What have you done to your house today

[SGTguy]

Trying to figure out what I want to do with my backyard. My HOA just approved my 22x10' stamped concrete patio, but now I think I'm going to go ahead and get a deck and if I use the deck more than I really don't think the basement patio is a worth while investment when I could spend that towards the deck. Now I'm thinking about doing a gravel base with just some concrete slabs to be able to walk out to the backyard. Opinions?

Here are some pics for a reference of what I'm starting with

In other news...

Put a new shower head on and cleaned the shower

Stamped concrete or deck you should get 100% back at resale. Looking at elevation from house I do stamped concrete or pavers.


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[Taxman]

I've had this spot right off the patio that the dogs have torn to hell running through and digging into. I finally blocked it off and hauled a few wheelbarrows of decomposed granite up to the house and spread it out. Gonna do a sitting area or something.



We've got 20 yds of the decomposed granite dumped out back of my shop. I'm gonna use it in the garden beds instead of mulch.

 

[Kenaizer]

So we just got home from butting heads with the rep for our builder. For those of you who didn't see my posts in the 'What has pissed you off?' thread, at about three weeks from closing, our rep nonchelantly sends us a document to sign saying it is the last piece of the pie to get moving forward with closing. It turned out to be an addendum to increase the price by $27k.

Yeah, we went ahead and put together a spreadsheet compiling the prices listed on the previous contracts compared to the contract we received last night. We included it in an email to the builder with all contracts attached. Still waiting to hear back.

Edit: They also left out an $8,500 incentive that we had agreed on in September. All in all, the differences cause the house to go from $480,375 to $507,614. No thank you.

They finally got back to us today, and are admitting that it was a mistake made by their former employees; however, they are still wanting to raise the price almost $15,000. Their reasoning is all of the upgrades done to the house. The thing is, most of the upgrades were selected by the builder prior to us buying the home. We were told that they were included in the price of the home, and any upgrades on top of them would require a signed change order and 10% down (which we have done for every upgrade we have actually chosen).

Our realtor is going to meet with their higher-ups tomorrow.

 

[skwerl]

^ Sounds like a nightmare. I will never willingly go through such a process and would much rather buy something already existing and fix it up myself. I'm too much of a cheapskate to pay full retail for a new house.

 

[Kenaizer]

^ Sounds like a nightmare. I will never willingly go through such a process and would much rather buy something already existing and fix it up myself. I'm too much of a cheapskate to pay full retail for a new house.

It definitely has its trade-offs. We've done pretty well with our last two houses, both of which were new builds, but this experience has been enough to turn us away from it for good, regardless of any value it is expected to build.

 

[Taxman]

It definitely has its trade-offs. We've done pretty well with our last two houses, both of which were new builds, but this experience has been enough to turn us away from it for good, regardless of any value it is expected to build.

I can't believe you're still in this... I would have walked away. It sounds like a nightmare.

 

[Kenaizer]

I can't believe you're still in this... I would have walked away. It sounds like a nightmare.

It has been. I keep thinking of just walking, but we've spent so much time and energy on this house. Plus, the market has gone up so much since we started that we would be very hard pressed to find something comparable for the same price (even the inflated one). And we really do love the house.

 

[Shaggy]

It has been. I keep thinking of just walking, but we've spent so much time and energy on this house. Plus, the market has gone up so much since we started that we would be very hard pressed to find something comparable for the same price (even the inflated one). And we really do love the house.

So how long has it been from first signing the papers till now?

 

[Kenaizer]

So how long has it been from first signing the papers till now?

We signed on September 29th, so 167 days. The kicker is that when we signed, they said the house would be done in December, January at the latest. Trusting them, we moved to Denver from Houston in October. In December, when they dropped the bomb on us that it was pushed back to March, we had to scramble to find different arrangements for ourselves, our 5 animals, and all of our stuff that had been in storage since we sold our Houston home in November. That ordeal ended up being pretty expensive for us.

 

[WILECYOT]

We signed on September 29th, so 167 days. The kicker is that when we signed, they said the house would be done in December, January at the latest. Trusting them, we moved to Denver from Houston in October. In December, when they dropped the bomb on us that it was pushed back to March, we had to scramble to find different arrangements for ourselves, our 5 animals, and all of our stuff that had been in storage since we sold our Houston home in November. That ordeal ended up being pretty expensive for us.

Sounds like you're handling it better than I would have....

How are you liking Houston?

 

[Kenaizer]

Sounds like you're handling it better than I would have....

How are you liking Houston?

Thanks, Ben. We've tried to stay positive through it all. I think it (having a common enemy) helped my wife and I to keep from fighting.

We love Denver. We had both spent a lot of time here before, and knew it was where we wanted to end up. Heck, we even had our wedding here last year.

