Foundation & an Ugly Couch!

We swung by the house this past Saturday to see what the progress was. My boyfriend hadn't been there in weeks and I hadn't been there since we initially broke ground. We brought the dogs (which wasn't the brightest idea) and all of us sunk into the mud. My poor car is still muddy :(

As of Saturday they had the main foundation poured (basement walls). Apparently, today they will be water proofing the foundation, then there will be two county inspections, and then they'll pour our basement floor. There is some PVC pipes under the ground so I'm guessing the county wants to make sure those look okay before they seal them under concrete. According to our PM, our county has a LOT of inspections .. way more than average, which is definitely good for us, but I'm thinking it may make our process slightly longer than average since they always have to stop working while waiting for inspections.

Anyways, here are some pictures. I'm going to take a picture of the house each week from the same spots. I know Frank C is also planning on doing something like this with his home.

 

 

In other news, I bought an ugly couch this past weekend for $60. I know... what am I going to do with 3 couches? Don't worry! I got this all planned out! I love Ryan Homes furniture planner on their online interactive floor plan. I just measure out my furniture and place it where I want so now I know where everything is going to fit! I love it, because I know if they didn't have something like this, I would have drawn out an exact floor plan on graph paper, because I'm weird like that. This girl used to draw out house floor plans to map out the route for my sister and myself for Christmas morning. Wake-up, get mom and dad, go downstairs, stockings first, and then the Christmas tree! I really should have been an architect .. or maybe a pirate ..

 

I saw this couch at the Habitat store a few weeks ago and everyone talked me out of it. I fell in love with it right away but I knew it had to reupholstered. The shape is awesome, it's in good condition, buuut it's pretty darn ugly with the current old, stained, pink velvet upholstery. I have NEVER reupholstered anything and I'm not great on a sewing machine. People with common sense told me to just forget about it and maybe start with a chair at some point in the future. Well, I didn't listen (shocker), and I kept thinking about it and how much I would love a bright teal couch and this would be perfect sooooo I bought it.

 

Here it is, in all of it's ugly & stained glory...

 

 

 

This is what I hope to do with it (excuse the screenshot from my phone - this photo was not cooperating when I tried saving it so I just had to take a screenshot). I found this picture on pinterest.

I'm pretty excited to try this! I have never reupholstered so I'm hoping it's easier than it sounds. I've heard mixed things about it. Some say it's way easier than you would think while others say it was an awful and difficult process. We'll see, I guess! Now, I just have to get some fabric.

 

Quick note: We still haven't really done much about them telling us our deck was Trex but it's really not. Apparently the brand we are getting GeoDeck. We have had an AWFUL time finding stuff on this brand other than a few bad reviews and reports of lawsuits in the past. We can't find anything on price though. We want to gather as much information on it as possible so we can argue that it isn't worth as much as the Trex material deck we were originally told we were getting. Our PM kept arguing that it's a good product and the SR should never have told us they use Trex, blah blah blah. I understand that the SR mispoke but that's really not my problem. This is a business deal. If I did this with a customer or other company at my job do you think they'd be like "Oh, you mis-spoke?? No problem! Don't even worry about it! We'll take the cheaper product! I'm sure they're the same quality anyways!"? No, they wouldn't. I'll keep things updated on what ends up happening with that. I'm hoping they can at least put some pendant lighting rough-ins for us. I mean, how much would that even cost them really?? A couple hundred bucks?

 

We have a hole! (and a new puppy...)

The last week has been kind of crazy. My sister flew in from California on the 19th and we picked up our new puppy, Bear, on the 20th. Since then life has been busy! I've been spending a lot of time with my sister, and I've been on potty training duty. I was able to take off three days from work so I camped out at my parents house for the past 5 days which made things easier.

Since I only see my sister once a year, and she won't see our house until a year after it's done, I wanted to take her to see our homesite. We decided the family would head down there on Wednesday and coincidentally my boyfriend got the call that they started excavating the property that day! We got there and we had a hole for our house! They definitely hadn't finished digging at that point so it was more like a shallow hole in the shape of our house haha! Our PM, Mr. Roof, said we should have a foundation poured by Friday. I'm not sure if he meant Friday as in July 25th or this upcoming Friday.. But regardless, I've never been so happy to see a hole in the ground! We ran into another guy while we were there and he was really friendly. I think he's the second man in command around there. He humored my mom and let her walk around the development, even though there was construction going on everywhere, and even let us into the model home (which isn't quite finished yet). The model has white cabinets, and I LOVED them so once again I'm so happy I picked white cabinets!

