Saturday, July 16, 2011

"So....what do you think?"

That seems to be the common question we are asked the last couple days since our siding went up.  All homes aren't without hick-ups along the way, ours just happens to be with the siding unfortunately.  We had originally picked Cobble stone wicker as our siding color, which is like a taupe color with a greyish or olive undertone. At the end of June we got a message saying Ryan had changed siding suppliers and we needed to come look at the new "comparable" color for our house. So we drove an hour to the model home and took a look at the "comparable" color, Autumn Beige.  I have to say inside it looked "comparable" it wasn't like it looked brown versus grey or extremely light versus dark or anything.  But lighting changes everything, so we took our keychain size siding sample outside to see what it would look like in the sun and noticed it did have a different tone to it.  We asked if we could pick out a different color and they said no pretty much we have to stay with the "comparable" color....so without being allowed another option we took the color.

Monday the siding arrived and unfortunately we happened to go out of town Monday to Wednesday.  Thursday was the first opportunity we had to see the house and what a shock!!  As I pulled up to the lot my heart sank and all I could think was......"oh no, I have a pink house!".  All our dreams of planning the perfect house had just shattered.......and we were devastated.

My neighbors came over and said...."so....what do you think?" and I said ..."well...I think it looks pink", and they laughed and said "we were just saying the same thing"........oh great, now I know I'm not the only one who sees it, so now I'm assuming the whole neighborhood will wonder why in the world would we pick this Pink color for our house.  Soon the neighbor from up the street walks by (who ironically lives in a house with the cobblestone wicker siding I was originally supposed to have), and says..."well.....what do you think?".......and I say, "well, I'm not sure yet......it looks pink to me".   Then I explained it was supposed to be the color of their house and they were shocked.....not even close....and they said theirs has a cooler feel to it and our siding has more of a "warmer....red undertone to it".......oh no!!!  My parents came by and were equally disappointed and shocked at the color, and also thought it looked faded pink...not at all what we all were expecting!!  

So naturally I contact our sales rep and explain our disappointment and ask for our options at this point.  They came back saying because the siding had been completed it would be way too costly and delay closing to replace it.......I'm now up in arms.....what do we do?  We were hoping by the grace of God maybe the color would grow on us, perhaps the light during that particular time of day made the color look pink, or perhaps when the shutters went up it would make it more tolerable.....but without luck it wasn't any of those things and it still looks pink!  UGH!

Yesterday the PM in charge while our usual PM is on vacation was to go review the color to ensure it was the correct "comparable" siding color, and our sales rep was also going to drive by and take a look herself as well....but basically we have been told the siding will have to stay unless its an order error, and what can Ryan do that would make us happy with the siding.......well if it can't be changed what options do I have is my question?  We hate the siding and its not the color we picked and its not even a "comparable" color.....

My husband and I spent weeks driving around Ryan home developments looking at houses that had siding colors we liked and that were available for us to select.  It was so hard for us to visualize a housing color from a keychain size swatch and an unrealistic computerized example of what the color may look like on a house.....we needed to see the real deal to determine if it was what we liked.  Even at one of our pricing meetings with the sales rep we took a drive in the middle of the meeting through the complex to determine which trim we liked better with the siding color we selected.  We really took our time to make sure it was what we wanted and we would be happy!  THEN they turn around and change things and there was nothing we could look at but the swatch and we didn't have any other options other than to take the new "comparable" color.....I feel so disappointed now that its up and we hate it and there's nothing that can be done to change it.......this is the first impression someone has of your home.....PINK is not the impression I want someone to have looking at our house.  When building a house you take your time to make sure it is all you dreamed of because you have the option and opportunity to make it what you want.  I feel that has been taken away from us a little bit and now we have to live with it for the next 30+ years or until we move (which we were hoping not to have to do until the kids are done with college) or change the siding ourselves which would be $$.......

So below are some pictures of the house....they truly don't give a good representation of the actual "pink" we see but I'll let you form your own opinions.......what do we do now is the answers hopefully we'll get soon!

Let me know what you think.....






