Despite the Weather...There is Progress!

1/30/2013

That's the  threshold of the 2 car garage.
 



Wednesday--the middle of the week and what a long week it has been!  I had to work late last night, so I did not get to see the house yesterday.   It had been raining earlier in the day so I wasn't sure if there was any work done at the site.    Amy wasn't feeling well, so Mikey and I went to the site and saw some great work going on. The walls used to form the foundation were all up and the concrete had been poured.   Some fine gravel had been poured in the footprint of the house and the garage.  The ground was extremely muddy so getting around the site was near impossible.   Luckily there is a gravel driveway which helps the situation just a little.   Looking at the thresholds of what was to be the garage it was about 3 feet higher from what I was standing.  This got me thinking of how high this house is going to be.  This really helps with the visualization of the placement of the house.


1/31/2013

Today, I left work to some heavy snow.  The accumulations were just starting so we decided to go out to the house.  Besides, I wanted to follow up with Kelly about the upgrade to nickel faucets for the house anyway.  

Yay.  Lumber is here.  Framing's not too far away.



 

The forms for the foundation walls were removed and it looked like more gravel was placed within the basement and garage walls.   Most noteworthy was that the wood forming the frame of the house was finally delivered to the site.  Taking a good look at the frame package, it looks like the walls were already assembled off site and delivered.  This was quite novel from the conventional way of framing where they deliver a slew of lumber and they built the frame on site.  Verdict is still out on which way is better though.  

Once the framing goes up, the visualization of the house will become easier.   We can't wait.   Today, Tom and Don, two of my co-workers gave a good suggestion on a little QA excercise to chart the quality of the build.  One of the most important phases of the construction is forming the foundation and the frame.  With a 4' level and a T square we should be able to spot check the quality of the work.    Discrepancies at this phase may be a bit of a pain to correct, but corrections here will set the rest of the build.  I will be making an appointment to walk through with Brandon sometime next week.  

And the Beat Goes On...

Didn't think I would quote a Sonny and Cher song did you?   With age comes the privilege to do so.   Today was a day full of miserable drizzle in the morning.  All I could think about in this miserable Seattle-esque weather is how muddy and wet the site is going to be.   Because we needed to see the site with our final Guardian meeting following, we went out to Benham Estates to guage the progress and hope to catch Kelly to ask about the change order for the bathroom and kitchen faucets.



Moen Eva in Brushed Nickel.



As expected the ground was totally muddy and I nearly lost my shoe in the mud with had a dog-doo like consistency.  Despite the morning and early afternoon drizzle the guys did keep progress moving.   On the site, they had brought in the walls for forming the foundation and poured some fine gravel along the bottom of what was to be the basement. 

Foundation wall forms--delivered!



Before my meeting with Ron from Guardian, I met with Kelly, our SR to see about making a change order regarding the bathroom faucets.  It was easier said than done at this stage of the game.   Kelly was going to check with her managers to see if the order had been filled.  If not, we stood a good chance to make a change order--no promises, of course.   At this time, I could be only grateful that she was willing to push the request up the chain.  

At 6:30, we finally met with Ron regarding our selections.   Our selections were pretty much basic but we were happy to see that Ron did not resort to the hard sell in getting you to buy more.  Our meeting concluded on a friendly note and we had made a tentative appointment to meet Ron at the homesite after framing and mark all of the places where we want our TV, phone, and data lines.   Very cool. I'm looking forward to this third meeting with Ron.  He has been great to work with.

Footers and Snow

1/23/2013



Amy is freezing in the basement with our tarped footers!
 

Today, the trend of freezing temperatures continued.  Since Amy's mom was at home with the kids, we decided to scoot on out to see the progress on the homesite.    Though I did not expect too much to be done, some digging and placing of the footers did give some signs that there was progress.  Tarping of the footers and the ground in the basement was definitely a tell tale sign that the ground was being protected during the brutal temperatures.  On our way out, we stopped at the model to see Kelly and visualize some of the choices that we made on our house.  

