The Masters House

Well I went to 2 Home Depots and a Lowes yesterday and did not find the candelabra fluorescent bulbs that I am looking for. As a recap I bought some that give out a sickly white light that I really do not like. What I am trying to find are some bulbs that give out a more natural yellow light like the rest of the fluorescent bulbs I bought.

The guy at the first Home Depot said that they had not had any for weeks and did not know when they would get some in. The lady at the second Home Depot had some but they were 15 watt bulbs (I need at least 40 watts). The did have some 40 watt bulbs at Lowes but they looked as though they would give the same light as the ones from Walmart.

I am going to check out Ikea tonight to see if the bulbs they have there give out a better light. I have already seen the bulbs there but recall them being pretty expensive. Cost at this point is not as much of an issue as just getting a more natural color for the bulbs.

It is weird how I am obsessing over this but for me it is a big deal. The reason it is a big deal is that this is my son’s room that probably has the lights on more then any other room in the house. I really do not want 160 watts burning for 4-6 hours a day when I can have 27 watts burning with fluorescents instead.

We will see what Ikea turns up and if the lights aren’t looking that good then I guess I might try the ones at Lowes.

Technorati tags: CFL bulbs, Fluorescent Bulbs, Saving Evergy, Ceiling Fan, Home Improvement, DIY

Well I was awakened this morning with a call from Robert who is the warranty guy for my neighborhood. He read me a list of things that appear to be unfinished – the door, the nail pops, and the vent on the roof that needs to be painted. From the last item DR Horton obliviously had some sort of paperwork as I never mentioned the paint for the vent.

Anyway, Robert is scheduling to have people out here tomorrow to take care of the items.

On a side note – I am a little bummed that Mike did not call. I think it would have been better customer service for him to contact me instead of throwing me out to the guy that I was having issues with in the first place. Oh well, things are getting taken care of and that is the most important thing.

Being utterly amazed that I just got hung up on by Joe I dialed my newly acquired number for Mike – voice mail. No doubtingly Joe is on the line with him telling his side.

So I dial Kelly.

Kelly answers and I ask her if she knows who Mike is – Mike is Joe’s boss. Is he there? He is on the phone she says. I tell her that he is probably on the phone with Joe – who just hung up on me. She is quiet for a moment and then apologizes. She asks if I would like to hold for Mike. I say sure.

After a couple of minutes Kelly comes back and asks if I mind holding for a little while longer. I say sure, Kelly is nice, not at all like Joe (Good job Kelly!). After another minute or so Mike is on the line.

Mike asks how he can help me. I ask him if he has been talking with Joe? He says yes. I tell him that all I am trying to do is get a couple small things fixed on my house and that I am absolutely astonished that I had to get to his level to do it. Mike apologizes. Good one Mike – customer service 101 – apologize to the customer, it makes them feel better and defuses the situation to make it manageable. Joe obviously has not been to customer service 101 – Mike, you should send him.

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Just as I was finishing up the last post I got a call – from Joe. Joe is the regional manager for warranty repair for DR Horton in my area. Joe is Robert’s boss. Joe does not have an customer service skills.

Joe asked me what was going on. I explained to Joe about the paint, the vent, and the door. Joe started arguing with me telling me that it is an owners responsibility to paint their own patchwork. I told Joe to show me where that is written and where I agreed to it.

Joe got pissed.

From this point Joe would not let me get a word in edge wise. I tried calling him on it and he got more pissed. Finally he said that Mike would need to deal with it. I asked Joe to repeat the number 4 times because he was so pissed he couldn’t talk straight.

Joe hung up on me.

Joe has issues and should not be allowed to answer the phone.

Wow, for some reason that just does not give me the warm and fuzzies and DR Horton.

Time to call Mike…

OK, that last post got me fired up over all the issues that I have been having with the house so I decided to put some action to my words. I called the sales office for Our neighborhood and talked with Daisy about  my issues.

Daisy gave me the phone numbers for Kelly in the warranty department and for Robert who is a regional warranty manager. I called and left a message for Robert and then called Kelly.

It so happens that Kelly is the same person over at the warranty office that I have been dealing with all this time. I kept it civil (as I really want results and want them to work with me) even though Kelly is the one that I had to call multiple times on a couple of occasions to get results. To be fair to her I know she deals with a whole bunch on people everyday and my repeated calls were really the result of the warranty person responsible for my neighborhood – Robert.

Anyway, I proceeded to give Kelly the low-down – on everything – she asked whether I wanted her to contact Robert to try and get these things addressed. I informed her that I prefer for her to not do that as I felt that Robert tries to do the bare minimum on each item. She apologized and said that she would have Joe call me.

Waiting on the call… 1, 2, 3…

I have held on writing this post for a while as to try and give DR Horton the benefit of the doubt in regards to our warranty claims on our house.

That benefit has timed out.

Before I start I want to say that the overall construction of our DR Horton home is exceptional. In fact it was seeing a house similar to our in the framed stage that really sold me on the builder. The issues that we have had have not been with the overall construction of the house but with a few fit and finish items. Unfortunately while DR Horton builds a great home their service after the sale leaves something to be desired.

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I was walking out the front door this morning and noticed that we got our first rose bloom at the house. It was about 2 months from the time that we planted the roses to when we got this bloom.

The rose bushes are small right now but I expect that over the years that they will get much larger.

Well the weather is turning nice here in Central Texas and so the kids are wanting to be outside more and more. They are still small so letting them go play in the backyard by themselves is out of the question right now. As you can imagine they have far more energy then we do so hanging out with them outside can be a bit much.

I had thrown around the idea of adding railing around our back porch last year and my wife had thought that it was a good idea.

The whole project cost right around $200 for the materials. and took me about 10 hours over 3 days to complete. One of the most time consuming tasks was making the banisters. I could have easily bought them for around $1.50 a piece but ended up making them myself for around $0.40 each.

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The wife and I happened upon the garden section this past weekend to see what goodies might be available for the house. We had wanted to plant some trees in the backyard last year but did not get around to it early in the season and the summer was too hot to plant.

While walking up to the entrance of the garden center we noticed that they had several fruit trees available. Pushing in further we discovered bare root roses on sale. Finally I went to the back of the garden center and discovered that they had Live Oaks in stock.

I quickly went to see if my wife wanted to pick some up and she had already grabbed a cart and started filling it.

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Well I finally took the time to make the template to drill the holes for the knobs for our kitchen cabinets.

My first template was from some scrap pieces of wood and ended up not putting the hole in the same place each time. It was a good thing that I tested it out in out bathroom first as opposed to the kitchen.

This time around I went and bought a straight and square piece of wood and took my time to figure out what would work best to make sure it would be straight each time. I ended up making it to where the template sandwiches the cabinet door tightly so it is in the same place each time.

It just happened to work out that the cabinet doors were the same thickness of the wood that I was using so I could get the size of the gap the right size. I just clamped all 3 pieces of wood together in my vise and then screwed the sides on. This made sure that everything was nice and square.

As you can see it came out nice.

The best part about it is that all I had to do was make the template and make sure that it worked properly. My wife and my father-in-law are the ones that actually used it to put the knobs of .

Well another day, another project. It is sure nice to finally have the garage organized so that when I need to do these things I can get them done quickly.

You can see more pictures of the template here.

Technorati tags: Home Improvement, Carpentry, Kitchen Cabinets, Cabinet Knobs, DIY