Our Lot all excavated and ready to go!

I also ended up buying a couch! In my last post I mentioned that we were getting a red couch from family friends. We're still going to take that couch, but I think we'll put it in the dining/living room instead. My boyfriend has designated that room the place for our Christmas tree so the red couch will compliment that nicely! haha!

I ended up getting this couch from the Habitat for Humanity Re-store (I know.. that's all I talk about anymore! I have a problem!). The one I go to the most is the Wilmington, DE store and they recently partnered up with the La-Z-Boy warehouse in Newark, DE. Every Tuesday they will be going down to the warehouse, and La-Z-Boy is donating furniture that either has a few things wrong with it (a small rip, scratch, stain, etc) that would prevent them from selling it new for full price or was just order incorrectly or by mistake. Every piece I have seen from there so far looks perfect .. I can't even find what may/may not be wrong with them. We ended up getting this sectional for $1000. Right now it's on sale for about $2300 and retails for around $2700 so it was a great deal and its exactly what I wanted! I wanted a tan sectional with deep comfy cushions and that's exactly what I got! So excited!

Here's La-Z-Boy's picture on their website ..

I've been officially banned by my family from going to this store for awhile. Everyone in my family agreed the couch was a great deal but now I have no money so I can't go back! haha! Oh well. I love my couch and I have plenty of other stuff to keep me occupied! Once we have money again I'll definitely go back and look for a recliner chair. They had two leather recliners there that were so nice! They were being sold for $400 and $500 and they retail anywhere from $700-$1000 so not a bad deal! I don't know if I could stomache buying a chair for $500 though.

 

I also did a few more DIY projects. I seriously love Chalk Paint. I painted some Mason Jars to use as containers in the bathroom for cotton balls, q-tips, and my make-up brushes. I LOVE how they turned out. So cute. I also painted this old media chest I had in my room growing up. I forgot to take a before picture but it was all black. It will be perfect to put a TV on in our bedroom though especially since there are blues and greys in our quilt.

 

 

Mason Jars - Using them for cotton balls, q-tips, and make-up brushes in the bathroom

Media cabinet - Used to be all black

 

 

Here are some pictures of my puppy Bear (and Loki), because he's too cute not to share!

 

Loki and Bear - We had a photo-shoot, because I'm obsessed with them both, and they run my life

Bear snoozing away - Loki loves this sleeping position too

Bear in the car on the way home! He's so freakin' cute!



Hope everything is going smoothly with everyone else!
 

The Waiting Game

I haven't blogged since I made the announcement of our final decision, so I figured I'd give a quick update.

As we anticipated, our start date got pushed back. It definitely is annoying that this happened, but we figured they would have to push it back after that debacle we faced. Our original start date was going to be June 26th. It would have been awesome to start this building process in only 3 days, buuut oh well. I'm hoping they can maybe start a little sooner with everything since we decided to build the same home model, but I'm not holding my breathe.

New Time-Line
Pre-construction Meeting - July 14th
Start Date - July 17th
Picking up our Puppy! - July 19th
Anticipated Close Date - Late October/Early November

In other news ...

We changed out exterior colors when we changed lots. Once we moved lots it opened up a lot of color options for us for the exterior of our home. Originally, we were going to do Pebble Clay siding and shake with black shutters and a firey brown door. Now, we are going to do Sandy Tan siding, Pebble Clay shake, black shutters, and a cottage red door! Pretty excited about the two-toned siding and a bright red door! I'll try and post pictures at some point of the colors.

Overall, we're feeling much calmer and more positive about everything. We ended up getting more bang for our buck by switching lots, I got to pick any color I wanted for the exterior, we have a bigger lot, the shape of our lot makes our back yard the biggest part (which is awesome for our dogs), and we're getting a deck.

