209 Days In.....

Is that even right?!!? Time is flying and I can't believe we are 209 days (about 7 months) in!!!

And on top of that-- HELLO everyone! I know, like others, I promised to keep the blog up- but let's face it:  Life happens.  I have a huge list of house projects and this is how it goes: start a project, love it and get it like, half way done, and then move on to something else.
Yep, the projects are those kind of projects.

Things like painting the interior doors black-- there are like, 18 doors in the house. That is taking quite a while.

Painting.  That most definitely hasn't started yet but we are trying to pick out colors.

Furniture.  It's a heck of a task to go from a 1300 square foot apartment to a 2600+ square foot home, and trying to fill it with furniture.

We need more furniture. Lots more furniture. Lots of empty space right now, but we are getting there.

And then just having the time to do these projects.  We do lots. We love to stay busy, and a lot of the time our house projects kinda get put on the back burner to go have fun.

But-- I thought I'd update a bit of what we DO have done..... The majority of the interior doors have been painted black. What a huge difference it makes! Such a nice pop of color from the boring ole white and off white walls.

We switched out our shower head in the master bathroom for a fancy-schmancy one that does all sorts of fun stuff (it was on my Christmas list and we got it for Christmas!).

We have our awesome entertainment set up put up from IKEA that we bought before we even finished building the house.  It needs some slight adjustments and I don't wanna do those adjustments til we paint. But, it's massive, and amazing and looks great against the wall between the 2 windows!

Furniture stuff: Another Christmas gift we received was an awesome entryway bench and hutch from Home Depot. It was a bit of a headache dealing with it, but it's AMAZING and fits in the space perfectly.  Loooooong story short: I loved the bench, showed it to the in-laws and they got it for us or Christmas.  My Father-In-Law noticed on some of the reviews that the hutch didn't fit the bench perfectly.  Shame on me for not paying closer attention to that.  And sure enough- when we got the hutch in and assembled it, it didn't fit perfectly on the bench.  I did some research and actually got in touch with the manufacturer and they shipped us an updated hutch that is perfect for the bench!!!! YAY!

Front room (on the floor plans it's technically designated the "living room"):  We got some Billy Bookcases from IKEA and filled up the entire wall with book cases.  I'll eventually try my hand at adding some molding to them to make them look "built in".. but I love all the space for all of our media goodies!

And naturally, we are having our "new home" woes-- specifically a couple of cracks in our foundation :-(
Yeah. You read that right. Cracks.  In our foundation.  We first noticed a leak in one of the unfinished parts of our basement. It dried quickly, but we had some pretty wet weather there for a while and the leak came back. We surveyed the outside of our house and found 2 cracks in the foundation (we have a pretty high elevation and have a good part of our basement exposed to the elements still-- which includes our amazing walk out basement).
So here we go with something I've become a pro at:  filling out the online service request.  The first one I filled out got NO response, so I filled a second one out about a week later.  A foundation company called me the next day.  I gave them an earful as they wanted to schedule a time during the WEEK to come out and take a look at the crack.  Luckily this worked, as well as the fact that they also have weekend hours (woohoo!). So we had someone come out on a Saturday.

The guy (well, more like a kid) that came out told us that the crack was from the pressure of the support beam running across the top of the basement, as was fairly common.  He did some nifty filler thing to help stop the leak.  We asked about the SECOND crack on the foundation. It is smaller in size than the crack that caused the leak, but he walked it to "measure" the distance and believes that crack is the same type of thing as the one he repaired.  This one is a bit more tricky as it's in a finished part of our basement.  He checked the support beam area and said that he didn't see any signs of leaks or anything, and even mentioned that Ryan Homes puts in baseboards that turn a yellow color if there's water behind them.  So, he did nothing with the crack.  I think when it gets closer to our 1 year, or when we have a few days off, I am going to get them to come out and assess that one again. I don't want to be dealing with it when it's our problem and not something that they should have fixed anyways!

So how about some photos! I have tons and will do my best to put descriptions on them, haha!!

This about the extent of the snow we got this year so far.  Just a little dusting to freak out the puppy, haha!

