secondary bath too!
• Are we getting two exhaust fans in our master bath?
• Yes

Plumbing

• Is there a water softener included? Can we get one? Do we need one?
• No, no, and no
• Water heater blanket included? 
• No - he said we don't need an external one though because the water heaters they use are very energy efficient
• Sump pump?
• We have one and it's located in the same room as the hot water heater