Saturday, September 5, 2015

9/5/15 - Getting Settled In, TONS of Pictures and Our 30 Day Check-Up

Hello faithful readers, sorry for the long time between posts as of late.  Now that we are in the house and undertaking all the projects we've been planning, there hasn't been a whole lot of time for much else.  A few days ago we had our 30 Day Post Close meeting where they come in and take care of any issues that have come up since closing so I thought I'd take a little time to go over that and give everyone a peek at what we've been up to since we moved in!

30-Day Meeting

We had scheduled our 30 day walkthrough on the day we did our pre-closing walkthrough so it was set exactly 30 days to the date of our closing.  About a week before the meeting we received an email from Ryan Homes asking us to give a list of the issues that we had and what we thought needed attention.  To be completely honest, we had a really hard time with this.  We knew that it was important to make sure we covered everything, but in truth, we haven't really had any issues.   Our list was as follows.

-Window in stairwell is cracked (it was cracked at close and hadn't been replaced yet)
-The hardwood floor leading down into the basement would flex when you stepped on the edge of it to go down the stairs
-There were a few nails sticking up at the carpet threshold going into the hallway
-There was a board in the subfloor at the top of the stairs that would bump if you stepped on it just right
-There was a small spot on the rear of the house where the soffit was pushed up and not even with the rest.  (Probably from the painters hitting it with their ladder

We feel like everything on this list was minor and quite insignificant with the exception of the cracked window which we'd been told would be replaced, they just hadn't gotten the replacement in yet.  All in all it was really us just trying to have something to put down so we would feel like we were doing our job lol.  Our PM Mark showed up early the day of the meeting with the sub-contractors in tow and took care of every single thing right then and there.  No scheduling appointments or promises to look into it, it was just corrected on the spot.  I was very impressed with this.

I've read many different things the people have posted, both good and bad about their homes after they have taken possession and I am pleased to say that we have been beyond satisfied.  I feel like the house was very well built and have been more than pleased with the attention to detail that I've seen so far.  I've said from the beginning that I felt as thought our PM took a lot of pride in his work, and now having lived here for a month I can say that I still feel that to be true.


And now I get to show off what we've done so far!

I'll stick to the "after" pictures since there are a ton of "before" pictures posted throughout this blog.  We still have a ton more to do, but for having only been here 30 days and working a very demanding full-time job, I'm pretty pleased with what I've gotten accomplished.

First off, the foyer.  We replaced all the nickel door handles with antique bronze to complement the hardwood floors, we added the Schlage Connect locks, and of course painted the walls and ceilings.  We also painted the powder room as well.


Next we tackled the Great Room.  I mounted the TV over the fireplace, installed a ceiling fan, painted the walls and ceilings and got the majority of the furniture in as well as the beginnings of our picture wall.



Then came the kitchen, morning room and pantry.  I painted the walls and ceilings in the morning room and pantry, installed a ceiling fan in the morning room, new adjustable wood shelving in the pantry and designer cabinet pulls throughout the kitchen.  We also converted one of the end cabinets to a pull-out recycling container.  We still plan to do a glass tile backsplash, under cabinet lighting and paint the kitchen, I am just waiting on the tile to arrive.


Once we got most of the main areas downstairs done, we moved upstairs.  I started with my son's room first.  He loves sharks so we had to give him a bedroom that showed that off!  New paint, fan, light fixtures and a few other touches as well as taking off the closet door to make that a little sitting nook with his desk in it so he has a nice spot at the window to do his homework.



After we got his space all squared away we finally got around to doing ours.  We had bought a new bedroom set for the new house so we went ahead and painted our room before it was all put in place.  We did the walls in soft white color with a hint of gray and then did an accent wall behind the bed and a accent in the tray ceiling as well.  I also added an outlet and cable/data hookups behind the tv for a cleaner appearance.   We also replaced the big sheet mirror in the master bath with two wood frame mirrors and replaced the light fixture with one that was a little longer to better fit the new mirrors.




Once that was done, we gave the laundry room a quick coat of painted and finally hooked up the washer and dryer.  I have more plans for the space with some cabinets and a nice countertop, but that will come a little later on.



The last space I've done so far upstairs is the craft/scrapbook room.  My wife is an avid scrapbooker so I wanted to give her a nice place to do that in.  The theme for that room is creative/classic Dinsey so there will be lots of other things going in there as it all gets put together to bring out that theme.  The paint colors used are "Disney" colors to keep it true to the spirit.  I also added a closet organizer to do away with the one wire shelf they gave us there and added some recessed lighting to the room as well.



Now we move down to my favorite part of the house..  The basement.  I have lots of plans for this space, since it's just the three of us in the house we can use this whole area for recreational purposes so I figured I would do it up right!

First, I got the exercise room setup as a nice playroom for the kid.  He likes superheros and Spiderman so we thought that would be a pretty good place to start.  A comic book wallpaper border, fresh paint and all the toys and video games a kid could want took care of that!  We also put a nice sized table in there for him to work on his puzzles and legos at so he doesn't have sit on the floor.
Once that was all done I got to do the part I'd really been waiting on.  The Theater Room!!  This whole room got painted in a nice muted gray, including the ceiling and benefitted from a very nice in-ceiling surround sound system.  I opted to handle the installation of this myself and sourced all my own equipment.  I've been EXTREMELY pleased with the outcome.

The first part was getting the speakers mounted and figuring out the proper screen size.




Once that was all done, I ordered the screen and got to painting.  It took a couple of coats to get it to look even, but the end result is awesome.  Even my lovely wife approves!




The finished product is a space that is not too over the top, but perfect for a nice movie night!  We plan to change up the seating in here to something more theater like, but we haven't gotten that figured out just yet.


The rest of the basement, or the "main part" I painted a deep red.  I was afraid it would make the room feel small and dark, but with the bright white trim and all the lighting down there it really turned out nice.  I should also mention that I've replaced the majority of the CFL bulbs in the house with LED units.  I can't stand how long it takes for the CFL bulbs to reach their full brightness so they had to go.




I even added a little "movie nook" thanks to some help from IKEA

Getting to the outside, we installed a very nice Larson Security storm door and got all the video cameras up and running. We're adding a deck and a fence in the near future so I'll be sure to get some pictures of that up too!




I think that just about covers it so far.  We've still got tons of things we wanted to get done and lots of decorating to do, but it's all starting to come together and feel like home :)