Fancy new shower head <3

Before painting the doors upstairs (this would be the master bedroom, hall closet and guest room)

After painting!  (this would be the master bedroom, hall closet and guest room)

More before shots 

After shots

Before  (this would be the master bedroom, hall closet and guest room)

After (this would be the master bedroom, hall closet and guest room)

Our new hutch and bench in the entryway off of the garage (mudroom)

Our new hutch and bench in the entryway off of the garage (mudroom)

This is in the front room of the house (family room)... Billy Bookcases from IKEA

Another view of our bookcases in the front room of the house

random photos:  Sitting on the couch looking towards the kitchen

random photos:  Standing in the entryway (mudroom) door looking towards the family room

random photos: Standing in the kitchen looking into the morning room

random photos: Standing in the morning room looking towards the front of the house 

random photos: another view from the couch into the kitchen/morning room {we will one day have a dining room table in there}

random photos:  Crosley <3

random photos: our IKEA entertainment stand-- we still need to put the middle piece on its legs and then adjust the height on the cabinets to the right. But this won't be done til we paint. I'm not taking these things up and down a bajillion times.

random photos: Standing in the hallway by the stairs looking towards the family room.

random photos: The "dining room" according to the floor plan. For us, it's the bunny room {yes. you read that right. We have 2 bunnies}, and random boxes yet to be put somewhere/unpacked

random photos:  Front entryway

random photos:  Messy floors and Crosley doing the dishes.

And, the foundation crack:

Wet basement floor.

Worse wet basement floor.

This is the *second* crack. This one isn't fixed. It coincides with a finished part of the basement and the foundation kid didn't do anything to this one-- just checked to make sure it wasn't leaking.

THIS one is the culprit of our leaks.

The other side of the crack. Awesome, huh?

All filled and fixed and no longer leaking.

But it's kinda hideous.

So I most definitely plan on having someone come out and address the second crack before its all said and done. It's just finding time with the great time slots that Ryan Homes and their contractors offer.

We have TONS of other projects going on/waiting to work on. We stained our deck before it got cold, but it really needs one more coat.

We have lots of stuff built in the basement for our "man cave/Reds room" but don't have it all organized yet.

The loft:  We are going to make this a "travel themed" area.  We LOVE LOVE LOVE to travel and have so many awesome trinkets and memorabilia and things from our travels to display.  Well, another Christmas gift that was on our {my} list... A giant wall mural that is a map of the world.  It will nearly cover the entire wall in the loft on one side.  We haven't put it up yet because we need to paint {since it won't cover the ENTIRE wall}.  I found it on Wayfair:  Check It Out Here.

We love our home and have so many great memories already that have been made and can't wait for more.

And, to end the post: a super adorable photo of our sweet boys from yesterday, in our 65 degree weather in February.

Leaks Resolved...... JUST KIDDING!

I literally was writing a post last Monday to tell y'all that our leaks have been resolved!  That they finally patched up the tiny hole in our ceiling and it looked like new.

And then I got home from work on Monday night, and we had this:

Yep.  That would be wet ceiling.  Again.  Same general area, but a little farther over than the last two times.
I'm upset.  So very upset.
So, I fill out the service request.  Wait nearly a full day to hear from the service manager, Jared.  I send him a couple of text photos of the leak.

I hear from him the next day (Wednesday) and he has pulled our plans and has an idea of where it is potentially coming from.   I have MORE news for him, as we have another wet spot that has shown up.  This spot is VERY close in proximity to where to hole was just patched up from the first/second leak....  See:

He tells me that he's escalating the issue to critical (or whatever the proper word is here. I don't really remember), and the plumbing company should DIRECTLY contact me to set up a time to come out.  That was Wednesday around 330pm.

By Thursday around 1, I hadn't heard from the plumber.  So, I called Jared (service manager) and left a voicemail.  I need to know WHEN we need to take time off so that they can resolve this.  This is the so-very-frustrating part.  We have to take time off.  We both work 9-5 jobs.  Circumstances at MY job right now don't allow me to take immediate time off with something like this.  It must be planned.  Hubby works as a contractor.  That means that he DOESN'T get paid if he doesn't work.  Anyone that needs to come out to our home for repairs and such (with this leak and other service requests) works the same fricken hours that we do.  So one of us must take off to be home with people coming for repairs.  It sucks.