On a good note, all our drywall is up and primed.  Our cabinets have arrived. And our PM gave us our tenative closing date of August 12th.......somehow before I was so much more excited about that date when my house wasn't pink, but it will all work out (I hope).  Its not life or death....its siding....its just such a disappointment when you had something you liked picked out and it was changed to something you hate but apparently will have to live with.

20 comments:

  1. Wow, this is a terrible story. I can understand why you are upset. Although it does not look really pink, I can see the pink undertone. It looks like a tan with some peachy pink undertone to it... :( It doesn't look bad, but I know how it is when you envision something being one way and its another, that is why we are building not buying someone else's home. I think once the grass goes down it might not look as pink....I know we had a house in our neighborhood that looked weird but now that the sod and landscaping has been placed it looks totally different. GL

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  2. Dang...I lost my entire comment...try again

    I think you should turn up the heat on the sales rep and if you don't get satisfaction go up the chain to corporate if you have to...you are paying a lot of money for this house and you were not given the opportunity to make your own selection. BUT...I personally think it's the wrong color siding. The link below is to the PlyGem website and the siding is the Variform siding(I have a picture of the keychain with the name on it)...not sure the exact section, but the Contractor's choice section has your color(Autumn Beige) and our new color (Georgian Gray) and personally I think you got the Island Pearl on your house...there is no way it is Autumn Beige...it isn't even close. I will cross my fingers and hope that I am right.


    http://www.variform.com/VariformCommon.nsf/ColorSiding?OpenForm&Refer=HO

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  3. I totally understand your horror and dismay. I currently live in a house that I lovingly call "purple haze." I think its supposed to be a grey color, but it has lavender untertones. When I painted my front door blue, the lavender popped even more. :) I wasn't thrilled about it at first, but I don't even really see it anymore.

    BUT, I took what I could get when I bought this house. And if you aren't happy, you should definitely go up the chain. It couldn't take more than a day to re-side a house - I'll bet you'd be willing to wait to close for a couple extra days to get a siding color that you liked.

    We were all pushed in to picking different siding colors, after we had already agonized over it - and we had zero examples to go see. I chose DelRay sand, and I'm cringing already because i don't know exactly how yellow its going to look.

    As for your color, I like it. it might look different in person, but the picture shows a nice warm beige color, with a peachy undertone. With time, you'd get used to it. I mean, how excited are any of us about the various beige/tan colors we got to pick? But, you didn't get what you thought you were getting, so go get them! See what you can work out. And keep us posted.

    Or, maybe BD is right. I'm not sure, but its worth working on that angle too.

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  4. When is your PM coming back into town? If you have a good relationship with him and he'll be back soon then I would say contact him. You can send him and email and he may even check it while he's on vacation (ours did). The other thing you should do is ask to speak to your sales rep's manager. There is no way that you should be stuck with siding that you hate.

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  5. Beautiful home~!

    It looks light beige and like the setting sun has something to do with the hue you see that is pinkish. Can you head over there one afternoon?

    It is beautiful!

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  6. Thanks all for your comments. Its so disappointing to us since we really put a lot of effort into picking out our siding colors and now its nothing like what we wanted or picked.....its not even a color we would consider given the option....and now we're stuck with it!

    Just to give you an update Ryan doesn't seem like they will budge on re-doing the siding. They do, however, seem willing to work with us to come to some sort of compromise, BUT not without a cost to us. It was suggested that perhaps we can split the cost of re-doing the siding or to have some stone put on the front. Quite frankly I'm not interested in splitting the cost of anything.....I'm more interested in hearing we won't be living in a pink house and it won't be coming out of our pocket to fix it. Anyways we are anticipating a call from the sales manager within the next day or so to see what can be done. We'll keep you posted!

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  7. I agree 100% with BD, looks like they put Island Pearl on your house!! Good luck, hope it works out and you don't have to settle. I would NOT split any costs with them, if they made a mistake!! GS

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  8. We absolutely agree 100% with BD...RH gave you the wrong siding. You should not have to pay for their mistake. Do NOT settle or split the cost. Are you able to take a piece of the siding and contact the vendor directly to see if they can tell you the exact name? If you find out that they are lying to your regarding the siding, then take it straight to the top. At that point I would be looking for some $$$ back or some upgrades at not cost. Good luck!!!!

