Shower Door & Big Window Woes Continue

For those of you who have been following my blog for a while now, you might remember the shower door debacle we had last month. You can read the original blog entry We Lost the Shower Door Debate and I'm Angry and then the follow up one 50/50.  Just a short recap - we were told by our SR that we would have a swinging shower door in our master bath but a sliding one was installed instead. We debated back and forth with the production team on this topic. They said they only offer the swinging door when you get a custom tile shower. We did not want tile, because I hate it, but our SR told us that our upgraded master bath would come with the swinging door either way. My husband and I both vividly remember this conversation with her. She is currently on maternity leave so they couldn't even check with her to confirm. We made a huge deal out of this because we hate sliding doors in the shower. We had one in our condo and we were really looking forward to having the swinging door in our new home. We worked out a deal with RH where they would pay for half of our swinging door - since they are not admitting any fault. Part of my thinks they didn't even believe us when we told them that it was our SR that told us we would be getting a swinging door.

Fast forward to today. Our shower was measured for our new door the week before we closed on the house. It has been a month since we moved in and our new swinging door was scheduled to be installed today. The installer was super nice. He took our sliding door out, installed the stationary panel and then realized that the actual door is too big to fit the space. SERIOUSLY?!? We waited a month and now we still don't have our door?!? Our original door was already taken out and the stationary panel put in so now we have to use the shower down the hall until they MAKE a new door and then schedule again to have someone come out and install it. We won't even know until early next week when they can have the door done by. If they make us wait another month with our shower literally torn apart....I might actually lose my mind.

We also thought our big window in our two-story foyer was getting replaced today. It has a scratch so they have to replace the whole window. We received a call from Plygem yesterday and apparently they didn't schedule us for today? My husband remembers calling and scheduling it several weeks back. The lady on the phone wasn't very nice to me so I got snappy back with her. She said my husband told her what the most convenient time for him was but that it wasn't officially scheduled. She said she could have it done next Thursday but when my husband called to schedule, he told her that Tuesdays and Fridays are the only days that work for us. He works from home on those two days and he will NOT be taking time off work on another day to deal with a mistake that wasn't ours to begin with. Apparently they don't care what the most convenient time is for us so why did they even bother to ask and then take three weeks to tell us that didn't work for them? My PM said that if Plygem doesn't call me back by Monday, that he would call them and take care of it. If I have to give a key to the house to my PM so that he can be here while they change the windows out, then so be it. I just want it fixed.

I seriously love my Ryan Home, but it seems that what can go wrong has gone wrong.

On a good note, our sod is getting installed right now. It is totally brown but I'm hoping it turns green quick like the our neighbor's across the street. It's also supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow so we don't have to worry about watering it until we get our sprinkler system in!

My Heart Hurts

It has been exactly a week since we moved into our new home. We have been so busy packing, moving, and unpacking. This past weekend our family room and morning room furniture was delivered. We also got our washer, dryer, and refrigerator delivered. Everything looks great and I swear I will try to get some pictures up sometime this week! Yesterday was my day off and I was going to post some then but I had my PM, an electrician, two HVAC guys, a painter, and the cleaning people all here. Oh, and our brick got power washed yesterday too.

So why does my heart hurt? You all remember that huge window I have in my foyer, right? The one I have made you look at countless pictures of even before it was ever installed? Well it has to be replaced! SAY WHAT?!? There is a pretty big scratch on it. I have spent many many days looking up at the window from my foyer and looking straight at it from the upstairs hallway ever since it was installed. I'm pretty sure if there was a scratch before, I would have noticed it. I looked at it several times during our walk-through last week too and I did not see it there. The scratch magically appeared the day after our walk-through, when we got out keys. As a matter of fact, I noticed it the second I looked up at it. I'm pretty sure the cleaning crew caused it. They were cleaning the window the day we got our keys. They also left marks all over our wall and window trim below the window. The cleaning crew came out again yesterday to address some issues and to re-clean that window since they didn't really do that good of a job the first time. I asked them to tell me if it was really a scratch I saw up there or just something that needed cleaned off. The lady responded with, "Yeah, there's a scratch up there. We noticed that last week when we were here." SERIOUSLY?!?!? You noticed it last week and didn't tell anyone?!? Yeah, probably because they caused it. So my heart hurts because I don't even know how such a window gets replaced. How much of my house needs torn out to get to it? It's making me sick to my stomach just thinking about it. My husband is going to have to be here when it gets replaced because I'm not sure I could handle the stress. I had to hide upstairs when our fridge, washer, and dryer were all delivered because it stressed me out!

I mentioned in my last post that there were not enough outlets installed for Guardian to finish connecting everything in our basement and that our post lamp wasn't working. The electrician came yesterday and installed the outlets in the basement. He also found where the switch for our post lamp was drywalled over. I was impressed at how well the switch was unearthed. I was afraid there would be a big hole in the drywall, but there isn't. This light is really cool. It has a censor on it and automatically turns on when it's dark outside. There is a switch for it towards the front of our garage that we can use if we want it turned off. It's convenient to have because I always forget to turn my outside lights on when I leave the house and won't be back until after dark. Our community doesn't have street light (thank god!) so it's nice to have a light that automatically turns on.

A picture of out post lamp and my beloved window in the background. Taken before the house was power washed.
Sod should be installed next week!