So yeah, not long after my voicemail, I get a phone call from the plumber wanting to set up a time to be out to the house.  He can be out as early as 730 in the morning.  So, hubby gets things situated with his work so that he can have the morning off.

Friday morning.  It takes nearly FIVE hours for the plumber to finish and fix the leak. So that's FIVE hours that he hasn't gotten paid because he's at home dealing with this.

Check out the text message photos I get along the way:

Go ahead.  You can laugh at the ridiculousness of this whole thing.  It's okay.  I did.

This plumber was pretty thorough in his work.  He was measuring before he cut... he found a leak.  A small one.  He had to cut into our subfloor to get to the cause of the problem to fix it.  It was a very slow drip, which is why we aren't getting a waterfall of water every time we use the tub in the master bath.  And that's also why we keep on getting wet spots on the ceiling.  Slow drip means it can travel up and down the pipe and start dripping at different places.  That's why it's showing up on different places in the ceiling.
And that's why it hasn't been caught until now.

Leak #1 was "caught" at the shower.  Fixed after 3 holes were cut into our drywall in the bedroom, leak soldered and everything was fixed.

Leak #2 was "caught" at the cold water knob on the master tub.  Fixed and now we just have to wait for us to have time off to repair the drywall with the drywall guy.

Leak #3 is this one.  I am HOPING it's the culprit and has been the entire time.  It's fixed.  We now just have to deal with a nearly 2 foot square of ceiling missing in the kitchen.

Wanna guess for how long?!?!  OVER TWO WEEKS! The service manager wants to use a particular company that he knows does great work on textured ceilings.  Their EARLIEST appointment is Nov. 15 and Nov 16.  I was told it's going to take two days to do the repairs.

Cute, right?

So now for my irritation:  Why listen to me when I originally say it's the shower that's leaking.  Just to appease me?  I had a hunch that it might have been the shower because of the changing colors of grout we had right behind the shower.  Weird part is, they DID find a leak (I was told) and they even soldered something together so it wouldn't leak.
And then the day before they're supposed to fix the drywall in our kitchen, it starts leaking again.  It took a small amount of investigating, but they determined it was the cold water knob on the bath tub.  Now, that thing was broken, was replaced, and now it's leaking.  So yet another resolution.  A couple days AFTER we get the drywall in the kitchen F-I-N-A-L-L-Y replaced and patched up, and we have ANOTHER leak.
Like I said, this plumber sounded like he was pretty thorough.  He found a couple of spots that we should have checked out.  One of them is the grout at the bath tub.  It's on the outside of the bathtub, and logistically, I am not quite sure how it would leak from there, but we are going to have it taken care of.  I think.

You can see how it's cracked and pretty much looks like it's not attached to the tile at all.
It looks like shit.
I really hate how half-assed half of our bathroom looks.  We paid a ton of money to have it look like it does, and it's just not good.

The second thing that the plumber found concerning... The grout in the master shower.  This one bothers me and not long ago I noticed it.  I'm worried water could be seeping through this as we use this shower EVERY day.

At this point, I really just want them to pull it all up and re-do it.  There are so many shoddy pieces of tile, wavy parts of tile and terrible grout application.

It's so frustrating.

And I have so many questions still.  Are they replacing the ceiling where the drywall-strip is wet?  It's also cracked about 6 feet along that strip (assuming it's where that piece of drywall ends).  Or are they just going to patch up that hole?

The grout debacle:  that was originally on our 30 day.  So our service manager has given that back to the PM to handle.  I haven't heard anything yet.  I don't even know where to start and what to do about that.  Communication is such a big deal to me.

And then, I feel like this whole thing needs to be escalated and talked about with Ryan Homes.  I want them to know my frustrations and what we are dealing with.  The money we are losing out on because we have to be home because their sub-contracted companies don't do the hours we are home.  And the frustrations we have dealt with.  And the amount of water we have used just to ensure we don't have leaks anymore.

So I'm working on figuring out how to go "higher up" with all of this.

I don't want y'all to think we hate this whole thing.  The leak.  Yes.  Hate that part.  But our home?  We love it.  It's our space, we adore the house and all the memories we are making. It just stinks that those memories include all of this headache with the leak.

