Ryan Homes upgrades: what’s included, the 1-2-10 warranty, and what to add after settlement

Updated October 25, 2026

The short version: Ryan Homes sells a defined set of features and palettes, and its own pages say options “vary by community and home design”^[3]. Spend your option budget on what goes into the walls and floors. Window coverings fit to finished surfaces, so they can wait until after settlement, when you’ve lived with the light. If your home came with Ryan’s standard faux wood blinds, you can keep them in some rooms and replace them in the rooms that matter most.

Shutter Boys and Shade Boys aren’t connected with Ryan Homes. What follows about Ryan Homes comes from its own published pages, linked in the sources; the rest is our own advice.

Ryan Homes, NVR and NVHomes

Ryan Homes is NVR, Inc.’s main homebuilding brand. Its site says it is “Building New Homes Across 16 States”, grouped into the Mid-Atlantic, the Midwest, the Northeast and the Southeast^[1]. NVHomes, another NVR brand, describes itself as building “in some of the most sought-after areas across the Mid-Atlantic”, with communities in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC, New Jersey and Pennsylvania^[12]. The customer-care pages and spec sheets quoted below are Ryan Homes’; if you bought from NVHomes, check that its documents say the same.

What Ryan Homes includes, and what you choose

Ryan’s pages describe what’s included in broad terms: “All Ryan Homes include a thoughtfully designed floorplan, quality construction, smart home and energy-efficient features”^[3]. Interior finishes come through its Designer Interiors program, whose “professionally designed palettes cover a wide range of styles and colors for you to select from”^[2]. Ryan says that “Before construction begins, you will have a clear understanding of what is included in your new home”^[3].

Some upgrades that other builders sell as options are already in a Ryan Home. Its BuiltSmart page lists “smart thermostats that optimize energy use based on your schedule”, “energy-efficient windows”, “ENERGY STAR®-rated appliances” and a Home Energy Rating System score, with 65 given as an example for a Ryan home against a standard new home’s 100^[4]. So the smart thermostat in our after-closing table below is probably one you can cross off.

This is our own rule of thumb for what to pay for before construction and what to leave:

• Choose before construction: anything in the structure or behind finished surfaces: layout options, cabinetry, flooring, tile and plumbing fixtures. Also any electrical you want in the ceilings, such as fan-rated boxes in bedrooms. These are disruptive to change once you live there.
• Leave for after settlement: what attaches to finished surfaces. Window coverings, many light fixtures and hardware can be added room by room without opening a wall.

The blinds and windows in a Ryan Home

Ryan’s customer-care site publishes spec sheets for the products in its homes, and two of them matter for window coverings.

Blinds. The blinds sheet describes a 2 in cordless faux wood horizontal blind in Snow White, mounted inside the window opening, made by A Better Blind, Inc.: PVC slats and bottom rail, steel brackets, and a “Limited One Year Warranty”^[7]. The pages don’t say which communities or homes include them, so check your purchase agreement. If yours did, the honest advice is that a cordless faux wood blind does a fine job in a spare room or over a laundry sink. Where shutters earn their keep is in the rooms you use most and see most: the primary bedroom, the street-facing front rooms and the main living space.

Taking a blind down leaves two or more bracket screw holes in the window return; the sheet calls for center support brackets above 38 in wide^[7]. A shutter frame usually covers the old holes when it’s mounted in the same opening. If it doesn’t, fill them and touch up. Ryan’s paint sheet is Sherwin-Williams, and its touch-up advice is to “bring your color and sheen information to a Sherwin-Williams store and we’ll match it”^[8].

Windows. The windows sheets are Ply Gem’s 2300 vinyl collection: single hung windows, “HP (high performance) Glass packages” combining Low-E with argon, grilles between the glass, and sliding patio doors^[9]. Three things follow for shutters:

• Tilt latches and the lock. Double hung sashes have “two tilt latches”^[9], and the lock handle “should go unobstructed into the pocket of the frame head”^[10]. Measure the depth from the room side of the trim to the furthest point of the lock; it decides whether 3½ or 4½ in louvers tilt without touching it. Choosing a louver size
• Grilles between the glass sit inside the glass, so they don’t affect fitting. You can line a shutter’s divider rail up with a grille bar if you like the look.
• The sliding patio door is usually better served by bypass shutters or a shade than by hinged panels. A 72 × 80 in slider in our basic build is $1,080 – $1,320, before tax and shipping. Patio door shutters

A Ryan Home from contract to year ten

The dates and coverages in the middle column come from Ryan’s pages; the last column is our suggestion. Ryan’s pages don’t describe a pre-closing walk-through; buyers quoted on its site do mention a pre-drywall meeting^[2], so ask your sales representative what your community’s schedule includes.

