FINAL Selections Meeting!

We had our final selections meeting today! This is it, no more changes allowed! The only two things we got an extension on is with Guardian selections and Creative Floors selections.

We know what we're getting with Guardian but when we called the guy back to finalize the paperwork with him he was randomly "out of town." Kind of annoying since he never told us this and he knew our final selections were due today. Since this was his fault we get a few more days so he can get his stuff together and send it in. The other change is that we saw that the soap dish in the tiled showers are white and look really out of place. We wanted to see if we could get something different (we saw on some blogs that some people got a shelf for an upgrade instead of that ugly soap dish). We tried calling them all week and they never responded so that is why we got an extension for that.

Other than that all choices have been made! Woo hoo!

EXTERIOR

Elevation E

Colors - Pebble Clay Siding/Shake, Black Shutters, Fiery brown door

(This is not a Palermo)

BASEMENT

Finished

Powder Room

Recessed Lighting

KITCHEN

Gourmet Island

Recessed Lighting

Ice maker Rough-in

Morning Room

Rushmore Maple Linen Cabinets - Standard Carpet (darkest color) - Vinyl

Linen Cabinets with Slate formica countertop

Stainless Appliance Upgrade - Premier II (Much better rating than the standard or first upgrade)

GREAT ROOM

Fireplace - Slate

MASTER BATH

Double Vanity

White Cabinets - Tile shower/floors (Upgrade C)

SECONDARY BATH

White Cabinets - Tile Floors

EXTRA OUTLETS

2- Unfinished sections of basement

1- High on wall in Great Room for TV

1- Extra outlet on kitchen island

1- End of staircase

1- Extra in garage

OTHER

Ceiling Fan rough-ins (7)

Carpet Pad - A

Carpet - Standard (darkest color they offered)

We feel good about all of our choices. We also found out that our loan was definitely approved!! 

Next Steps:

1) Hire our own home inspector

2) Pre-Construction Meeting - June 20th

3) Building starts!! - June 26th

Meeting with Creative Floors!

We finally had our meeting with Creative Floors. It went pretty well! The people there were really friendly and honest. They couldn't tell us directly where we were getting ripped off but they kind of hinted at where we could do things cheaper ourselves and things that we were actually getting a deal on.

One thing to note that I talked about last post is that Ryan Homes no longer offers laminate flooring! Apparently the laminate they let you choose from was pretty cheap and was squeaky and loud and they just had way to many complaints about it, so they had to get rid of it as an option. I don't know why they wouldn't offer some better laminate but maybe bump the price up a little? Who knows ..

One thing they said we definitely cannot do cheaper later is bathroom tile. Initially we weren't going to get tile in the master bath or secondary bath but they convinced us (and my boyfriend really likes the tile so the thought was already on his mind). The upgrade is around $1300 for the master bath tile, level C (Level B is barely an upgrade and Level D has prettier glass accents). It's a lot of money but it's nice tile and it goes all in our shower and covers our whole bathroom floor. Once we realized it went on the floor too we were sold. We ended up spending an additional $300ish on getting tile on the floor in the secondary bath (You can get the secondary bath to have tile on the floor and the shower but it's about $700ish and we figure we'll have a shower curtain that will cover the shower anyway- The shower walls will just have standard white tile).

 

Master Bath Tile (Upgrade C) & Cabinets (upgraded to white from oak)

 

Secondary Bath Tile & Cabinets

I've officially decided we're getting cheap vinyl in our foyer, kitchen, and morning room. I'm going to (try) to install laminate flooring myself. I'm pretty crafty and good a working with my hands (my dad taught me a lot) so I think I can do it. The flooring people told us that we can actually just install the laminate over that vinyl and the vinyl will serve as a really good moisture barrier and will absorb sound too so that's awesome! It'll kind of serve as an expensive layer of padding lol. He said it's not worth the headache of ripping the floors up because they're under all the cabinets and the island, because the floor is put in first. We also got the same vinyl in all of our bathrooms and laundry room to keep the house looking consistent.

We decided to upgrade to carpet pad A. Standard carpet pad is just awful and is only guaranteed for the life of the carpet while the upgraded carpet-pads (both A & B) are guaranteed for the life of the house (so if anything goes wrong at all with the padding they will come out and replace it). We thought about upgrading to B but after speaking with the flooring people they told us it wasn't necessary. Carpet pad B is a little thicker and has a guard for spills and things like that so if you have an old dog who has a lot of accidents or maybe your kids spill stuff a lot then it might be worth it. Neither apply to us so A was good!