Keep your fingers crossed that this doesn't become "leak- apart 4".  That's not going to bode well for anyone.

We DO have lots of projects in process!  Door painting, deck staining... and we are hopefully gonna start painting the inside of the house soon too!!

Our "Leaky" Situation....

So it's been nearly two weeks since we noticed our leak.  And the drama from that leak continues.

Some of my last post was out of anger and not knowing ALL the details of what had happened from the leak discovery.  I'm a bit better educated now that I've seen it and gotten all the details... but still- I'm not exactly "happy" about any of it.

Backing up a bit-- they came out on the 15th, a Thursday, to check out our leak and get things taken care of.  We actually ended up with THREE holes in our drywall in the master bedroom so that it could dry out and then they'd come back out to patch it up.

Also, the different color grout has nothing to do with the leak that was discovered with the shower.  That leak was dripping DOWN and would have found it's way to the spot where it was leaking through the ceiling.  So what's causing the grout to be a different color- I have NO idea... They were supposed to fix it as a part of our 30 day stuff, but it hasn't been addressed.  So, I'll be putting a ticket in along with other things once it gets a bit closer to me having my next available day off.

So, we think it's all well and good with the leak in the shower being fixed.  On Wednesday last week (the 21st), I'm getting ready to head to work and I notice that our ceiling is leaking AGAIN.

Yep. Again.

We are now thinking the leak MIGHT be from the master bathtub.  Our PM mentioned it when this whole leak thing started, but we hadn't used the tub in nearly two weeks at that point.  So it seemed odd that a leak would just show up out of nowhere.  Well, this new leak- we had used the tub that Sunday prior to this new drip.  So maybe the tub was the culprit all along??

I snap some photos and send them to hubby, and then I call one of our PM's that's been in contact with me since they were supposed to be coming out THE VERY NEXT DAY to patch everything up.  I wanted to make sure they knew that we had a new leak and to bring a plumber with them.

Well, I hear nothing.  So, after several hours I email our second PM just to make sure they're aware of the situation and we NEED a plumber out tomorrow.  I had a pretty high sense of urgency because that Thursday was literally my ONLY day off for a month at a time when they could come out and check things out, and I wanted this taken care of.  The email to our PM produced a response that said they had the plumber coming out at 8 am the following morning.

Thanks for the communication on that.  A text, a call, an email..... ANYTHING would suffice so that I was aware someone was coming out that next day.  Is that really that much to ask?!?!

So, Thursday the 22nd was my day off.  Literally the only day off that I've had during the week in a while.  And, seeing as how these contractors and Ryan only like to work Monday through Friday during business hours, I had to use my ONLY day off to sit at home ALL day and wait for things to be done {we had a couple of other service things that were being taken care of on this day as well as our leak}.

Plumber shows up promptly at 8.  His name was Jay.  I explained to him the situation, and mentioned that we think this new leak could have something to do with the master tub. Upstairs he goes, starts tinkering with things.  PM shows up with the drywall guy.  His name was Jay also.  Takes him upstairs so he can start patching up our drywall in our bedroom since the leak from the shower hasn't leaked and is okay.

While he's at the house, our PM investigates with the plumber and they come to the conclusion that the leak is coming from the COLD WATER KNOB on the master tub.  The same one that just pulled right up one day while I was taking a bath, and the same one that the first plumber tried to fix and basically flooded our bathroom because he forgot to turn off the main water.  The same one that we have been *patiently* waiting to be fixed because they had to order a special kit to get the knob to stay on.

Yep, that would be the one.

So, the plumber has to run to his shop to see if he has stuff to fix it. When he was looking in the drain with the water running, he noticed that the cold water knob was leaking water.

In the meantime, our PM tells me that they're going to cut a hole in my master closet and put an air register grate over it.  That way it can dry out and they can keep an eye on it.  I was so clueless as he fed this information to me, and now I have to ask questions. haha!  The grate looks okay in the closet and I'm alright if it has to stay that way... but why wouldn't they just patch up that hole too once it's "dried" out??  Are they anticipating this being an issue?

Drywall Jay is in and out pretty much all day long.  Patched things up, it had to dry.  Come back for touch ups, let it dry some more.  Finally paint over everything and he's done.

