4 Days to go...

Getting down to the end but so much more to do.  No pictures this post but some excellent info for anyone wanting to build with Ryan and still in the planning stages.

1.  Dark engineered hardwood stinks.  The wood underneath is light colored so any flaw stands out yugely.  I think we had more tape on our floors than on the walls.

2.  Non-sliding patio doors apparently don't come with sliding screens - at least according to our SR and PM.  They're not expensive or difficult to add but would have been nice to have them included.

3.  If you get the planning desk in the kitchen and upgrade your cabinets to get the soft close drawers, the planning desk drawers are not soft close.  This REALLY pisses me off as they are the exact same cabinets and we paid for the upgrade.  Still trying to fight for this.

4,  If you use a buying agent (and I highly suggest you do) have them come out at all the inspection phases.  Ours was quite direct about the house not being ready and needing a lot of work to complete.  Wish we had brought her for predrywall.


Today we had our pre-settlement walkthrough with the PM.  Again, the house was nice but not move-in ready or move-in cleaned.  We came in with a list of about 90 items that needed to be addressed.  We left with a list of about 80 but nothing structurally wrong.  This doesn't include all the blue tape added around the house.  Our agent suggested delaying closing a few days but we have already lined up movers, utilities and furniture deliveries and didn't think we needed to delay all of that.

So what's on our list? If you're interested I've included a PDF of our list below:


We made the list and our Inspection Report part of the presettlement document.  Ryan is now legally obligated to fix what is on the list or at least provide a disposition as to why it cannot be fixed.

We're going to take a few days off the house thing.  Neither my wife or I have been able to sleep much lately worrying about construction.  At this point there is nothing more we can do but attend another walkthrough on Monday before closing.  Keeping my fingers crossed that everything goes well then.

On a positive note, NVR has been great to work with.  They gave us some good incentives to use them for financing.  The process has been entirely smooth and everyone involved personable and professional.