My Thanksgiving post will be after this one. The house post is first because that is the story that most people are asking about.
We had to go to the house on Sunday because we got back from FL on Saturday. The visit wasn't a great one. It could have been ALOT worse but Brian and I are getting more and more frustrated and stressed. Beware: LONG post
Keep this in mind....we are not the ones who decided the house must be done before/just after Christmas (we are working with a December 27th closing AND move in date if everything goes as planned). When signing paperwork we were thinking we would close in February. The builders first said the beginning of December. Then they said middle of December. And now they are looking at December 27th. Yes, we obviously need to know if we are closing any time soon. My mom has to come down and physically move us because we can't do it ourselves so that means air fare. We have to schedule movers. We have to pack. We had to give notice so if this house gets delayed by more then 2 days we are in affect homeless. The builders have decided the closing, they have not taken anything that WE wanted into consideration and everything is happening because of that.
The builders are rushing to get the house done. They are not measuring twice and cutting once. It seems like they aren't even measuring at all. They are breaking things already in place that they will have to fix again which is only going to take longer because they have to redo some things. The things they are breaking are minor and easy fixes but A) these errors shouldn't be in existence and B) we are not spending a lot of money on building a house to our specifications to end up buying a house where the sheet rock has already been repaired especially when it has to be repaired because of their carelessness.
And someone on their side made a mistake with one of our water spickets. Not a huge issue other then we are building this house to OUR specifications and we said we wanted the spicket in one place and they put it on the plans some place else so it is now in the wrong spot and they cant/wont fix it. We did make some changes to where things were placed but we were very mindful that if we made too many changes it would be hard to keep track of we would risk having things put in the wrong spot. Wanting to eliminate things being put in the wrong spot, if we did not care about something we had them do it like it is on the model. We were figuring things like water spickets, electrical sockets, lighting, etc would be the default or if not the default done so much it was almost like a default. We were thinking that it would be easier for the builder to do something like the model then placing it someplace else. So when asked about the water spickets we said like the Model. The model has the water spickets on opposite walls. That wasnt what was put on the plans, the plans had them on connecting walls like one would be on the long side side of an L the other was on the short side. And unfortunately it isnt even on the far side of the short side of the L it is only about 10 feet away from the other spicket. Again, not a huge deal but we are building the house to our specifications, we specified we wanted it like the model so on opposite walls and that was not done.
We have asked the sales lady what the status is on fixing the mistakes they have created for themselves and neither Brian and I like her response. She wanted to remind us that the house was not finished and while she wasnt sure if the mistakes would be fixed by next weekend (when we visit again) that they will be addressed before the house is finished. Our response (not yet said, this will be handled in person next weekend)? Darn right it will get fixed. We are not signing ANYTHING until the house is built to our specifications the way it was supposed to be. If that means the house gets pushed till January, so be it. Brian and I have friends we can crash with. However these are mistakes that should never have happened. If they werent rushing towards a timeline that they are creating and insisting upon these mistakes would not have happened. Plus as Brian says, we should not have to buy a house with door frames, window sills, and sheet rock that has already been repaired.
Anyway..onto the pictures (very picture heavy)
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| Center view |
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| Diagonal view form right, the right side wall with 2 windows is where one spicket is correctly |
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| Right hand side yard |
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| Left hand side of the house....look we have a driveway! |
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| Diagonal view from left (the wall with the garage is where the other spicket is supposed to be) |
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| Backyard from back left, remember we get what is behind the black fence thing as well |
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| Left hand side yard from back |
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| Diagonal view from back left, you can see water/gas line things |
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| Center view, see the white thing under the bay window? That is the spicket that is in the wrong spot |
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| View of right hand side yard from the back, the wall with the three windows is same wall with the spicket |
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| Back yard from right hand side |
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| Diagonal view from back right, showing you the two walls the spickets are on |
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| Right hand side yard from the back |
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| Entry way from screened in back porch |
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| Not yet screened in back porch with motion detector light hook up |
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| Nursery with one coat of primer |
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| Didn't paint really well.... |
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| Guest Bathroom |
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| Guest bedroom, really light coat of primer |
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| I hope they paint the house better then this when they aren't doing the primer... |
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| This is what happens when you don't measure and bang a window in! (this is the front door and wasnt there last week) |
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| Bottom half of front door, not sure why this wire is here or sticking out like that...wasn't like it last week |
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| View from entry way |
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| They textured the ceiling |
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| Utility room |
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| Bathroom? |
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| More utility room, still loving the paint job |
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| Bainisters are up and they arent supposed to be |