Plumber Jay came back and fixed the knob.  Hopefully for good this time.  We've taken a couple of baths up to this point and are hoping for the best.

Our PM has reached out to set a date to come out to patch up the hole in the kitchen and drywall on the beam between the kitchen and morning room.  I let him know my next available day off, which is LITERALLY a month away from now.  I had asked how long it would take, and he said up to about 5 hours.  With that being the case, hubby and I really can't take a FULL day off of work {hubs doesn't get paid for time he's not at work, and we are short staffed where I work so I can't just ask for a random day off so close to it being that time}.  Still waiting to hear if they'll be out that day or not. I have several other "things" I will be putting service requests in for so they get taken care of on that day as well.

So- at this point, our leak leaked again and they've hopefully fixed it.  We still have exposed drywall in the kitchen and a hole in our ceiling where they cut it to air it out.

And a couple of things about all of that-- I asked our PM what they planned on doing with the drywall that has water spots on it.  Are they replacing it?  I don't want it just painted over.  I worry that it might still lead to mold or mildew in the future. There's also a water spot on the ceiling.  What are their plans for that?

I feel the same about the exposed drywall.  I really want it all just cut down and replaced so it doesn't look like it does.  You'll see what I mean in my photos.

And, for thought..... Drywall Jay did a really great job patching up our drywall.  You seriously would NEVER know that we had three holes there if I hadn't told you.  The paint on our walls is the "builder whatever" that comes with the house.  It isn't white though.  It's like an off-white creamy kind of color.  And when he painted over the spots that he had to repair, it looks great.

So my thought-- I'm not going to wait to paint.  We had originally decided that we were going to wait until our drywall fixes and such around 12 months from when we moved in.  If they patch things up and their paint doesn't show anything, then I'm just going to paint to my little heart's desire.  I also read that painting over the builder grade paint will help reveal drywall imperfections and stuff that need to be fixed, so I figured that's a good idea too!  We shall see.  We have a couple projects we need to finish (and start) first before we start slapping paint on our walls.

Our other service stuff that was fixed on the 22nd included replacing our loft window for a third time.  Hopefully it's for good this time.  That guy spent a lot of time replacing the trim around the window, as well as molding and such.

And then the electric in the morning room.  It's been out for a good bit of time now.  Well, that guy showed up nearly three hours late (his window was between 1-3 and he showed up at 545).  He had an electric outlet to hook up for us for our Guardian stuff, and then he fixed those outlets.
Wanna know how he did it?  He flipped the breaker.  Uh huh.  The fricken breaker.

Now, we did flip it.  All of them.  We even hunted for GFI outlets to reset stuff.  We know where one is for the garage, and one for upstairs. But not for the first floor.  But we know now.  The electrician told us that we have to first reset the GFI outlet, and then flip the breaker off and back on to get it working again.  And voila!  The only issue I have is that I plugged my stuff in and within a couple of hours, all of the outlets in the morning room weren't working again! So I'm going to have to get the electrician BACK out to check things out.  This shouldn't be happening!

And now photos! Fun, leaky photos.  HA!

This is the "beam" between the morning room and the kitchen.  If you look closely on the right of the black mark, and down a bit, you can see the newly formed water droplet. 

Tilt your head side ways! This is the beam again, and the hole in our ceiling in the kitchen.

And a pretty "good" photo of the new leak. Same spot. 

Crosley demonstrating the cold water knob.

part 1 of the drywall repair.

part 2 of the drywall repair

and final product of the drywall repair.

the new "vent" in our master closet off the bathroom.  It's just a hole with a grate over it so air can flow in.

Our third loft window, waiting to be hung. The first one had a crack, the second wasn't sealed properly. This one better be perfect.

No window!

New Window!

And then a follow up to that leak that we originally found pre-drywall.  It was explained to us that it very well could have been a problem from the shower/bath tub and we just weren't able to fully SEE that as it had rained and they contributed that leak to all the rain we had gotten.

This is the photo of the "leak" from the beginning....

So hopefully the leak saga is over with, and we will get these holes patched up and the house looking back to normal!

I'll keep y'all updated :-) Hope everyone else is enjoying their gorgeous new homes, or loving the progress that is being made on your homes!!!!!