 

[NastyStang113]

Wow... Tell them to shove that up their ass. Do they think you're just going to take whatever they tell you?

Hope your Realtor gets some-where with the builder. Most of the time it's just letting them know you won't be a push over.

 

[Renesis07]

Painted the bathroom yesterday. The color we picked out happened to be the Behr Marquee which I guess is Home Depots higher end paint (we didn't realize it just liked the color). I was a little worried paying that much for paint that I was wasting my money but wow this stuff is good. Rich color and went on super easy in essentially just one coat... Got my contractor coming in this week to hopefully finish up the shower, so should have some updated photos soon.

 

[Renesis07]

Anybody ever had to 'mudjack' a cement slab that is sloping?

Our front entryway is sloping towards the garage a little bit. Want to get it taken care of just not sure what to expect in terms of cost...

 

[Kenaizer]

So our realtor just called to report how her meeting went. She said that even though they were complete and utter assholes, she got them to agree to cover the majority of the added cost. Now our price is only increasing by about $2,000.

 

[NastyStang113]

So our realtor just called to report how her meeting went. She said that even though they were complete and utter assholes, she got them to agree to cover the majority of the added cost. Now our price is only increasing by about $2,000.

Honestly as much as I would want to say fuck you, and I don't know the details, I would just pay it as long as it's paid at closing. The equity you gain when building is worth the $2,000 and especially if you really want the house. Fuckers... Sorry to hear that man but there's always a bright side.

 

[Jeffk]

Trying to figure out what I want to do with my backyard. My HOA just approved my 22x10' stamped concrete patio, but now I think I'm going to go ahead and get a deck and if I use the deck more than I really don't think the basement patio is a worth while investment when I could spend that towards the deck. Now I'm thinking about doing a gravel base with just some concrete slabs to be able to walk out to the backyard. Opinions?

Where would you get onto the deck from? like a den or your bedroom? Wouldn't want to have a bunch of people parading through the bedroom to get out onto the deck.

I think that I agree with you on doing the deck and gravel with pavers on the ground level.

 

[skwerl]

We signed on September 29th, so 167 days. The kicker is that when we signed, they said the house would be done in December, January at the latest. Trusting them, we moved to Denver from Houston in October. In December, when they dropped the bomb on us that it was pushed back to March, we had to scramble to find different arrangements for ourselves, our 5 animals, and all of our stuff that had been in storage since we sold our Houston home in November. That ordeal ended up being pretty expensive for us.

You need to not only insist that they honor the original contract, but since THEY were the ones in default then they need to pick up your extra living expenses for the last 3 months on top of that. They can either man up and honor the contract or else see your lawyer in court where you will seek punitive damages as well as real expenses.

 

[Kenaizer]

Honestly as much as I would want to say fuck you, and I don't know the details, I would just pay it as long as it's paid at closing. The equity you gain when building is worth the $2,000 and especially if you really want the house. Fuckers... Sorry to hear that man but there's always a bright side.

Yeah, that's what we're going to do. To be honest, we were surprised they even offered that. We were prepared to pay the complete balance if they just apologized for completely shitting the bed. Instead, they are still being dicks about the whole thing, but paying more than we thought they would. It's bittersweet.

You need to not only insist that they honor the original contract, but since THEY were the ones in default then they need to pick up your extra living expenses for the last 3 months on top of that. They can either man up and honor the contract or else see your lawyer in court where you will seek punitive damages as well as real expenses.

We could probably do that, but we're both just ready for it all to be over. The way I see it, we would have had to pay to live somewhere anyway.

The options were never even mentioned on the contract. When we asked about it, the salespeople (both of which no longer work there) said it was because they were added to our base price, since they were picked before we came on board. If they would have told us then, my wife and I would have paid without a fuss. Hell, if the new salesperson had bothered to double check everything more than three weeks before closing, we probably wouldn't have been as upset. The main thing that pissed us off was that they had fucked up yet again, and their tone really came off as implying it was either our fault somehow, or that we were intentionally trying to get the stuff for free the whole time.

Update: Just got the new contract. It ended up only being $1,421 more, which we are definitely ok with. Our realtor called and said that she was going to call and raise hell again tomorrow to get them to eat the remainder She really hates them.

 

[Shotokan1509]

Do we have any electrical guys here?

First I'd need suggestion for a wireless light switch, my street doesn't have streetlights and sometimes coming home the yard is pitch black. I'd like to be able to flip on exterior lights as I pull up.

Second, can I combine two different light circuits to same switch? Currently one runs 2 lights on front of garage and light post at the end of the driveway, I'd like to combine that with the front porch light. I'd think just cap one of the hot's, use just one to switch, and then connect both loads to switch. All 4 are LED bulbs so not much draw