Nearly 4 months in with Ryan Homes

Okay, so I updated about random house decorating stuff but there have been other house things dealing with Ryan Homes so I thought I should follow up on some of that too.

First, we had put in our 1st service request mid August, by the end of August we had still never heard anything, and now we had more issues to report so we sent a 2nd service request in and also added that we put in a request August 15th and it was now August 29th and we hadn't been contacted.  I think the next morning we got a phone call saying our PM had been on vacation and he was trying to catch up and then he scheduled to come Friday afternoon.

He came walked the house with us and scheduled to come a week and a half later to fix it all.  Which happened, he came and fixed squeaky spots in the subfloor in the master bedroom and the bedroom closest to the stairs.  Fixed kitchen cabinets that were banging into each other everytime we closed them... forgot to fix a seriously crooked set but he did teach us how to fix it so we need to figure it out.  Fixed trim on the outside corner of the garage.  Fixed the squeaky floor in the shower. Fixed door handles that weren't catching.  I think that was it.

We have an issue with our granite staining pretty badly in one spot from strawberries.  Our construction PM told us at our final walk thru that the granite was sealed so we wouldn't need to worry about that but that the shower grout would need to be sealed... fast forward to the strawberry incident and our countertops are definitely not sealed.  And the service PM laughed at us and said they've never ever sealed the granite and he doesn't know why our PM Bill would have told us that. He gave us some ideas to try to get the stain out and said he would have the granite company come look but then he didn't and instead gave us the number to call and ask if it was ok to try and bleach the stain out.

I have since found another item that needs service but I hate having to make the request and have the PM come and then schedule again to actually come fix it later.  I will eventually submit it (splintering hardwood I found while swiffering).

Lastly, an update on the propane situation.  I never heard anything back and finally emailed the regional manager again (our SRs boss).  He did not give me an update on the situation with Matheson as a whole at all but did offer to help us with our first bill from Matheson.  So that was really nice and unexpected.  Of course now it feels like we can't discuss the shadiness of Ryan and Matheson and the contracts they forced on us.

Good news for our neighborhood though is that we are in talks with a natural gas company to get natural gas hook ups, we need more neighbors to sign the agreements and we are in the section of the neighborhood that would be last to get hooked up but hopefully we won't be stuck with propane for the next 30 years!

Last update on the construction/Ryan homes side of things... our driveway.  When we settled we were given a really rough driveway and we were told it would get a 2nd layer and would be level and smooth and we were on the schedule for August.  We are almost to the end of September now and have heard nothing else about the driveway paving.  I noticed 3 neighbors waaayyy down the street got paved a couple weeks ago so I figured they were at least starting but there haven't been any new driveways paved around us and we are definitely not going to be first in line behind all the neighbors who settled before us so I am wondering if we will get paved before the winter hits. The driveway is settling really badly in this one corner where there is a pipe, the pipe is actually coming up out of the metal cover and we are hoping it doesn't end up breaking from the impact of a car driving over it. My husband thinks its probably a good thing they haven't paved again yet bcuz its giving the driveway extra time to settle and hopefully it won't settle too much more and cause issues again down the road.

4 months in... {almost}

Well its almost been 4 months in our home and its beginning to look and feel more like home everyday.   We have done a couple little things around the house these last few weeks and we've been excited about them so I wanted to share them the only place I could.  Lol. 

Okay these photos are so random because I am blogging on my phone and its being crazy and won't let me re order them... anyway, first up is the trash and recycling system my husband added to one of our cabinets (to the left of the stove in our Milan).  We really love it,  its so nice to have our old plastic trash can out of the mudroom.  The mudroom is our first big project, that we are hoping to tackle this weekend actually.  We don't have a clue what we are doing but when the kids started school it became very obvious that we needed that room to "function" and its just not working for us right now.  

 The trash can was our first step to getting the mudroom project going.

This is a terrible photo but the only one I have, we finally got a light/ceiling fan added to the morning room.  It is getting darker earlier now so this was a necessity.  Its kind of a boring light for the morning room, I've seen the trend in fancy light fixtures with Ryan homes owners but my husband for sure wanted a fan in this room to help with the air circulation and the plain white is something my mom always recommended just so it would blend in with the ceiling. We like it, it really brightens up the room and the kitchen and the fan is great when its feeling especially warm in that room.

 I started decorating for fall.

 I just love the openness of this floor plan and layout.

 Found a cute white pillowcover at IKEA last month and it fit the long skinny pillow that came with our couch perfectly. (The pillow cover the couch came with was orange and red, not my favorite).

I found fabric I liked and sewed this pillow cover and another identical one.  It was frustrating trying to figure out how to sew a zipper but after a few hours I managed to "make it work".  

 This room isn't on our priority list BUT I am a sucker for deals and I found this curtain rod for $11.99 at kohls and I think I had a 25% off coupon.  A couple days before that I was checking out a store I'd never been to before called Tuesday Morning, I was about to leave empty handed when I happened upon this set of two curtain panels for $11.99, two panels together for that price is unheard of... and navy blue, I had to grab them!  Eventually we will tackle this room, in the meantime though, its nice to have curtains there for when we want to close them, or just to have something decorative in that room since the rest of the house is open to it.

 Love my family room so much, especially when its picked up and there are no kids toys or blankets or dirty socks left laying around.

The best thing will be when we paint, which I was going to wait to do until after the 1 year drywall BUT i am seriously itching to do it now.  And once I do I will feel like I can hang stuff on the walls! 

Another bargain I couldn't pass up on...

My 4 year old has a birthday coming up right before Christmas and she has said she wants her room decorated as her present.  She says she wants "all the things" (curtains, bedside table, lamp, clock, rug, gold polka dots on wall, bean bag chair, pictures on the wall, etc.) Anyway that made me remember the good deal on the curtain rod I got at kohls a couple weeks ago, tried one kohls, only one curtain rod but she has two windows so I checked another kohls today and found a bunch of curtain rods for $11.99. Yay! 

I was hopeful that maybe the clearance tags weren't correct, maybe they'd be on more of a sale so I checked with their price checker and all these curtain rods rang up for $7.99 (down from $39.99... which kohls super marks up their stuff so they can put it "on sale", so if these were on the current sale the other curtain rods were on they would have been $20... ) I also had a 30% coupon so I paid $5.59 each and earned myself $10 kohls cash to use next week!  

My husband thought I  was crazy when I came home with all of these... and I know I looked crazy walking out of kohls with all 8 in my arms.  Three will go in our bedroom, four in the kids bedrooms and then one for my husband's office.

Last thing... Monday I heard SW was having one of their 40% off paint sales but it was ending that day so I wanted to hurry and paint this half wall in the morning room with my leftover sample paint, that I had painted one spot on to test the color about 2 months ago.  I wanted to see if I liked the color on a whole wall and I wanted to convince my husband to let me buy like 5 gallons and let me paint at least the family room, morning room and kitchen... unfortunately I didn't get around to buying the paint during that last day of the sale... however I do LOVE the color on the wall and in my house and can't wait to get all the walls painted. (I will be waiting for a paint sale though.)

The color is agreeable gray and I wa sreally nervous looking at the paint itself and on the lid bcuz it seemed tanner more than gray, but it is definitely a gray and I love it. It really looks good with the wood floor color and adds a richness to the space that is seriously lacking with these construction white/yellow walls.

Well thats my update for now, sorry its all over the place and super long.