Typical RH fireplace.  Photo courtesy of RH.

We did come accross a revelation after seeing the stone fireplace at the model.  If we mounted a HDTV on it with the prewire, the TV would be much too tall for any comfortable viewing while seated in the living room.   Sadly, it was then we decided to axe the HDTV prewire option--to the savings of about 450 dollars.   Also, with savings at the Guardian front, we decided to go with the brushed nickel faucets but would let Kelly know when she returned next week.

1/24/2013
It still freezing and so we decided to pay a visit to the homesite again.  Surprisingly, there was some progress on the footers and it looked like some of the earth was moved for the piping of what was to be the sump or something.   The ground was blanketed to protect the ground from freezing.  The great thing about all of this is that with the freezing temps, mud hardens and spares you from sinking.  

1/25/2013

This morning, a surprise call from Brandon with the weekly status on the house.  The fact that he does this periodic update is a great and welcomed surprise   Footers are in and the should be looking to put of the walls and pour the concrete for the foundation.  I reiterated to Brandon that we do have some leeway in time and I would rather have the house done right than quickly.   What followed was a busy weekend of soccer games and church which did not give us time to go out and look at the house.

1/18/2013 Digging Day is Here!

Yesterday, Brandon shot me and email, saying that they had finally received the permit and will commence digging today.   Yea for Ryan keeping abreast of the situation, boo for the permit jerks at Washington Township for holding this up. 

Standing in our Basement

The Ravenna that broke ground 3 weeks ago

We went out to the site and saw that they had neatly dug a 4-6 foot hole the size of the house (and finished it).  Figuring it's not dangerous at this point, I went down into the hole and stood in my basement for the very first time.   This was the first time you get the feel of how big your home's footprint  is going to be.  Looking across to the neighbors house, they were just past the framing stage and you could tell it was going to be a Ravenna.   We can't wait to see the face of our house in the next few weeks.   It's kinda like seeing your child on ultrasound for the very first time.  With the MLK holiday coming up and dropping temperatures, we're not going to see too much next week.

1/22/2013  Coldness Sets In
Since  Monday was MLK day, we took a break from our natural committment to see the house and it's progress everyday.   Today, we were back on track and went out to see the site after work.  With the temps being sub freezing, we weren't expecting them to do too much (and that's a good thing).  But we did see that the area of the basement was covered with tarp to protect the earth underneath.   Though we are always happy with progress, we are more happy when things are done right, even when it takes a little time.   Hope that this attention to detail and care continues.

All Tarped Up Due to Cold Weather.

We finally made our Guardian selections and sent them late to Ron.   Following the mixup with my email address, poor Ron had to wait a total of a week and a half for us to make a decision.   Though it took alot of thought, it's done and we locked in our following selections:

- Basic Security System package.
- Basic Home wiring package
- Essential Monitoring System
- HDTV Prewire over the FP

We wanted so much more than this but the costs were really expensive, especially with the Audio Speaker Systems and the IT wiring.   After doing countless years of both for the Govies, I figured that we could better justify the costs by doing what I want ourselves.   With systems like Surround Sound and Computers well into the wireless realm, there was no justification on spending thousands for those systems.  Return on investment for those items would be minimal.

We currently have chrome faucets in our house in an attempt to cut costs.  Orignally, Amy wanted Bronze and I wanted Brushed Nickel and I fought it, noting that like brass faucets of the 1980's, Bronze will look horrible in 10 years and Bronze is a passing fad.   I think we are going to go for the Brushed Nickel and pay for the upgrade.  Thank goodness that these change orders aren't so earth shaking.   I will be getting with Kelly soon to make the change order.  Of course, like with everything else, it's going to require additional dinhero.  *SIGH* and again, the cost of this house creeps up yet a little more.

