We have a hole!

As promised we've been by daily this week.  Just as promised they did clear the land on Tuesday, Wednesday staked out the house, Thursday dug the hole and Friday poured the footers.
Talked to Kevin today, he said they wanted to bring the Bobcat in and clear out a bit more debris in the back.  He also said they plan to pour the foundation walls Monday, depending on rain.

This is the front, right corner of the house looking at the garage.

This is the back right corner of the house. Looking in at the office, great room and across to the kitchen.

Pre-Construction Meeting complete!

Well, we finally met Kevin, our Project Manager, yesterday.  We really liked him.  He has lots of Ryan Homes experience.  He went through the plan and our selections and answered all of our questions.  Andrew is still a bit concerned about the size of the garage and whether or not our boat will fit.  It's within inches, so it'll be close either way...

Also, Kevin is willing to let me bring my own paint for the front door.  I wanted red, but they really just had more of a muted, fall red.  I want a brighter red.  So now I'll be searching to find the right red :)  (And check that off my to-do list for once we move in!)  Even as I type this I am thinking I will wait until the brick and siding is up to decide, assuming that's a possibility.  I am guessing they don't paint the front door until one of the last things?!?!

Just realized I never posted this.  This is the brick, black shutters, white garage door, and the only red front door option they had.  They actually have 2 different samples of this brick.  One looks more brown and lighter and we actually prefer that one.  I took this picture as a worst case scenario.  Missing is the shake & siding.  (See below)

This is the siding.  There is no siding on the front of the house.  So this is basically the side and back of the house.

This is the shake.  It is on the front with the brick.

This isn't our home, but its the exact elevation we chose as well as VERY similar colors.  So, this is basically what ours will look like from the outside...just add a red door :)

This is one my Interior Designer friend suggested - Benjamin Moore’s Heritage Red

This is the other - Benjamin Moore’s Caliente  I think I like this one better but to be honest my non-decorating eye can't tell much of a difference! :P

When going through, I also let Kevin know if he accidentally put balusters instead of a capped wall on the staircase we'd be good with that :) Otherwise that's our plan before we move in, right after the island.

Kevin plans to call each Friday to check in with us.  He understands completely that we will probably be out there or driving by daily.  (He said he would too if he were building a new home!)  We live close enough that is literally just a few minutes of out of the way.  We know too from past experience that it will happen fast.  If someone makes a mistake (which we expect, we all make mistakes) we're hoping we might be able to catch it.

They will begin clearing our lot today, stake the home on Wednesday, dig the hole on Thursday and maybe even had a footer poured on Friday! :o  With the warmer temps we've experienced this week, I am hoping they continue for another week or so and let the foundation really dry.  (Can you read my non-construction expertise coming out?)

Dumpsters are there for removing the trees and brush.  He's planning to save as many big trees as possible, but the majority of this will have to be cleared.  Our house has a 60' set back and they like to clear 30' around the house.

And of course before I even managed to get this post up, we've driven by and they're clearing trees!

He said they estimate it takes about 58 business days assuming everything goes perfect.  They're still telling us May 1, even though those 58 business days means more like mid-April.  The last houses on our street all sold last month so it'll be a busy time of building these next few months.  We are glad to be one of the last homes; construction traffic will be gone! :)

Our current house is still moving through the sale process.  Planning to close at the end of next month.  That will be a relief!  Planning to get a POD for storage.  DREADING packing!  It'd be so much easier to sell everything and just buy new.  Thankfully Andrew keeps talking me down from that bridge!

NVR Approval

Still nothing much happening.  We did get our approval from NVR for our mortgage, so that's a plus, but it was never a doubt :D
Our current house is pending, so that too is a plus!

My mind is for sure overflowing with stuff to do that I really can't do yet!  So I'll share my thoughts here and maybe that'll help my mind slow down :)

Starting to look for ceiling fans for the rooms and this is what we're planning:

42" low profile for all 3 bedrooms

Bonus Room - 52" Low profile, option #1

Bonus Room - 52" Low profile, option #2

 Great Room - 52", option #1, my least favorite

Great Room - 52", option #2, ok

Great Room - 52", option #3, my favorite but I can't find it in stock anywhere!

I'm talking to someone about building us a farmhouse table for the dinning (morning room), this is what I am thinking:

I like the gray color with our black floors.  Then a bench on 1 side and some fabric/vinyl chairs on the sides.  We're thinking an 8' table will work well in that room as well as fit us.

And wouldn't this "gather" sign look great (bigger) on our dining room wall???

We'll also need bar stools for the island, so I need to go do some hunting.  Not sure what I'm looking for knowing we'll have a 2, 4, & 6 year old at move in time

Speaking of island, still not sure what to do.  Do the exact same white cabinets and granite or do something contrasting???

Then just yesterday my mind started thinking about the office and how to make it work for 2 people!  So we'll need a setup with 2 desk areas.  Heading to Pinterest for that one!

Pre-construction meeting next week...

We're on the start schedule!

I got a call today from our Sales Rep. letting us know we are on the start schedule for Tuesday, January 26.  We have our pre-construction meeting with our Project Manager scheduled for Jan. 25.  All of this keeps us right in line for our expect May 1 closing.
Starting to get real...

I can't decide!

Today we decided to walk through a model again.  We found a model of our exact Palermo (elevation D) but after the 30 minute drive we found out they were closed today :(  So we ended up back at the original Palermo model we've walked through already a few times.

