It has been a long time!

Just over a year since my last post.  Yikes!  Sorry about that.  Life got the better of us :) We have had some major changes in our life, most notably the birth of our 3rd baby last spring.  Needless to say, I've had my hands full raising 3 kids ages 5 and under!  I also quit my full time job so I could stay home and take care of my kids.

I thought I had updated on our tub - clearly I did not!  We got our tub and tile.  It was installed in August 2011.  Of course that couldn't go smoothly.  At this point, I just say it with a smile because what's done is done.  We had picked out our tile and on the day of installation - it was NOT the tile we had picked.  So, my husband and the PM had to run to Lowe's and buy something else.  It sort of stinks because we had the main tile and then an accent and they coordinated with each other and what we have is just a tad off.  No one else would notice, but I can tell.  Oh well.

We are excited to be getting a patio this spring, so I can't wait to see how that turns out.

Our grass is getting better thanks to the help of a lawn care service.  I highly, highly recommend getting one if you want your grass to come in nicely.

There is only one lot left in our neighborhood - yay!  Hoping that this is the last summer of construction.  I'm absolutely overwhelmed by the number of people who live in our neighborhood now.  And there are a TON of kids.  I fear for us all in about 10 years.

We did recently have the radon levels tested in our basement.  For those of you who don't know, Radon is the 2nd leading cause of lung cancer in this country.  Our levels were slightly above the recommended safe levels, so we are going to have to pay someone to come in with a vent system.  It will be around $1000-$1500.  I'm disappointed.  There is another builder who has built homes in our neighborhood and all of those houses came with the vents.  That builder knew radon was an issue and put the vents in the houses.  I have a hard time believing Ryan Homes didn't know that as a potential issue.  Especially because since I started doing more research on the topic, I have found that our area of NY has a higher rate of radon.  It really doesn't sit well with me that we weren't even given it as an option for an upgrade to our home.  I have a few other neighbors that were flat out LIED to by their sales reps.  The reps told them radon wasn't an issue here.  There are some houses that are 10x higher than the "safe" zone.  Other neighbors asked to have the vent put in and they were told "it wasn't necessary, it isn't code."  Part of it is just stupidity on the part of NY state and local building laws/codes.  I mean, WHY wouldn't it be required for new builds to have these vent systems put in their basements? Just as a precaution?  Common sense to me.  Especially when people who are selling their houses have to disclose radon levels if they are known.  And if a potential buyer does a radon test, the seller has to take care of it.  It is just really, really disappointing.  I don't even know if we will bring anything up to Ryan homes at this point - I'm sick of arguing and pushing and drama.  Not really in my nature or my cup of tea.

We have learned so much throughout the building process and now that we've been in our house a little over 2 years now.

I hope to be able to post a little more often :)

Christmas 2011

With Glee Christmas

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Moving forward...

We had our new project manager (for lack of a better word?  he isn't the project manager, but I guess he's the new guy for our development) come and measure our tub today.  YAY!  He's going to order the tub and the tile and hopefully we'll have a better idea where we stand with the tub being fixed.  Thank goodness!

I guess I'll hear from him next week about the remainder of the 30 day fixes we need taken care of - it has been raining a lot and they are all outside things that need fixing.  He is also supposed to bring us the touch up paint that we've been asking our old PM for since OCTOBER.  I hope so!

Would you build with Ryan Homes/NVR again?

Answer below in the comments section!  Why or why not?

For us, I'm not sure.  The jury is still out. 

Some fixes.

Like I said in one of my last posts, Ryan finally was able to coordinate the concrete contractor to come and complete the repairs of our sidewalk and walkways, so that is all set.  Whew.

I will be emailing the person who is taking things over for us this week with our list of things that still need to be taken care of.   I'm very grateful to say that the service department showed up on Friday afternoon to fix our pillars and my husband watched how they were repaired and is confident that he can do it in the future.  (Although it STILL bothers me that they would even need repairing in the first couple of years...but whatev, I guess.)

We also were able to pick out our bathroom tile this weekend.  I have no idea what we picked, LOL.  I honestly am NOT that great at things like that.  I know what I like and don't like, but putting things together???  I have NO idea.  My husband knew what he wanted, so I just went with it.  A darker colored tile with a little glass/tile mosaic accent.  It was hard because we weren't given any parameters of what we could or couldn't choose - and neither was the person at the selection center.  So here's hoping we don't have to go back and re-pick anything.

I am still disappointed to report that I never heard from the division manager regarding my email. 

Landscaping Pictures

Before

During

After!!

Yay!!

Our awesome looking grass...

Love my little rock wall!

It seems that we're moving in the right direction.

But I'm not going to get my hopes up.  Yet. 

It looks like a strongly worded email worked?  I sent the email (see the post below) to the District Manager of Ryan Homes on Monday at 11am.  I still have not heard 1 single word from him.  I did, however, finally get phone calls from another guy from Ryan Homes who will be overseeing the rest of the work on our house and make sure things get finished up and FINALLY got a phone call from the person from the selection center.  It just took over a week AND this new guy telling her to call us to get that to happen. For reals???? 

I'm not gonna lie, I'm NOT happy that I still haven't heard from the District Manager.  What kind of customer service is that?  At the very least reply to my email to let me know you got it, return my phone calls, ACKNOWLEDGE that I'm contacting you!  I totally get that he's a busy guy - wouldn't want his job!  However, that's his job.  And my husband and I are paying a lot of money for a house that isn't the way its supposed to be.   I'm curious what got the ball rolling...my email or the fact that I posted it on this blog. 

We'll be going to pick out the tile on Saturday, I hope.  That was basically the only option we were given so we're trying to squeeze it in among the million and ten other things we have going on that day.  It's going to take 6ish weeks for the tile to come in and once that happens they have to take out the old tub, put the new one in, redo the plumbing, then tile, then hook up shower head, etc.  It won't be a quick process.  Which is part of why I'm so irritated about everything up until this point taking so long.  I knew it wouldn't be a quick fix. 

I'm very appreciative and thankful for the new person, Steve, who will be working on things with us.  He assured me that he's going to try to get all of our outside issues taken care of as quickly as possible.  We did get our walkway repaired yesterday.  Of course it was right in the middle of our landscaping being installed.  It was fine, both the concrete guys and landscapers were easy going and willing to work around each other.  It just stinks because our landscapers have to come back today to finish the job because they couldn't finish the areas around where the sidewalk was repaired.  Which was exactly what I was trying to avoid from the very beginning when I told people MONTHS ago that we had landscaping scheduled.  Oh well, like I said, our landscapers are very flexible and easy to work with and willing to come back today.  For those in the Western NY area, we used Groundbreakers Landscaping.  They've been fantastic and VERY resonably priced.  I hope to take after pictures tonight and will post them soon.  They did a beautiful job and really worked with me to give me exactly what I wanted.  They have a website http://www.gbwny.com/ if you want to check them out.