Groundbreaking Week (or not)

So Monday, we're expecting a ground breaking as the clouds cleared on Monday as Brandon has predicted.  I couldn't make it to the site this week, so I had Amy go out and take pictures as they were excavating.  Amy reported that they didn't and were awaiting permits to excavate.  Really?   I guess the weather wasn't to blame for this delay but it was the permits.  At the same time, Amy was having heartache with the orientation of the fireplace.  Somehow in the planning/pricing meetings we did not have the choice but to put it on the back wall of the family room and it did not pose to be a problem then.   Now she wanted it on the side wall of the living room--after the production release had been signed!  So, we asked if we can have this change in fireplace arrangement and though the answer was never no, it was going to cost us in time and money to rerun the permits.   Kinda miffed right now at Brandon for leaving out this permit thing and Amy for not making an issue of this until now.  Brandon and I are going to have a talk about this when I get out there and Amy has let the fireplace issue rest--for now.  Sometimes I wonder if all of these customizations are worth the headache.   In a pre-existing house, at least we can just suck it up and accept it--end of story

Guardian, surprisingly has been MIA and so I emailed Ron yesterday.  Turns out he got the wrong email address and did get the estimates to me in a timely fashion.  But, going to review his proposals and decide whether they are worth the money.

Hopefully, the permit people get off their keesters so we can start on this house.   We'll see.

1/10/2013 A Day Before Groundbreaking

Last week, during our meeting with Brandon, our Project Manager, we were told that the initial excavation of the home would not be until Monday the 14, due to the rainy forecast this weekend.   With the closing prediction on April 2 and my lease on the rental ending on May 31st, a delay such as this wouldn't pose any problems to my arrangements given that this is the ONLY delay.   Only time will tell.

1/11/2013 Meeting With Guardian

After a cancelled meeting a little under a month ago, we finally met with Ron from Guardian Home Technologies.   This is one of the last things to add to the bottom line of this house as the  price of the house keeps rising the more things we add to it. 

For those who didn't know, Guardian handles most of the low-voltage connections through the house.  Phone lines, coax lines, security, and sound systems among other things.  The do have great offerings as far as product and services go, but always as we have experienced on this journey, at an additional cost.

On this particular day, I had a bit of business to do at the Benham Estates Model.  For one, since the last pre-construction meeting, I have been promising Kelly, our SR, our final selections for elective electric outlets and lights since last week but I've been a total schlub and haven't done it until now.   No excuses, but a very full week at work.   So we arrived about 30 minutes early to take care of that to the tune of an additional 1300 bucks--ugh.   Kelly had to pour through the floorplans in order to document the particular feature so it ended up taking about a hour.  Luckily, Ron had left us a message saying he was going to be half-an hour late so the timing was perfect.

Ron, is one hilarious dude.  I'm not sure if it was because he was slaphappy at the end of the day or that is the way he really is.  It made for one fun meeting though.   Because the Guardian meeting has been know to run over 2 hours, I told him we had an hour fifteen so that we can have the condensed version.    

Ron gave us the condensed versions of his communications, audio, and security schpeel.   He was very respectful of our time and really cut to the chase about the offerings.  Being forwarned about hard-sell techniques such as looking at the wife during the security schpeels, were looked for but didn't happen.   This was testament of Ron's integrity for if he had done any of that, it would have had an opposite effect.   

So we looked at having a CAT5 /Coax package, surround sound in two of the rooms, and a security package priced.  We concluded the meeting feeling good and relieved that it did not take two hours as some home owners have mentioned in their blogs.   There was a bit of urgency though, since we are in construction, this is technically a late meeting and I assured Ron that the turnaround after his pricing quote should be quick as well.

The Pre Construction Meeting...now it feels real!

1/4/2013



A Lot of Snow (get it?)

Happy New Year!  We started out this year with some really chilly weather and definitely concerns about starting a house in this kind of weather.   The Ryan Homes nightmares on past products with settling structure and cracking concrete are common folklore with past Ryan customers and this Ryan Halifax we are living in.  It is my hope that our PM Brandon addresses these issues with at least a confidently composed theory.