As for the actual carpet we kept the standard carpet. It is REALLY cheap carpet but we were figuring we could replace that later. Well .. after doing some math and looking at prices of carpet online it looks like Ryan Homes is actually cheaper than if we were to do it on our own. Significantly cheaper once you factor in the company ripping up old carpet and then installing new carpet. I just don't know if we can want to put in another $1300+ (we would probably get Uprade C). So now I'm doubting our choice .. We've been trying to make an appointment to go back but they are SO hard to get ahold of. Kind of annoying.

*** FYI - When deciding carpet be aware that everytime you add a different carpet you get charged a $200 fee (ex. standard carpet upstairs, carpet C downstairs, Carpet B basement: This would be an extra $400 on top of the price difference of carpets). It's really stupid. They would argue that it costs them more to pull more than one carpet but it definitely does not cost them even close to that much. It's more of a "because we can" fee, but what can you do? Still good to know beforehand though.

Carpet (Standard-Darkest color offered) & Vinyl



Selections with our cabinet choice

 

So overall, I feel pretty good with my choices but I may see if we can figure out how to add in upgraded carpets. I think it would be worth it, at least for downstairs. Only bad part is that the flooring place is impossible to get ahold of. We need to make all of our FINAL decisions soon and we can't get ahold of them .. Frustrating. We may have to email our sales rep and let her know. We're supposed to meet her on Sunday for our final choices meeting but I don't feel comfortable doing that unless I can go to the flooring place again. Never a dull moment ...

 

 

Our Selections

We have finally picked out all of our selections. Choosing everything was so hard! **Note: We changed everything again. For our final selections see the tab on the top. I'm so indecisive!

We asked a ton of people and looked up a ton of blogs to see what people missed having or regretted as well as things they are really happy they did.

Ultimately, we decided to definitely get upgrades that we liked but will ultimately add value to the home and would not be easy to do later on (ex. Morning Room - adds square footage to home and is beautiful but not so easy to add on later. It was the most expensive upgrade we got but it would be a lot more expensive to do it later.). Then we picked things that aren't super valuable but hard to add later (ex. Ceiling fan rough ins).

TIP ** - Remember that anything electrical or structural is much more difficult to add later! You can always get granite countertops in a year or two but it may be really complicated/expensive to add in recessed lighting or ceiling fans later

So here are our choices (as of now):

Home Model - Palermo

Elevation E

It doesn't look like many people have built this elevation but I did find one picture. Ours will be all siding though (No stone - too expensive!). It is an expensive elevation but I think curb appeal is really important for resale later. Plus, I'm an artist and love architecture so I wanted a house I found beautiful!

Same picture but I changed one to Sepia so the color choices look different

Basement

Finished Basement - FREE - Incentive for using NVR as a mortgage company

Basement Power room (So my Boyfriend will never come upstairs)

Wet Bar Rough - in

Carpet Pad (B)

Recessed Lighting

First Floor

Morning Room 

Gourmet Island

Recessed Lighting

Cabinets - White (most expensive but also highest quality - check out Timberlake cabinets website at 

http://www.timberlake.com/cabinets/ - The construction of the Premier select cabinets is much better than the cheaper ones)
Hardware (knobs for cabinets)
Counter - Laminate Formica (shiny surface - upgrade but only about $500)
Ice Maker Rough-in
Gas Hook up for oven/stove - (Note - Gas is MUCH cheaper than electric)
Fireplace - Slate
Carpet Pad (B) - Great Room
Carpet Pad (A) - Office & Living/Dining room
Hardwood (A) - Foyer/Powder Room/Kitchen/Morning Room
Ceiling Fan rough-ins - Great Room, Dining, Morning Room

Second Floor

Carpet Pad (A) - Zone 2 - Entire upstairs
Ceiling Fan Rough-ins - All bedrooms
Owners Bath
Cabinets - White (I heard the standard oak cabinets aren't moisture proof so we did a basic upgrade)
Upgraded shower - Two shower heads and bench (no tub - This makes our shower bigger and our closet bigger)
Double Vanity
Secondary Bath
Cabinets - White (only upgrade we made in this bath)
Dryer Gas Hookup

Outside

Flood Light