Our brick was supposed to be finished by the end of this week but turns out they don't have enough bricks to finish the job. The rest should be delivered on Monday. The drywallers started today and I saw boxes of siding in the garage! I told my PM to let me know when the brick and siding are both done because I'm going to try my hardest to not visit until then! It will be hard but it will be great to see the brick, siding, and drywall all completed at the same time!
My husband and I almost bought some insulation today and we were planning on going out to the house and finishing the two walls that RH doesn't do in the garage. We got approval from our PM to do so. After doing some online research, my husband changed his mind. He read that the insulation will only make the temperature of the garage 5-15 degrees different from the outside. So unless we put a heater out there, the extra insulation would be pointless. Our garage will literally just be used to park our cars and store some stuff. It didn't seem worth the effort or money to finish the insulation ourselves. I still feel like RH should finish it though. The cost is very low and their workers could finish it in no time. I will still be mentioning this on my RH survey. I need to start a list of things to include in this survey. Does anyone have any other suggestions? What are you disappointed with so far?
Well, we aren't as far along in the building process, but a thorn in my side right now is paint. The standard interior paint in my community is "shell white". Which - white walls make me berserk. I would like to buy the paint myself in a beige or khaki - from Sherwin Williams, where Ryan gets theirs - and have that go up in place of the white. I just loathe white walls and if I can choose a neutral color I like and save myself some time and furniture moving later - awesome. After the 10 month, I'll be able to just get away with a few accent walls here and there. But SR says nooooo, can't provide my own paint. Ok, well I know there are other options from Sherwin Williams to choose from, can we not just substitute? Oh sure! We are happy to offer you the paint package at $2095. Which really, for a 3200 sq ft is not a bad price for painting, but if they're putting up a coat of shell white at no charge, why couldn't they put up another color instead? This is still not resolved, so in the end it may work out in our favor, but right now it will be mentioned on that precious survey. Sorry, didn't mean to leave a novel in your comments:) This has really been my only quibble so far.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you! The paint package only comes in three different shades of yellow, I believe. You don't even get to pick the colors with that! I would pay so much more for them to use my colors! What annoys me the most about it is that if we do paint right away and we get nail pops, RH won't touch up the paint with our colors. They only use their own!
DeleteAnother one of my beefs is that RH doesn't offer patios or decks in my region. Yet, fellow bloggers who live just two hours away have gorgeous decks put in by RH.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the beef about decks/patios and landscaping. Our community doesn't offer any of that stuff. Oh well. I guess this way we can get exactly what we want later on, without any restrictions (other than budget, of course). Our paint color options were more than just yellow -- we had a few different options, all neutrals. Luckily, my husband and I are currently in our "beige/brown/tan" period and we found one we really liked (Pavilion Beige from Sherwin Williams). And we were able to get all walls and the ceiling in our garage insulated for $700. Honestly, I think my main beef is the fact that things are so different from one community to the next. It's rather ridiculous to me.
ReplyDeleteWow! That was an awesome deal!! You were able to get the entire house painted plus garage insulation! HOLLA!
DeleteA lot of the difference comes from the Homeowner's Association in that neighborhood. Our neighborhood was mostly built by a company who went out of business and Ryan Homes took over to finish it. Our HOA requires bushes, flowers and trees within the first 6 months of moving in, so RH provides that for us. I'm sure other cities also have requirements and restrictions for building in other areas as well. Our city requires houses look a certain way if its close to a main road (brick only).
DeleteThis insulation issue bothers me I with CMM. Ryan should insulate the walls during the build process just doesn't make sense to me that they don't. This issue about not receiving keys at closing is totally unacceptable. I also agree on the paint issue and the deck / patio issue. Patios and decks are not offered in the Pittsburgh area and I wish they were.
ReplyDeleteI know I read it and even commented, but which blogger didn't get their keys at settlement? That is cray
DeleteWe just found out about the keys too. We are supposed to close on a Friday and thought we'd be able to work on things during the weekend but it turns out we wouldn't get keys until Monday. We are working on moving up our closing date so that we'll have keys in time for the weekend.
DeleteI am waiting to have these topics mentioned in our pre construction mtg. Not sure what the response will be. I definitely want the entire garage insulated, no matter what!! Even if we have to do it ourselves after hours. The one thing he mentioned he cannot do is install the pot filler over the range. He had no clue what I was talking about, so I am armed with photos with all my specific requests. I am having backsplash installed and I want the pot filler installed at the same time. I even plan to show him a 2 minute video on how to install it. In the meantime, I just found out that our community is offering the free 10x12 deck for the July incentive. When signed our purchase agreement, this was not an option. Eventually they may get around to offering this option in other communities. Lastly, anything outside of the standard options--you must put in a special request.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the garage should be insulated. Someone on the job site told me that RH counts their bricks and there usually are not many left over. I wonder if someone walked away with some of your brick or if you just had a lot of broken ones.
ReplyDeleteThere are still three large piles of brick in front of our house but apparently it's not enough.
DeleteI may be the only one, but it doesn't bother me that the garage is not insulated. I grew up with out an insulated garage. All it was used for was an extra storage space and to park cars. As far as paint goes, I could care less. I'm going to paint eventually when I move in, but I have no clue what colors I want. It's easier to paint over white than a darker color. We aren't having a deck put in by RH simply because I can get the same size deck built for cheaper then the RH price. But think of it this way CMM you can customize your deck to whatever you want instead of the standard sizes :) That's that way I look at it.
ReplyDeleteI agree about the decks/patios. And I so wish Ryan would let us choose paint or at least upgrade to one of their five choices for free. We did end up spending the $2000 and I have to say, I love the color - it's not yellow at all. But I would have much rather chosen a semi-gloss because we have small kids and flat paint really sucks. As for the garage, I really don't care much. We have been parking our cars outside for the last few years and a carport would feel like an upgrade at this point!
ReplyDeleteI wish we could have chosen the elevation we wanted. There was a home with the same elevation already built next to us.
ReplyDeleteI did get the garage insulated by Ryan. I may have tried doing the walls myself but they also blow insulation into the garage ceiling so the price was more palatable. It may be only a slight difference, but it may help a little in the dead of winter.
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree though that they should of just insulated the garage regardless without an extra charge.
Can't wait to see the outside when it's finished!
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ReplyDeleteI'm disappointed about the paint too. It seems like they could have at least used a neutral cream paint so we at least wouldn't need to paint all the hallways right away. I can't stand white walls so even though we might get nail-pops we'll be attempting to paint the majority of the house right away. We also don't have the deck/patio/backsplash/tile floor options. I'm ok with doing most things later but it would have been easier to have some of those costs rolled into the mortgage instead of coming up with more big lump sums soon.
ReplyDeleteWe're still at the beginning of our process, so I don't have much experience to speak from yet. However, I think not being able to select from at least a few different paint colors stinks! We've lived in rentals for years and I'm pretty tired of white/off-white. -Bobbie
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