On a sidebar, it seems like everyone that is in the Ryan Homes machine does seem on par with a very consistent style of customer service, knowledge, and sense of urgency.  It's like shopping at a very large department store in which they hand you off from department to department without any seams in the transition.  This is definitely a testament to Ryan and we hope it continues. 

Our appointment at 12:30 came and since we hadn't been there to visit our lot since early December, we were surpised how great Washington Trace looks in the winter.   I can almost imagine the kiddles playing in the snow out here--almost Dikensesque!

Brandon and Kelly were waiting for us and of course we were a bit late, but they did not seemed to be bothered with that.   The meeting was very informal and first, we went down the list to confirm the options that we had chosen as we went through the framer's blueprint of the house.  There were some that were pretty straight forward, others needed clarification through Kelly, who was intently going over the list herself, making sure that all of the items jived with what we were wanting. 

We went over the lot and house placement over the lot.  We didn't care either way but our house will have the garage to the right of the house, my imagination kept putting on the left of the house.  Just an adjustment, not a flaw.  We went over the plot where the sidewalks and driveways were to be poured and the house was to be placed.  The house sits about 30 feet from the curb which leaves a heck of alot of back yard out there.  I think I've justified buying a riding mower!

Most importantly, Brandon communicated to us about his M.O. and some of the rules if we want to see our baby being built (of course we do!).  He's more of a phone call type of guy (and I'm more of an email).   Emails get answered at the end of the day and phone calls are answered that same day.   He will call us for weekly status and invites us to report any discrepancies to him.  Overall, Brandon seems like a professional and very transparent.  He does seem like someone who wants to build a professional friendship with you and will give you a thorough explanation on any question you may have. 

We went back out into the Ohio tundra and took a little ride out to lot 11 to go over how this house was going to be placed on the land.  We saw that there was alot of activity going on in this new phase of Benham Estates.  Alot of ground was being dug up all over to establish utilities and one new foundation on another house.  The lot was already staked out and Brandon walked us through the snow, showing us where the garage was, the outer perimiter, and the placement of the untilities.  The walk around was cool even though it wreaked havoc on the loafers.  Note to self, bring cheap construction boots!

So, 2013 is off to a good start!  Ground breaks on the 11th weather permitting.  We're grateful to Kelly, Brandon, and the gang for getting us into production and looking forward to seeing this creation grow.  

12/2/2012 More Selections

Amy cut her trip short and ended up back in the area on 1 December.  Today, we decided to go and visit Kelly to solidify our selections for the exterior of the house.   Fortunately for us, Ryan had just released a new selection of colors so after a couple of hours of taking colors outside to look at them in broad daylight we ended up with a solid, brown  brick, grey siding and navy blue  shutters.   We locked in the selections and was confident that we have made choices that will result in a unique and attractive home.  

Because timing was really good we had the "first on the block" choices to choose from.  The brick selection, Farmington Engineer was new to Benham estates and we were the first to get it!  We were also privy to some new siding/accent colors too.  Our door and shutters were going to be Navy and the siding will be a light mist--a predominately grey bluish mist.  

It was kind of funny...we looked at the combination and realized that these selections make this house resemble our old town house in Alexandria--funny!

Our exterior choices

12/5/2012

The Guardian representative called today and cancelled our appointment  due to illness.  Will be waiting to hear from him for a resked.  Since the 27th of November, I have been trying to get all 78 pages of my documents to Dean at NVR with no success.  The culprit:  The mail server kept rejecting my emails.   I 've tried Yahoo mail, Gmail, and Google drive but did not have success.  So today in desperation, I went back to faxing with success after several tries.  I guess old ways worked best.   It was today that we were acquainted with our NVR processor, Pam.  Both Pam and I were delighted that the paperwork requirement has been fulfilled.