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| Dining room, doors and walls are not flush |
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| This happened a lot....every other inside of the door frame is painted but this |
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| Living room |
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| Master Bedroom |
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| Evenness of paint job didnt improve here |
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| Master bath and entry to walk in closet |
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| Walk in closet |
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| Kitchen with the unfixed Island and cupboards that are up too early |
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| Based on the builders previous haste and rate of errors, I do not expect the plastic to hold and keep paint off of cupboards |
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| 99.9% of the door frames are like this: not flush and or cracked |
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| Forgot to paint this too... |
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| Not sure there is supposed to be a space between the wall and baseboard of the stair case |
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| Not sure that is supposed to look like that either.... |
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| Brian's office |
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| Office closet |
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| Loft |
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| Attic |
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| They rushed with this and almost covered the light sockets...just made more work for later |
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| About 80% of the sockets looked like this |
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| Office Bath |
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| They forgot to take the staple off the top of the door from the packaging so the staple is damaging the door frame |
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| They did manage to push the Island back like we wanted |
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| Forgot to paint the door frame |
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| Full view of the front door and the damage |
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| Garage, there is a hole in the back wall where they ran something into it |
And unfortunately I did forget to take pictures of the dents in the concrete which they wont/cant fix and we can only hope that the pad underneath the carpet will hide them. Also forgot to take pictures of the window sills (noticed that in the second trip and was too busy to remember) but they didn't fully measure the window so they made the sills too big and instead of cutting them to size they just banged them in damaging the sides of the window frame a little. Also the cupboard on the floor in the dining room was supposed to go over the refrigerator, the sales lady noticed that it was the wrong one so that will have to be switched out.
And they did not fix the Island like they were supposed to. The head builder will say they did but he would be lying again. All they did was use the cupboards to support the wall of the Island. Once they finish putting the sink and dishwasher in it will be stable however the wall of the island should be stable on its own. If we were to ever change the cupboards or the house settles too much or if something happens the cupboards would pull the island over and wreck the plumbing within the island. If the island was stable on its own if something were to happen the cupboards could/would come off without pulling the wall of the island down with it. It is the same principle as buying furniture from Walmart and buying it from Ethan Allen. When you buy it from Walmart the only reason it is standing up and holding things is because it is leaning on every piece so if one piece breaks, no matter how big or small, or sometimes even with age, the piece of furniture will fall apart. With Ethan Allen's furniture it would take several pieces to break before the furniture would collapse and age would not cause the furniture to collapse.
The greater majority of the issues are minor and are easy fixes though they should never have happened which is only going to take up valuable time. We are only concerned with the paint as a sign of ability and finished look. Primer is primer, what is important is the main color and I can only hope that they will take more time with the main color and paint it more evenly. Also, we do not believe (the sales lady wasn't able to say either) that they will do another coat of primer. We are very concerned the parts of the house that weren't painted would either have only one coat of primer and then regular paint (if the rest had two coats) or no primer with regular paint over it. Either option will affect and change how the regular paint will look and that is what concerns us. We want the whole house to be the same color (until we ourselves paint over it) and unless they go over and paint the spots they missed to equal the amount of coats they used on the rest of the walls there will be places where the paint color will be slightly different which isnt how it is supposed to be.
According to the timeline they were supposed to finish painting today and the cabinet are supposed to be up. Based on their past work Brian and I disagree. It is much easier and faster to paint things when you don't have to avoid things. Since the whole house is one color if the cabinets were off they wouldnt have to worry about getting paint where it wasnt supposed to be. The floors will be covered with wood, vinyl or tile after . Now that they have the cabinets and stair rail up they have to worry about not getting paint on them and based on their inability to do the simplest things well.....I am sure we are/did have paint on them. The time line also states that the water/sewer were supposed to be installed by now and the interior trim is done. Those last two have happened and outside some of the trim not being painted everything should be fine there.
Before our next visit they are supposed install the vinyl flooring, grout the tile, deliver some appliances, install marble walls of master bathroom tub and shelves.
We think this house is going to get delayed. Before they can do the wood flooring they need to have the house acclimated for at LEAST a week which means hooking up the HVAC and having all the windows in, all the doors and locks in and running the HVAC system. On December 5th they are supposed to trim the HVAC out and on the 9th start the wood flooring. That is giving the house less then 4 days to acclimate. If the house isn't acclimated properly the you would end up feeling like you are walking on a boat when you walk on the wood portions of the house. Fortunately we have a builder friend who specializes in flooring to help us out on this one. We may need to send in someone between the 5th and 9th to make sure the HVAC is at least up and running. This, given our track record, isnt going to end well.
Here is hoping the builders finally start proving us wrong and start building the house correctly and start fixing things that we ask them to....