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  9. It's not Island Pearl. The boxes said autum beige. The problems came when they misled us into thinking that autum beige was at all comparable to the cobblestone wicker we picked out. The siding sample is a light tan in all light. When it is plastered on a 2700 sqft house with any sunlight on it it looks light pink. The sales rep also said the sales manager would call yesterday or today....no call. Who is next up the line?---Andrew And Jennel

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  10. So if you receive a crate of apples and there are oranges inside, are they apples or oranges?

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  11. On the outside of our siding box it reflects 17246 Graphite Gray. We didn't check to see if this product # is on the actual siding...does anyone know if they print the product # on the siding? This may be away to be sure that you received the correct siding, unless they marked the siding with the wrong product #.

    I've worked in a manufacturing plant and it is not uncommon for packaging to make mistakes. I am just throwing out suggestions.

    Otherwise, if you agree that the siding is the same to the swatch that you signed off on, then I would think you will need to take part of the blame.

    Also, I'm a little confused; at the time they said you didn't have any other siding color options but Autumn Beige; however, know they are willing to offer you a different color siding. Why wasn't the other color an option in the first place?

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  12. HW you are so right. I have actually questioned that myself. I'm wondering if perhaps the siding in the box is not actually whats labeled on the box.

    As for re-siding the house, they haven't told us what the details behind doing that would be. If that means we could pick another one of the new colors or if we could have it re-sided with the original color we picked prior to the supplier change. From what we have heard so far it doesn't sound like re-siding is really even an option but the idea of splitting the cost of re-siding was suggested by the sales rep when we talked to her. Ultimately the options we have would be coming from the sales manager. We still have yet to hear from the sales manager though.

    When we were told the siding supplier had changed and we were to look at the "comparable" color, we asked if we could pick another color or if we had another option and they said no...basically our only option was to take the "comparable" color.

    Hopefully it will all work out. Everything else so far has been such a great experience. Its just one bump in the road and I'm sure in the end it will work out for the best (I hope). As we've said before the worst part is its just a disappointment as we had a color we loved picked out and we didn't expect peachy pink as the result of the "comparable" siding change.

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  13. HW beat me to the punch. I work in a manufacturing plant and I too have seen products mislabeled. Keep pressing the issue until you get it resolved to your satisfaction!!!

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  14. The house looks set. But there's one thing missing: the whole landscaping stuff. =) And oh, as for the siding, would it be okay if you replace or repaint it? Just to make your house look lovelier and more attractive. =)

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  15. Hi Andrew and Jennel,

    My husband and I had also selected autumn beige for our siding but having read your blog we decided to steer clear from it! Thanks for providing the information! I referenced your blog in one of my own blog posts on sidings and hope you don't mind. You can check it out on www.florentinetales.blogspot.com and let me know if you want me remove the link to your blog.

    Hope you guys are enjoying your new home!!

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  16. Autumn Beige was the one color we refused to have on any part of our house, even the trim. With that said, we were left with only 12 options. They must really love that Autumn Beige. But, I'm with you... I ruled Autumn Beige out because it looked pink in the light. It isn't horrible, and lots of houses in our subdivision have it, but it is pink. Just know that if they are changing the color permanently, then others in the subdivision will proably choose it too. You probably won't even notice in a year or two, but until then, I'd be very frustrated too.

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    1. Julie, thankfully our story had a happy ending. They resided our house to a different color for a nominal fee. We are so happy we changed it and LOVE the new color which is Sandy Tan. They actually discontinued offering the Autumn Beige color in our development so no other houses will have that color. So glad everything worked out and we are very happy!!

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  17. Is the color scheme of those sidings called autumn beige sidings? Or something a little lighter? Whatever it is, it definitely looks gorgeous and improved the aesthetic look of your house, big time!

    Rolf Matchen

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  18. I'm sorry for the inconvenience you went through, but on a lighter note, I don't think that it looks bad at all. This siding can turn out to be unique because of its color – you might be the only one with this color around there! But did you have it replaced or just kept with it?

    Saundra Wordlaw @ Ports Mouth Area Roofing

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  19. I love it. I hope it is Island Pearl.I chose Island Pearl.

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