12/16/2012 NVR Comes Back with Approval Letter!

Pam, our processor at NVR emailed us today with an approval letter and a small list of documents needed for completion of paperwork.   One of these items was proof that I had a cancelled check for my earnest money.  WTF?  Don't you think that they would be the first to know if my check didn't clear.  I have been able to swallow most of these document requests but that one irked me quite a bit.   Regardless of what I thought, I had to comply.  Not without sharing with Pam what I thought though.

12/19/2012 Pre-construction Meeting Scheduled

We received an email from Kelly to see if we could make a 1/4/2013 appointment  with Brandon, our project manager.  After no success of rescheduling this appointment on a Tuesday or Thursday, we agreed to see him on this date.   In our reply, we expressed some concerns to Kelly that production may run over our timeline of June 2013--when the lease of our present home expires.  

11/23/2012  Committed and Now the Fun Begins...

This lot is ours!

So, now we have signed, the next challenge is to keep the momentum going so that we weren't the reason why production isn't moving.  The days following Monday, we received quick and diligent response from NVR mortgage and Rite Rug--the chosen flooring vendor for Ryan Homes in this area.  Amy was due to go to New York Saturday for two weeks so the only real day to schedule NVR and Rite Rug was on Black Friday, 11/23.  

Our Meeting with NVR

What I noticed that the people who work the elements of Ryan Homes is that they are friendly and courteous.   Kelly was awesome and she reassured us that Dean, our loan officer was as well.   We had a morning appointment with Dean and were armed with a load of documents to gather for him in time for our first meeting.   Because our rental was near Moraine, we had our meeting at Oak Pointe, another Ryan community.   It was a very convenient for us with kids in tow.

Dean was a very cheerful guy who kind of looked like the new fella on the Office.   He went through our paperwork and gave us a list of things we still needed.   Between paperwork, we chatted about all sorts of subjects such as the Food Network, which made for an entirely pleasant visit.   We did have a bunch of papers to sign for him and after two hours, we were our way to to grab some lunch and visit the representative at Rite Rug.    

Rite Rug Meeting

Financing only amounts to a minimum amount of fun but choosing cabinets, trim, and flooring, now that's fun.  We were really looking forward to our appointment at Rite Rug.   So after a lunch at home, we made our way there with the kids.  Note:  if you can do this appointment without kids, I would highly recommend it.  Our youngest Matthew, decided to be a terror during the meeting--ugh.

Lindsay was a wonderfully friendly host here and she was a great help in making our selections.  She wouldn't make the selections for us, but she would offer her full unbiased opinion when asked. There wasn't a push to upsell the options, which we appreciated but there were some upgrades that would make our lives so much better.  So this is what we got:

- Expresso Upgrade on Kitchen and Bathroom Cabinets

- 8lb Admiral Pad

- Station Square Vinyl X2055

- Station Square Vinyl X2076

- Collinsville HGG36/00102 Fine Linen for the rest of the house.

- Baseline HGG84/0016 White Fox Carpet for the Basement

Mikey with our flooring and cabinet selections



Due to the amount of options that we wanted, we had to do a little cost control so the original wood floors that we wanted were left out of the original build.  We figured we could put a little wear on this flooring since it did come with the house anyway.   As money permits, we will add in the wood and tile in the areas where vinyl is laid.  Even with this in mind, the upgrade in padding and the Vinyl added $3K to the overall cost *sigh*.

Afterwards, we paid Kelly a visit at the model home, because she wanted us to choose our brick.   The brown brick we had wanted was already taken by our neighbors, so we went with a very patchy brick called Falls Canyon before our neighbors did and finished up some lingering paperwork.  As far as we were concerned, we were up to date on choices and ready for early production.   Choices with Guardian, the electrical/network folks could wait until Amy got back in early December.

