The End Is So Close I Can Taste It!



We went by the house again on Saturday. When we got there, there was only one guy painting some exterior trim. We asked if it was okay to go inside and he didn't care, so we did! These guys move sooo fast!

 

Here's a list of the stuff we got to fully see for the first time (not threw a window)

• Cabinets
• Cabinet hardware (most of it)
• Counters
• Railings (all stained)
• Painted walls
• Trim
• Tile floors in all the bathrooms
• Shower doors
• Doors to all the rooms
• Fireplace
• Light fixtures
• Toilets
• Sinks
• Some mirrors
• Porch
• Sidewalk
• Walkway
• Faceplates installed on a lot of the electric sockets (fan rough-ins, speak rough-ins, etc)

This all happened in a week people! That is insane! So far we are LOVING everything we picked out. I'm obsessed with our cabinets and really like our counters (they're not granite but they look pretty good to me!). We also really like all of our tile selections.

A nice surprise was that we have open railings on the basement stairs too! We definitely thought we were getting a capped wall "railing" so that was awesome!

All in all, we are SO excited about everything! Everything looks amazing and I CANNOT wait to move!! We're so close!!


Here are some pictures!

Center - You can see our porch, walkway, and sidewalk have been poured!

Right

Our BEAUTIFUL cabinets! So happy we went with the white!

Another view of these beauties

Our island sitting in our Great Room. I'm guessing they're waiting to put floors down in the kitchen but it looks funny!

Fireplace - slate - I LOVE the slate and it flows well with our kitchen counters

Morning Room

1st Floor Powder Room - Like the tile we chose!

1st Floor Railings (very happy with the stain) and a light fixture!

Another view of the railings

Upstairs

Secondary Bath - Love the gray tile - So happy we got a double vanity there

Secondary Bath shower - stuck with the basic white. We'll have a shower curtain there anyway!

Master bath - It was dark so it was hard to take a picture

Expresso cabinets

Check out this sexy ass shower! I was worried about the dark tile but I realy like it!

Basement railing! A pleasant surprise!

Basement - painted, trim installed, and recessed lights

Other Updates:

Kitchen Table - I will be building this bad boy with my dad this weekend. All I need to get is some 4x4's (which apparently, no one sells .. Lowes, Home Depot, and Lumber 84 totally let me down). I'll probably have to go down to a nice lumber yard but not thrilled with paying their prices for just some 4x4s .. Oh well .. If any one has any tips on where to get these I would appreciate it!

Ugly Couch - The ugly pink couch has been stripped of the ugly pink fabric and is currently sitting naked in my parent's living room. My mom (who's a nurse and practically lives at the hospital) has had time to sew and cut some of the new fabric. That's all so far so it may not get done until after we move ..

Appliances - We went shopping this past weekend! After a ton of research we ended up getting a Samsung fridge and Samsung washer and dryer from Best Buy. We also got Best Buy's 5 year protection plan on all of them (we both used to work at Best Buy and they have really good protection plans for a really good price). They were having a sale so we got about $1000 off the fridge and about $200 off washer/dryer. Then we saw that Lowes is having a huge sale on appliances so we checked their prices and they were cheaper than what we payed ($323 less) so we went back to Best Buy and had the price adjusted! Good stuff!

Tip: Most retail stores like Best Buy (I'm guessing it's the same for Lowes and Home Depot) will price match! They'll even price match places like Amazon (but it has to be sold BY Amazon and not a private seller or company you've never heard of). You also normally have a certain amount of time after your purchase too! For example, if you buy something at Best Buy, you have 15 days (or 30 days for Silver Card Members) to price match if it goes on sale there or anywhere else. I would check out Lowes prices since they're having that sale right now. If ou see that someone is selling it cheaper now, you just bring your receipt back to your store, and they pull up the prices online on the competitors website and you go from there. It saved us over $300, so I'd check it out!

Fridge - We got this goliath of a fridge. Do we really need this HUGE of a fridge? No, not really, but it was the same price as the smaller one we liked with slightly better reviews. Plus it has two ice makers and ice does not last long in our house! I'm SO excited to have a fridge that will allow my food to last! Our apartment fridge is probably a million years old (I may be exaggerating) and sucks at keeping food fresh. I also can't wait to have a bunch of room so I can actually see what's in there! I can't tell you how many times I find something in the back of the fridge and I'm like "What?? That's still in there?? I was looking for this tupperware container!"

 

Samsung - 31.6 Cu Ft - RF323TEDBSR

Washer/Dryer - Pretty excited about these babies too! We looked comparable LG's and they had similar reviews. We just got a better deal on the Samsungs. Plus, we got a protection plan on both. I can't tell you how tired I am of putting money on a laundry card to do laundry! Having our own washer and dryer is going to be amazing!

 

Samsung Washer - 4.5 Cu ft - WA45H7000AW

Samsung Gas Dryer - 7.4 Cu ft - DV45H7000GW

My fabulous dog bowls also finally came in the mail! I feel like I ordered them 5 years ago. but they're finally here and they  look beautiful. They sent me these pictures via email and they're just as beautiful in person! Gotta love hand made stuff and supporting small businesses!

 

I hope everyone else is as excited about their home as we are!


Up Next:

• Grading
• Flooring
• Deck (will probably be in two weeks)
• I'm not really sure what else they have to do!

 

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). 

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 ...