We have a hole!

Hello! The digging of our new pool started on Tuesday! Even though it is just a dirt hole, it marks the start of the process! Can't wait for the cement to start pouring in.

Updates to come soon!
Nick

Let's get this party started!!

Pre-construction meeting: CHECK!

We met with our new SR and PM yesterday for the the first time. They both were very straightforward and seem like they will be very easy to work with during the building process.

They are planning on buying our lot from the developer Monday and start digging on Tuesday December 16th.

They were able to show us all the floor plans and blueprints for the house, went over all of our choices again. We did have a few discrepancies that we were able to work out. I listed a few points out below.

1. Our previous sales rep had arranged for all the fixtures in bathrooms and kitchens to be the brushed nickel instead of chrome. From what it sounds like, a box wasn't checked so we weren't charged for the kitchen fixture upgrade. Our new SR was understanding and put in a change order for us to get this free of charge.
2. We have to decide if we want to move our attic access from the bonus room to the ceiling in the garage. I think we will go ahead and do to get some of the wall space back in the bonus room. 
3. We asked if we could put in a patio in the back before they seeded, but they wont let us do that. In that case, they just would seed it- only put straw down. We were disappointed about this, so we will have to think about what we want to do.
4. they are very open to us visiting the site as often as we want. They do appreciate a heads up due to liability at the site.
5. I had asked if we could widen the driveway 12"-24" on each side, but they said due to county code they couldn't.
6. Since we are building in winter and will be finishing up in early spring, there is a risk that they wont be able to pour our sidewalk and driveway. They like it to be above 50 degrees to ensure that everything cures properly. So we may end up with a gravel driveway for a few weeks if its chilly.
7. We were able to change our stain color from "Dark Oak" to something darker (not sure of the name yet). 

Overall, we are happy with how things are starting off. Can wait to see them start digging!

We will post another update next week when we have a hole! Lots of pictures to come!

Also... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY WONDERFUL FIANCE!!!!!! :) We will be celebrating the house and his birthday tonight at dinner!

All staked out!

Greetings and Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving!

Some of our future neighbors (my cousins) let us know that our lot was all staked out last week on Thanksgiving! Talk about something to be thankful for!

Here is our lot.... Never thought I would be this excited about some small pieces of wood in the ground!

Here I am in our future morning room!

A few months back, our "SOLD" sign fell over and Nick has tried to stand it back up every time we stop over. Here is his latest attempt...

... yes it fell over again as we drove away.

The lot across the street sold, we will have some neighbors as well!!!

Jessica

Quick Update!

Hello! Have not had much news lately. We are now with a new sales representative! The ground breaking is scheduled for late November. Can't wait to start!

That's all for now!
Nick

Final Decisions

Hello! We had our final meeting until the groundbreaking which is tentatively scheduled for the end of October. We chose to go with tan siding. Jessica always said she wanted a red door, so we chose accordingly! Having black shutters makes it seem like we are having a Bearcats house. The roof will be a mandatory black. We will have stacked stone along with the siding.
We also chose to go with the same flooring as the kitchen and foyer to be in the dining room. This is something we had to do "custom" which took some time to get a price on. It wasn't a large increase, so we went with it!

And last but not least, we were approved for our mortgage!

Thanks for reading!
Nick

One more thing... LET THERE BE MUSIC!

One other thing, we finalized today was our selections with Guardian today as well. Although we were impressed with the capabilities of the security system they had to offer, we decided that it was not necessary. After letting our sales rep know our decision he kindly informed me that they "just approved" an extra 3 months free of the monitoring service (on top of the 3 we had talked about the previous week) for a total of 6 free months. This didn't sway our decision.

Now onto more exciting things: Music! We had decided that speaker in the main spaces of the first floor, great room and kitchen. These would be ceiling mounted and controlled by volume pads on the walls in each room (nice touch!). After I had signed the papers I had asked how much one set of speakers would cost (two speakers in a set, a left and right). To my surprise it was signifincantly lower. Two sets of speakers is going to cost us $1,745.00 if I remember correctly, while the one set is only $585.00. I asked why there was such a difference and he said that it is due to an extra kit having to be installed to ensure that the 2 sets of speakers are coordinated correctly. So for now we are sticking with the 2 sets of speakers.

That's all for today! Good night!

Flooring is harder than you think...

Jessica here! This is my first post of hopefully many on this blog.