11/24/2012

We had an early drive to Columbus that morning to drop off Amy and that with little sleep made for a very excruciating drive to and from CMH.  Since we picked the Falls Canyon brick in the evening, I wanted to see it in broad daylight to see how it played out.   Kelly had given me a map of all houses that had this brick at Washington Trace and nearby Winding Creek and none of these houses looked good.  It was a dirty looking brick and the houses, though new looked really drab.  Without wasting time, I went and selected a predominately brown brick that we were considering and locked it in.   While there, Kelly suggested that I make selections in the siding and shutters.  Since there was only two choices, I chose a lighter beige for the siding and told Kelly that I would wait for Amy to pick the shutter colors.  There was an urgency to pick brick and siding because, there were restrictions on having the same choices as your immediate neighbors.    

When building a house, you look for things that make your house distinctive and not so cookie cutter.  To our disappointment, we saw that the colors of the bricks and siding at Washington Trace were really limited.  It seems like most houses have red brick and black shutters and we wanted to deviate from that cookie cutter look.  After reading some of these other blogs, I made it a point to make all of these exterior choices outside in broad daylight.

Getting Close to Committing

11/8-11/12/2012 Round Two of Pricing Talks

By today, Kelly and I have exchanged a few emails about things that Amy and I wanted on the house to price in hopes that we have a very close estimate of what the overall house was going to cost.  We have accepted the fact that we cannot have everything, but we will price to the max for this meeting and look to cut and prioritize this list for the final meeting.  At this point, we do like the value that Ryan Homes provides, so now the order of business is how low we can get the price while hitting the ground running with the options we desire.

Like buckshot, Kelly got a ton of things from us to price, so I am sure she what quite busy.  She got back to me in very little time, a testament on how willing she was to help.  For the most part, most items wre reasonable, some were just way out in left field.   Luckily, a lot of the items we had priced for our townhouse in Alexandria , so there was a loose baseline using what we had been quoted out there.  These were some of the things we wanted:

- Granite surround, gas fireplace
- Ceiling Fan rough ins
- CATV outlets
- Pendant light rough ins
- GFI Outlets
- Attic Lights
- Wood, instead of carpeted stairwell.
- Optional window in laundry room
- Optional window in Owner's bathroom
- Service door in Garage
- Eyeball lights over FP
- Egress window in Basement
- Plumbing for gas at furnace and kitchens.
- Door bell
- Tankless water heater
- Laundry sink
- Water softener rough-in
- Dual AC units
- Upgrade to front door.
- Insulated Garage Walls
- Elevation D Upgrade with Coined Edges
- Elevation D Upgrade without Coined Edges
-14X16 deck
-10X12 dec
- French doors instead of sliding glass in morning room
- Stainless steel upgrade in kitchen
- Neutral paint package
- Darker bannister finish.
- Lighting on front port
- Exterior outlets on front and back of house.
- insulaiton upgrades
- Hose bibs on front and back of house.

We didn't end up with all of these, but at this stage of talks, if the items posed a long term addition to value to the house, we would include this in the final.

At the same time, Kelly had emailed an existing Yorkshire owner to see if they would be graceful enought to let us invade their home for a viewing so that we could have a better perspective of the physical dimensions of their Yorkshire.  She had called other communities in the Cincinnati area to see if they had one for us to see but was unsuccessful.   Being a popular floor plan, she was surprised on the timing on not being able to find one to view.  We will definitely go on with the pricing talks but hold off on the final signing until we see the physical spacing of the dimensions.

11/16/2012 Round 2 of Pricing

Kelly's request to the Yorkshire owner was politely declined but he knew of another Yorkshire owner in the neighborhood who may be willing to show us their house.  Sure enough, they were kind enough to let us in their home and we spent a good 20 minutes looking around.  This was good for us because this reinforced our commitment to this floor plan and proved somewhat that the Yorkshire and our family were a good fit.

Jody, Kelly, Amy, and I were excited that someone would be kind enough to let us tromp though their home.  We were expecting to see a Yorkshire with an elevation D--their most popular elevation and the one we were pricing at that time.   To our surprise, this one was an elevation B with front porch!  This was one of two in the neighborhood and we had no idea that it had the Yorkshire floor plan.