Ryan’s page adds that condominiums carry different terms and that “the warranty in place at the time of closing” may differ from the website’s summary^[5]. Requests go in online: add every item, with one photo each, then submit them all at once, because Ryan asks you to “enter all of your warranty concerns at once”^[6]. In New Jersey, the state’s New Home Warranty Program sets its own steps, including written notice to the builder by certified mail^[13].

Fitting shutters without creating a warranty question

Two documents set the boundaries. Ryan’s 2018 Homeowner’s Manual says “Damage caused or made worse by Homeowner negligence, improper maintenance, or improper operation is expressly excluded”^[11]. And the Ply Gem window warranty excludes “Products that have been altered, modified or subjected to unauthorized repair”^[10]. Neither stops you fitting window coverings, but both mean you want the screws in the right place:

• Screw into the opening, not the window. Our install guide fixes the shutter frame to the sides or top of the window opening. In most new homes that’s a drywall return or a wood jamb extension around the vinyl window. Keep every screw out of the vinyl frame itself.
• Photograph first. Dated photos of each window before anything is fitted settle any later question about what was there.
• Leave the weep holes and caulk alone. Ply Gem says “Caulking is considered a maintenance responsibility of the homeowner”^[10], and Ryan’s manual says to keep weep holes clean^[11]. A shutter fitted inside the room doesn’t touch either.
• Expect condensation in the first winter. Ryan’s manual calls it “usually the result of climatic/humidity conditions created by the Homeowner”^[11]. Open the louvers in the morning so air reaches the glass. Shutters and condensation

If you’re not sure what’s behind the drywall at a window, ask Customer Care before you drill. It costs a phone call, and a hole in the wrong place costs a repair.

What a Ryan-sized house adds up to

Most owners don’t do every window on move-in day. Here is a made-up four-bedroom home, priced in stages from our live price list. One 36 × 60 in bedroom window on its own is $400 – $500.

Each window is priced on its own, so the stages add up to the whole; splitting an order only means each part ships separately. Keep the louver size, moulding and colour the same from the first order so later rooms match. The designer prices your own sizes in a few minutes.

Matching shutters to Ryan Homes trim

Builder trim is usually painted one colour throughout, and shutters look best when they read as part of it. Our standard colour is white. If your trim is a different white, or a colour, take the name from your Designer Interiors selections or your Sherwin-Williams information and enter it in the designer as a colour match. Ryan’s paint sheet points to Sherwin-Williams’ ColorSnap tools if you need to identify a colour from a photo^[8]. Take the sheen too: the same colour in a different sheen looks like a different colour on louvers, which catch the light at every angle.

Questions to ask your Ryan Homes sales representative

These are questions, not claims about what Ryan offers; the answers vary by community.

• Does my home include the faux wood blinds on the spec sheet, and in which rooms?
• What is the trim colour and sheen in my Designer Interiors palette?
• Are my windows single or double hung, and which way do the locks and tilt latches project?
• Will the window returns be drywall or wood, and how deep from the trim to the glass?
• Which bedroom ceilings will have a fan-rated box?
• Is there anything you’d rather I didn’t fix to inside the window openings during the warranty?

After settlement: the upgrades worth planning

These are the upgrades we see new-home owners add in their first year, with the agencies that publish useful guidance. Your community’s homeowners association decides what can change on the outside, so read its rules before anything goes on the patio or the front of the house.

Outside, and the rooms where shades suit better

Shutter Boys makes wood shutters. Our sister company, Shade Boys, makes the rest: windproof motorized patio shades that run in side tracks, for a covered patio or porch, which you can fit yourself or have a local installer fit, and indoor roller, solar and patio door shades made to measure. A sliding door or a wide wall of glass is often better served by a shade than a shutter; bedrooms and street-facing windows are where shutters earn their keep.

Anything fixed to the outside of the house usually goes to the homeowners association first. Ask for its architectural review form before you order patio shades, and expect it to ask for the colour, the mounting and a photo of a similar product. Shade Boys’ HOA guide covers what boards usually look for on the windows; no product is approved everywhere, because each association decides for itself.

Ryan Homes areas we cover

Ryan builds in the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Northeast and Southeast. Our region pages show local housing and weather figures and what they mean for shutters: Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, Illinois and Indiana.