Now I'm just entertaining myself by thinking of DIY projects I can do for the house. I have already lined up quite a few, including building our kitchen table, painting some pictures, transforming an old metal trashcan into a stylish dog food container, and possibly reupholstering a chair. I also have been gradually picking up some stuff for the house. I got a really nice crate from Home Goods that we can put in the living room to hold blankets, and I got these awesome bowls from Anthropologie for only $1.95 each!

I also got this adorable bottle opener that looks like a Seal from Anthropologie for $5.95. Love him!

 

It's the little things in life ... 

 

 

 

We Have Chosen

Over the last couple of weeks we have gone over every option. Back and forth, back and forth. "Let's just move lots .. Wait .. Let's get a different model .. Wait .. Maybe we should look somewhere else .. No.. I like this community..." We repeated this train of thought about a thousand times.

Final Verdict : We're changing lots!

There are several things that led us to this decision.

1) We really do love the Palermo. We love our elevation, we were able to get the exact colors we liked at this new lot, the finished basement is HUGE with the morning room area finished, we like that there is line of site to both the great room and the dining room from the kitchen, and we love the big shower we can get with two shower heads.

2) We really are getting a good deal by moving to this lot. It may not be as pretty, but it is bigger. We have 2 dogs and we want a deck (which we are now building) so a bigger yard is nice. The lot is also layed out so it get's wider towards the back while our old lot got narrower towards the back. This also helps with increasing the back yard. This big lot usually has a premium ($2500) but they knocked that off because of the inconvenience. We also are saving money by not paying the much higher premium at our previous lot ($7500). So overall, the house will start off at $7500 less than what we were going to pay.

3) Saved money on the lot means we can get some other upgrades we had to take off our list early on. One of these is an upgraded carpet on the first floor. We're also getting ceramic in our first floor powder room now. We may also add on a couple more outlets or some crown molding on the cabinets.

4)We are now getting a composite material deck (14 ft x 22 ft). Ryan agreed to pay for half and we will pay for the other half. We asked some friends what they paid for their deck and the price per square foot was pretty competitive ($40/sq. ft - our friend payed $36/sq. ft for a wood deck). A deck will be awesome because a) we'll have somewhere extra to entertain or have a drink/dinner on nice days and b) we have direct access into our backyard for our dogs.

5) If we got the Milan on our previous lot it would end up costing more than we would like to spend. This was a big one, and really helped us make the final decision.

Overall, we feel good with the decision. I am a little sad we aren't getting as pretty of a lot, but we'll just plant some pine trees in the back of our property so we can't see the guy's yard behind us all year. Plus, it's not like his yard is directly behind us like we would have had on the other side of the street.

Here are some new upgrades we're doing.

Carpet (Upgrade C)

Ceramic Tile - Upgrade B - Mushroom

And, as promised, here is an updated picture of our puppy at 2 weeks old (we'll be picking him up in about 6 weeks). 

I'm sad, mad, dissapointed, confused, and frustrated (to name a few)

So as I mentioned in my last post, we were told that the Palermo is too wide to fit on the lot we chose. Just as a reminder, we were told it would fit on that lot, we signed contracts for that house and lot, and then while they were staking out our home on the lot they realized .. "Whoops .. this doesn't fit here."

Anyways, after speaking with our SR (aka, my boyfriend spoke to her, because I'm a lunatic) we found out a few things.

1. Our current lot has a "drain easement" in it. This is something we were NEVER told about even after voicing concern about all of their draining systems for the community (our community is right by a Canal). This drain easement makes our building restrictions line a lot narrower so only two of the homes they offer will fit on it (The Milan and the Venice). This drain easement, that they conveniently didn't tell us about, can also cause really bad flooding if it breaks or something goes wrong with it (Cool, right?!). We also would not be able to build anything over it so we couldn't put our fence over it so essentially it would make our yard a lot smaller. Also, if something were to go wrong with it they can come in and dig up our yard to access it and fix it. Sounds great ...

2. One option we have is moving our home to a new lot. Only two lots will fit our Palermo. One of them is on the other side of the street so it will back up to other homes in the development .. Basically, this is not an option. We don't want to go from our gorgeous lot backed up to protected preserves to a lot backed up to someone else's house. The other option is a lot that is on the same side of the road as our current lot but it's right by the road and it doesn't back up to the preserves (it backs up to some bushes and the backyard of a house that isn't in our community).