To start off, I will have to say that flooring was something I was a little nervous about going in. There is a lot of coordination going on there! Although we has some professional guidance today, I am still worried that we will regret something once we see it on a larger scale.

Here we go...

We met our sales person this afternoon at RiteRug to begin our flooring experience. We jumped right in confirming our cabinet at granite choice for the kitchen to ensure our flooring match up perfectly. Right off the bat we were unsure of what cabinets, we had gone into the day thinking maple, but quickly found that white caught our eye. Once we got to the store and saw the two next to each other I decided that I did not like the white cabinets in the middle level. There was a stye that I liked in the top level, but it was not in the budget to upgrade anymore.

Once the cabinets and counter tops were finalized we moved onto out other selections. The picture to the left shows our final selections, and I have listed out the colors and details below.

A: Granite- Caledonia
B: Kitchen Cabinets- Scottsdale Maple Espresso
C*: Vinyl (Kitchen, Morning Room, Foyer, Powder Room, Mud Room)- Station Square X2090
D*: Carpet (Great Room, Office)- 00201 Tavern and 8lb Admiral II Padding
E: Stain Color (Hand Rails)- 3212 Dark Oak
F: Bathroom Cabinets: (Master Bath, Hall Bath)- Fairfield Maple Honey
G*: Vinyl (Master Bath, Hall Bath, Laundry)- Station Square X2081
H: Carpet (Dining Room, Stairs, Upstairs bedrooms, bonus room)- 00751 Rockport

The items above with the asterisks (*) were upgrades (flooring only, not including the cabinet and granite upgrades). Our upgrades total for the flooring was $2,145.00. We easily could have spent more on the upstairs carpeting, or getting hardwood floors, but these are cosmetic items that can updated down the road. We are happy with what we have for now... until we change our minds.

The overall experience was okay.. Nick said he felt a little rushed and would have liked some time without the sales lady there to talk over our options. I still feel like we got was we came there for and I will be happy with the selections we made in the house. Can't wait to see it all come to life!

Initial Guardian Meeting: Check!

Jessica and I met with the Guardian rep today. We originally were not going to go with the home security, but it was a lot cheaper than what we were expecting. Though, we probably will not go with it. After seeing how the Guardian services were reported on other blogs, it made our decision easier.

We did end up going with 2 speakers in the great room and 2 speakers in the kitchen. They will be controlled from the home office. We figured this was a good spot because our computers will be there to control the jammin beats! Also, our TV placement in the great room will be on the wall shared with the home office. This will be easier to plug the TV into the auxiliary cord for the speakers.

Included with the house was 5 cable ports. We went with 4 cable ports in the great room, home office, master bedroom, and bonus room. We chose a phone outlet in the home office where our router will most likely be located.

Our Rite Rug meeting is Monday! Everything is going so fast!

We Must Be Crazy

Hello! After looking at numerous Ryan Homes blogs and getting great information, we figured we would do our part in writing down the process of building a home!

Jessica, my fiancee, and I have been looking at homes for many months. Checking out houses on Zillow is something we would regularly do. During the process of looking at used homes, we thought about the idea of building. After doing some research of builders in the area, we thought that it would be too much money and not possible. So we went back to looking for used houses. We could not find a house that felt like home.

We then went back to the idea of building. This time we talked to a couple of builders in the area we liked. We set up an appointment to visit with the Ryan Homes representative. Two days later we are sticking the SOLD sticker on the lot marker! The price was something that we could not pass up! The incentives we received made a world of a difference.

The first floor includes the morning room which was an included incentive for the month of August. We loved the home office that comes off of the great room. We decided that we did not need to have a fireplace. The gourmet island was also something we bargained with along with the washer, dryer, and refrigerator. Jessica made it clear she wanted an island! We went with granite counter tops for the kitchen as well.

In the second floor we wanted to have 4 bedrooms. When first looking at the Palermo we thought the bonus room was great, but not necessary. After some discussion, we were able to get the bonus room thrown in at a much lower price. We were thrilled. Jessica will be sure to fill up the closet in the master bedroom. We upgraded to a walk in shower in the master bathroom. We also liked that the washer and dryer will be upstairs.

The basement will be unfinished. This saved us some money. We plan to finish it down the road. We did rough in a bathroom for future plans. Having an unfinished basement means I get to have a pretty large workshop. At least for now.

We chose Elevation C for our house. The image to the right shows the bonus room on top of the garage.

We plan on moving in by the end of March 2015!

We hope to send post plenty of updates!

-Nick