Now for the update on the air conditioning issue. When we first moved in, we had our thermostat set at 74 degrees but the air wouldn't turn off even though the house was 67 degrees. The upstairs was having the opposite problem. It was warmer than we had the thermostat set for. The HVAC guys came out yesterday and fixed it. He was really honest with me and said that he had some wires crossed when he originally installed it. I commended him for his honesty and I told him that it didn't matter now that it was fixed! He was a super nice guy. I even asked him about adding a third thermostat so that we could have one in the basement. Right now our house has a two-zone system. The thermostat on the first floor controls the first floor and the basement. We also have one in our master bedroom that controls the second floor. He said we could have another thermostat installed in the basement and that it would be really easy to do and then we would have a three-zone system. All we would have to do is pay for the thermostat and for the labor. He said he could have it installed and hooked up within 15 minutes! I took down the number for his company and his name. We are going to schedule to have this done and I'm going to request that he is the one they send out.

Now for the paint update. I mentioned in my previous entry that we were not happy with the punch-out guy that was here the morning before we got our keys. I seriously think he just removed the blue tape and didn't do anything. My PM sent out someone else yesterday. Our biggest complaint was that there was paint all over the stained part of our banisters. There were also somes spots on the walls that were totally missed. The guy that came out yesterday was AWESOME! He was super nice and my dog totally loved him. She tried to follow him around everywhere. He actually used a drop-cloth and took his shoes off before coming into the house - the other punch-out guy did neither. He spent HOURS meticulously cleaning up the paint job on our railings and banisters. I told him that I really appreciated the fact that he was taking his time. They look amazing now! He had to come back today to finish up the railings and banisters in the basement and he went around the house looking for any other issues. We didn't put any blue tape up for him and we also have furniture in almost every room so he just got the really obvious things. We will save the blue tape for our 30-day.

I did notice yesterday that there is a HUGE paint spot on the carpet in the middle of our formal dining room. It's hard to see since the paint color is very close to the color of our carpet. I stepped on the spot and noticed the carpet was really rough. Upon taking a closer look, I noticed it was paint. This paint spill was poorly cleaned up and I'm not even sure if they will be able to get it out of the carpet. The carpet in that room may need replaced. This is the only room that we don't have furniture in for now, so at least we won't have to move anything to get this fixed. I think I'm going to walk over every single piece of carpet in bare feet to make sure I didn't miss any other spills.

I think that just about covers the issues I posted about in my last entry. There were other issues but those will be taken care of at our 30-day follow-up. My PM has a list of the things we gave him last week and we have already started a new one. I still owe you guys a post about all of the things I love about my home. I swear I will work on it soon!

That's a HUGE Window!

My super duper awesome PM texted me today with an update! The plumber was out at the house today to get started! They have also started to shingle the roof! Oh yeah, and the window I've been so excited about was installed! They even installed the front door and the door on the morning room. So much in one day!! I totally wasn't planning on visiting today. I asked my PM to send me a picture but he had just left! Bummer! So of course, curiosity got the better of me!

Love love LOVE that window! I had to stand behind the front door while my husband took this photo because the wind kept blowing it open!

Creepy basement shot. It's interesting how they suspend the framing so that they can pour the concrete.

Super creepy basement shot. I refused to go down there.
My husband was on his own! - I hope my PM isn't reading this ;)

Basement stairs were installed! Duh! How else do you think he got down there? :)

Hall shower was put in place. No tile for me! I HATE tile!

I can see where the tray ceiling is! 

Goodies in the study!

Plumber holes

More plumber holes. How is one of them perfectly round and the other one is all crazy?

Morning room door was installed. I love this door. I'm glad it's standard - with the 4' bump out in the family room. A sliding glass door is standard without the bump out. I'm not a huge fan of any kind of sliding doors.

Outdoor shot of the morning room door :) I was hiding on the other side.

Standard picture of the back of the house! Yay for shingles!

Weekend Progress

Dare I say it? THE ROOF IS DONE!! WOOHOO!! Now that I got that out of my system! We actually restrained ourselves from visiting the house yesterday. We went today fully expecting no progress since Friday. I know the framers were supposed to work this weekend but I haven't had much faith in them recently. They definitely showed up and they got a lot done! They even installed most of the windows. I was wondering why they skipped the one random one in bedroom #4. We went into the room and there was a window propped up against the wall. Looks like it's the wrong window. It's in the fourth picture down.

Can't wait for the arched window that goes above the front door!

Why is there a random gaping hole in the side of my formal dining room? There's a smaller one in our laundry room as well.

This window is missing the horizontal lines. Must be the wrong one.

Window in the master "water closet" RH's fancy name for a closet with a toilet in it! I love that there's a window in here. It's up high enough for privacy too. It doesn't open though.

Cool shot of the attic

What's the little square cut-out for in the roof? The other houses have some  kind of pipe sticking out there.

Getting Prepped for Framing

No actual walls went up today but they have started laying out all of our framing materials to get them ready. Our lot is one hot mess of framing materials spread everywhere! We had two huge piles of framing and today they only got through one. I imagine that tomorrow they will work on the other pile so I will try to not visit until Saturday. It's just too hard to fight the urge sometimes! My PM did say that the framers will be working through the weekend to make up some time.

All of my goodies in my basement! My front door is to the left and the garage service door is all the way on the right.

This arched window is one of my favorite features of the house! It's HUGE!

The door from the house to the garage on the left. The door in the Morning Room on the Right.

Master shower with garden tub in front. The shower is a lot bigger than it looked while it was laying down - thank goodness! I totally would have gotten in the garden tub if it was turned over!

Hall bathtub

Am I the only one who thinks of Thomas whenever I see triangles now? Even if this isn't the kind he had in mind!

Oh and one more thing. Here is the screenshot of Ryan Homes Shout out to me! I feel like a celebrity! (Not really!)