Well, the tour went well and it gave us a lot of new perspectives on how to piece together our future home.  We changed our elevation selection to elevation B with Porch.  Somehow, this seemed a better fit and the Neo Traditional look was in line with the smaller Neo Traditions we had seen while visiting Toll Brother's communities in Northern Virginia.

Ryan Homes Yorkshire B with front porch.

Ryan Homes Yorkshire D 

So, it was going to be a later night for us all.  We went back and priced the house with the new elevation selection with a front facing garage on the smaller lot.  After talking to our Yorkshire hosts, they had added an extra 2 feet of width to their Garage.   We put this on our options list as well.  We added the options that Kelly priced earlier this week and worked out a price that worked preliminary well for us.  Concluding the evening, I told Kelly that we needed to re-review the pricing list and that we would get back to her.  Kelly made a tentative appointment for Mondy, November 19th.

11/18/2012

Though we have been going through pricing meetings, we haven't really tried our hand at negotiating the final price.   You do it at the car lot, and when buying a used house, so why not here?  I know that the pricing has been keen when compared to other builders but we needed more of an incentive to buy.  With the 19th unofficially being our final pricing meeting, I pieced a three option offer to Kelly to pass to her managers in order for us to sign before Thanksgiving.  In sum, these were the three options.
- two car front facing Garage on smaller lot with certain options waived
- three car side facing Garage on larger lot with lot premium waived.
- two car front facing Garage on smaller lot with morning room or finished basement waived.

After bouncing this to Jodi, I emailed to Kelly.  This was to be our first pushback on this deal.

11/19/2012

Early this morning, I planned to send these over to Kelly in hopes that her Manager reviews them and either accepts or declines our offer.  This would determine if we had a meeting tonight.  It got busy at work so my offer spreadsheet wasn't send over as early as I expected.  After I sent it over, it to Kelly a bit to hear from her manager so, I went over after work to see what Kelly's manager had decided.  Jodi was on standby in case we needed her help.

When we arrived, Kelly was still waiting to hear from her Manager.  Within 20 minutes, Kelly got her answer and said that they would go for any of those options, it was up to us as to which one for they felt that all three were reasonable.  WOW.  They managed to get us to sign right before Thanksgiving.

We are Official!  Signing the docs.

After some hard deliberating, we decided to go with the three car side entry on the bigger lot, which was lot 11.  Lot 11, like lot 16 was feng shui identical and looked like it was on the better part of the street.  Now came the hard part.  Lucky for us, Kelly had the paperwork semi ready so we got through it quickly while she thoroughly explained to us the documents we were signing.

After a long evening going through paperwork, we were officially builidng with Ryan Homes and Kelly proudly handed us our SOLD sign to put on our lot!  It's a good but weird feeling to hold something like this for the first time.  I made several undetected pauses in an attempt to savor the moment.  This home was going to be a big part of our lives for a long time.   So different from buying my first house--this was all mine down to the trusses and down to the very soil we picked. 

This is the House We're Building

Yorkshire B with Porch

- Elevation B with full front porch
- 3 car side entry garage
- Full furnished basement with full bath
- Morning room
- French Door in morning room
- Expresso cabinets
- Gourmet kitchen
- 42" cabinet upgrade
- Built in cooktop upgrade
- Window in Laundry room
- Stone fireplace
- Window in Owner's bath
-  French Doors in Study
-  Double bowl vanity in owner's bath.
-  Expresso cabinets in both baths
-  9' ceilings first floor
- Upgraded bath in owner's suite.
-  Recessed lights in Basement, Kitchen, and over fireplace.
-  Water softner rough in
- 14X16 Deck
- 15 Lite door leading to basement

The Yorkshire Floorplan

 

For a detailed look at the Yorkshire Floorplan, click here.