3. A second option we have is to pick a new home model that will fit on our lot (we don't even know if we want our lot anymore since it has that drain easement) or another lot near our current lot (not as nice as our lot but better than the other two). Since, all of their lots are too small for most of the houses they offer they are going to add some options to the list (duh!), so they're going to let us know what those are soon. The one good thing is that our SR asked if we had any models in mind .. we asked her to look into the Naples and the Shakespeare .. we'll see if they fit on the lot or if she thinks they "fit" in the community.

4. Ryan Homes really does not seem to care that they made a mistake and really inconvenienced us. The first time we spoke to our SR about being compensated somehow for this huge inconvenience (and crushed dream) they offered to generously (*sarcasm*) give us back our money for the premium price of our lot ("thanks for giving us money back for something we're not getting .. I guess."), not charge us the premium on the new lot (Wow .. $2500 .. thanks) and give us a discount for walkout stairs from our basement. They normally charge over $6000 but they are willing to only charge us $4000 ... out of the goodness of their heart .... We don't even want a giant staircase in the back (Our current lot comes with a walk-out basement but the new lot they want us to take does not. I guess this is their way to compensate for that ..).

5. We were told we could not get a two-toned siding(Shake siding and regular siding are different colors). We have been getting up at 5:00AM, before work, the last couple days to go check out all these lots they want us to take. On these trips we saw that the model home (a Rome) now has it's siding up .. and guess what? That house has two different color siding ... They could have just made a mistake (and I understand that people make mistakes) but it's just the cherry on top of everything else.

I don't really want to settle for a lot or a house I don't like. I'm kind of hoping that they offer a new home that we like but the downside of that is that we have to COMPLETELY start over and everything will probably be delayed to the end of the year .. Plus, my boyfriend just doesn't want to go through all of those choices and upgrade lists all over again, and I can't blame him for that.

We really don't know what to do. Are we making a huge mistake with building with Ryan Homes? They're now only offering us a few thousand dollars as compensation which in my opinion is a joke. If they want us to settle for a lot we don't really like, they will need to make up for this mistake big time .. Decisions. Decisions .. I can't handle it!

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 ...

 

 

Latest Updates

So we are definitely getting really excited but we are also really stressed!

For those of you who do not know, once you sign papers and receive your beautiful "SOLD" sticker you have a month to make any changes to your options/upgrades. This "month," however, is not really a month. We only got 14 days to make structural changes and 21 days to make any other changes (this may be different depending on your community). During this period you also have to schedule your appointments with Guardian and your flooring company. We had our appointment with Guardian last Friday and have our flooring appointment tomorrow.

Here's how it went with Guardian:

Overall, it was an okay visit. Our Guardian rep seemed pretty cool. Very low pressure. He said he's been doing this for about 20 years with Ryan Homes and Guardian. He claims that understands that it's our home and he can't convince us to get anything we don't want or need. We'll see what happens when we meet with him to pick our final choices.

Normally, people tend to have 1 visit with Guardian and pick everything then. Our rep is letting us take some time to think of what we want and create a game plan. Once we do that we can call him and set up another quick appointment to sign everything. He made it VERY clear though that it was our responsibility to call him and if we didn't call him in time then we would be stuck with just the standard options (I think those are 2 cat-5's and 2 cable).This option was definitely great for us because my boyfriend finds his TV very important. VERY important. I would give more details but I found myself zoning out during the meeting since I didn't understand anything they were saying. I'll let my boyfriend take care of that.

Flooring:

As for flooring, we definitely decided we don't want hardwood but then I saw that a lot of other bloggers got the laminate floors that resemble wood. After some research we decided laminate wood would be perfect for us because its durable and it still looks really nice. We have a husky and we're getting another one so hardwood would be doomed.

However ...... I contacted my Sales Rep and she told us that they stopped offering laminate hardwood last year. Then she tried to talk to us about hardwood prices again. It seems like they got rid of hardwood laminate so they can try to force you to get hardwood .. but hardwood isn't something we want and wouldn't work for us since we'll have two large energetic dogs .. It's just annoying that there is no way for me to get the type of floors that I want. I'm stilling hoping and praying that she was wrong and I'll see some laminate hardwood at our appointment tomorrow .. Crossing my fingers!




 

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