I am doubting our (my) granite selection so I was hoping seeing it in person would help.
We have selected white cabinets with a black/gray hardwood floor.  Currently we have selected Caledonia granite.  I am thinking that may be too dark.  My other favorite was Azul Platino. Even at our selection meeting I was stumped.  Thoughts?

On the left is my current selection.  The right is what I'm considering changing it to.

While we were there I took a few pictures just to remind myself how they decorated some of their rooms (very kid friendly..haha)

Mudroom  (Alex wasn't up for posing.)  We will do some sort of built in here on the right for the boys shoes and coats and such.  There is a closet on the left for Andrew & I's coats and shoes.

1st floor powder room - Is it driving anyone else crazy that that lid is up???

Great room.  (Ours will have no fireplace, so we'll for sure need a bigger tv :P.)  I LOVE the look of this room!  I also love that there is no couch on this end of the room dividing the area.  instead it looks much bigger and wide open.  Notice the office door at the far end.

 Morning room.  We too plan to use this as a dining room.  Love their table!  Debating on the idea of putting a rug under the table.  Thinking with 3 littles right now we should go without a rug.  (We do not have the 2 extra windows on the right, so I will need to find a large picture or something to go on that wall.)

Looking at the kitchen from the morning room/backdoor.    The double doors are the pantry and that glass door is the basement.  (Ours will be solid until the basement is finished.) The kitchen is still by far my favorite place in the house.

Laundry room is pretty small.  We have opted for a utility sink to the right instead of a closet. It's on the second floor though which is perfect!  I've pinned a few ideas including building the pedestal so that laundry baskets can slide under for sorting.  Not sure how that would work with the drain thingie.

Master bedroom.  This one has a 4' extension, so it's a bit bigger than ours (and probably much more fancy than mine will ever look too.)

Bonus room!  Super excited for this room.  I'm still not sure what we'll even put in this room.  I think the boys Jungle Jumperoo they are getting for their birthday will be perfect along with maybe an air hockey table?!?!

And then while we were there my dad mentioned how much he loved the wrought iron balusters (which I totally do too) but it was an upgrade we decided against to "stop the bleeding" (quote courtesy of my husband.)  So now we will have a half wall there.  Should we reconsider???

Capped wall.  Ours would not have the extra crown molding.

This is pretty close to what ours would look like with white spindles and the dark hardwood. 

Sooo...I took the time earlier today to write this entire post.  In the meantime realized we were past the date of making changes!  So, Caledonia granite and capped wall it is :)  (Heading over to update the to do list because I'm confident Andrew could do the spindles for us once we are all settled.)

Side note, we are still playing phone tag with NVR mortgage gathering all of the documents they need from us.
Should be meeting our Project Manager and having our Pre-Construction Meeting towards the middle - end of January.

Selections complete!

Update from last week, we signed our production document basically stating no big structural changes can be made.  We also got the price ($600) for putting a utility sink in the laundry room instead of a closet.  Decided to go forward with that.

So today we met with our Sales Rep. and finished up all of our selections.

A bit of confusion on basement windows. We thought 2 were included and we added an egress.  Apparently only 1 is included when you get the morning room.  So we moved that so it won't be under the deck or patio when we decide to do that down the road.  Positioned the egress at the end where we forsee a future bedroom.

Main sticking point came from the driveway. Up until this point everything says 16' wide driveway, but because we have a side entry driveway the driveway is only 12' wide.  Andrew was quite concerned about this.  After talking it through he decided we would live with it.

Driveway Drawing 

All exterior colors were decided. Of course the color we originally wanted was already chosen across the street.  But we came through with a second choice.  I can't believe I forgot to take a picture! 

We placed all 4 light rough ins and 2 ceiling fan rough ins as well.

We also found the local lumber company that sells Timberlake cabinets.  We plan to buy the 2 cabinets and build the gourmet island before we even move in.  I'm confident this will be my favorite part of the house!

Another good point, all the lots on our street have been sold.  So we won't be dealing with too much construction traffic once we move in!

Next meeting will be our preconstruction meeting with the Project Manager.  Trying to decide if I should bake him cookies...anyone who has built before knows you want this guy on your side! :)  Anticipating late January/early February for this meeting.

And the process begins

Well what was a spur of the moment conversation just over 3 weeks ago is now a reality.  We are building a new home!

We have what we consider an ideal lot in Windsor Estates. It is literally less than 5 minutes from our current location, which we love.  It keeps us in Lakota schools.  We get a cul-de-sac lot, which we've become spoiled with where we are now.  And we get some big trees!  All in all, pretty perfect. The lot is .6 of an acre, so more room for all the boys to run and get dirty.

We anticipate a lot of the woods will be cleared for building, but not all of it!

We've decided to build Ryan's Palermo home.  Included in this community are 9' ceilings, morning room, 3 car garage with openers, granite in the kitchen, 2 ceiling fan rough ins, recessed lighting and brick front.  We have decided to add the bonus room, side entrance garage, hardwood first floor, upgraded kitchen faucet and a few light rough ins.

This isn't our elevation.  Our bonus room extension isn't quite as long but it is wider.

This is our elevation except we will have the side car garage.  So imagine 2 windows instead of the garage door.  Can't wait to have a big front porch!!!

So far we have met with Rite Rug (flooring), NVR (mortgage) and Guardian  (cable, data, security).

1st floor hardwood, kitchen cabinets & granite

2nd floor carpet(and office), upstairs bathroom cabinets and vinyl

We go next week to meet with our Sales Rep and finish selections.  Super excited to choose exterior colors!