Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Home Demonstration was a Success!!

Hey Guys! 

So we had our home demo on Wednesday and boy was it long. Of course, that was what we were expecting (our PM said about 5-6 hours), but it was actually a little under 5. The appointment was at 10 am and we were on the road at about 2:50 pm.


We thoroughly enjoyed the demo even though it was cold, wet, snowy AND we had a 7 yr old running rampant throughout the house. <---Well he wasn't running buck wild but of course he was antsy, even though he had plenty of things that we brought with us.  The snowflakes being huge combined with a strong wind equaled "snow ball fight".  Nature Won!


As far as the demo, there were no major things found.  A lot were cosmetic changes where we went through the house and did some blue taping (just painters tape ripped into pieces and placed next to the all the imperfections so that the painter/drywall guy/carpet guy/cleaners/or #whoeverjobitistofixthosethings could come and fix them).  Yup, the hubs enjoyed himself!! Me, I had preferred to look out the windows most of the time. Our PM and his assistant also helped in blue taping.


Some of the things that either our PM found prior to us getting there or we found throughout the demo were:



  • fixing yard settlement (just minor yard settlement next to our ac unit, 
  • fixing caulk around a couple of windows (exterior),
  • fixing the dryer exhaust vent flapper (ohmigoodness people, my husband was going to lose him mind if this didn't get fixed...all he kept talking about was if he was taking a snooze and all was quiet in the house except this incessant flapping noise from the vent flapping away outside! lol). Of course our PM had no problem doing this!!
  • cut a plumbing tube so that we could access a nozzle at the bottom of our hot water heater (the tube is right in front of this and is super tall so it would prohibit us from reaching the nozzle),
  • fix a light switch in the family room...so the hubs has some issues with our light switches (well not anymore)...the first - a few weeks ago he asked if we could change where we could turn on our floodlights (we have 2 instead of 1) which ended up being fixed the way we wanted it...the second - during the demo, in our family room, we found that our upside down outlet was on the same wall where our television/other TV stuff will be...there is a switch that goes to this upside down outlet, so with valid reasoning, the hubs asked if we could get this changed somehow...at this point, we're not exactly sure what the electrician will do...some of the options were: flipping the outlet right side up, disconnecting the power to that particular outlet (just the upside down part) or disconnecting the switch to that particular outlet...the reasoning for this change is so that no one accidentally switch off our TV or whatever else we have plugged into that outlet...my husband used the example of the Xbox but there won't be ANY Xbox playing in my family room...that's what the man cave/rec room is for!!!!!
  • other things, were just re-cleaning the entire house as well as our egress window in the basement.


Our closing is set for March 13th and we will meet our PM one more time on that day before closing to sign off on the above items being completed.  Fellow bloggers, we are almost there!

We finally got some pictures of the outside of our home when it was sunny and bright outside. BTW: This past Saturday and Sunday was BEAUTIFUL!!! See below:










 



4 comments:

  1. Thanks for blogging! We're building Ellicott City, so I've been searching for any bloggers even remotely close to us. Everyone's tips are so insightful! We've been asking tons of questions during every interaction and always get the response "great questions". I know you mentioned in an earlier post that all optional windows were included due to Charles County code. Were the garage side windows standard optional windows or non-standard? They weren't indicated on the floor plan you posted.

    Your house looks beautiful. Hopefully mine will be too once its finished!

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  2. Hi J&M! Congratulations on your new home and thanks for the comment about ours!

    As far as the windows I can't say whether they were standard/non-standard optional windows. Being that they are not on the floor plan I would say "non-standard". However, as you know there is a fine print on the bottom of those pretty much saying subject to change at any moment.

    To tell you the truth we weren't expecting any windows in the garage at all (per the floor plan). So to our surprise when they framed the house we not only had one garage window but two. One on the side of the house and one by the front porch. Coming out of the pre-construction meeting it's hard to remember now whether our PM went over those extra windows.

    Was this a Charles County thing to add those? I'm going to say yes. I don't see Ryan Homes giving us free windows and as you can read from our surprise, we didn't request them.

    If you are looking to do this with your home, it never hurts to ask for a "non-standard" request. All they can do is say no. I hope this helps.

    Happy Building!!!!

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  3. The house looks fantastic. This weekend was perfect to get those nice pictures.

    More testimony on how great PM is - A, that's good you got to just take everything in during your demo (focus on right instead of flaws) - you'll have time later to mark things for correction.

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  4. Do you happen to know what the fix was for the dryer vent flapper? We recently built and our house does the same thing! Our PM seems to think it's something we should just deal with. Thanks!

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