Rome wasn't built in a day....but Florence was FRAMED in less than a month!!!

A Picture is worth more than a thousand words so I will let the story unfold with the pictures below....assisted by a few words :))

                                                                    Land Staked

                                                                 Ground Broken

                                                               Foundation Laid

                                                               Basement Built
                                              

                                                              Framing In Process
                                                

                                                                    Roof Laid

                                                                        Garage

                                                             First floor & Stairs

                                                                     Kitchen

                                                                   Family Room

                                                             View from the backyard

                                                                  Morning Room

                                                                      Backyard

                                                                    VOILA!!!


......& That's how our  Florence was FRAMED!!! :))

The Wheels are set into motion...Pre-Construction Meeting and Ground Breaking

After two months of lull, the last two weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. In the last two months we changed our minds on almost everything a zillion times...asked our sales rep a million questions...had thousands of doubts....fought with each other at least a hundred times a week until we completely exhausted ourselves...atleast mentally! In this chaos we somehow managed to finalize our mortgage lender at the end. We decided to go with a local lender over NVR, only because their customer service and customer handling was much more to our liking than that of the latter. For the closing however, we decided to stick with NVR Closing, only coz we are informed they are one of the best in the area.

The terrific part about finally making this decision: I don't know if this has bothered anyone else, but every time we visited the property site, I hated the fact that, all the property sites either under construction or in the pre-construction had the "SOLD" sign on except for ours....Well.... not anymore :)))

We had our pre-construction meeting two weeks ago which basically was all about going over the selections one last time and meeting with our PM.  It was a fairly breezy in and out affair.... turns out our PM is a man of few words. We left from the meeting feeling confident...till we hit our next road bump a.k.a some more questions...Sigh!!!

Over the next couple of days, while just talking to each other about some common issues, we realized that there were certain things which we had failed to voice during the pre-construction meeting. Basically these are concerns which can be addressed after closing, however we wanted to see if we could get it done during the construction time to avoid the hassel later. Since we have a great rapport with our Sales rep we picked her brain on it. Here goes a few of them which might be helpful:

1. We were unsure if they put soap holders in the bathrooms. Turns out that only the master bath has 1 small soap holder (4x4) the other full baths do not. The full baths may have a raised area where the tub meets the wall but its not a guarantee. We ended up going to Rusmur Floors and selecting tiles matching our granite for 3 shelves and a soap holder in the master and a soap holder for the hall bath. Our Sales rep agreed to allow Rusmur Floor install them while Rusmur installs our bathroom. We however did not include this cost in our mortgage but paid for it up front.

2. I noticed while at the model home for the pre-construction meeting, that the towel holder in the bathrooms were over the toilet flush and not at a sufficient height to avoid even a small towel from touching the top of the flush.  If this is something that may bother you in the future  it is one of our pet peeves) it might be a good idea to let your PM know so that you can select the exact location for the towel holder.

3. The walk-in closet in the master has one rod of wire shelving running all thru as a standard. Since we want more than one wire shelf and want to use this space economically, we asked about getting it customized through Ryan's handyman who installs the wire shelving during construction. This turned out to be more expensive than doing it ourselves later. We do not want any holes on the walls when we got rid of he standard shelving later, so we asked our PM not to instal the wire shelving at all. If you are considering customizing your closet like we are, think about not having the wire shelf put at all. If you have already have a customized closet, please share your ideas with us... it will be helpful!!

4. One of our other concerns is taking care of our lawn and the landscaping part of it. We have been told numerous times already by our PM and sales rep that at least for the 1st yr, the grass will have to be watered twice a day for at least 45 mins... that too when the sun is not all high and bright. Given that both my husband and I have erratic work hours in addition to the fact that we have never done this before, we are pretty apprehensive about ruining the grass before it even has a chance!! We are considering having an automated sprinkler system installed which we are told also adds value to the house. We are hoping to get this done prior to them placing the grass so that it doesn't have to be uprooted later. Our PM provided us with the contact information of landscaper they have collaborated with often and we are trying to work it out with him.     

Amidst all this activity in the background, we also broke ground!! Yaay!! :)) Since we haven't been able to go as often as we want... here are the pics taken a few days apart.

                                                                   First Visit

                                                          Cemented Foundation
                                                      
I'm excited to see how much is done the next time I drive by for a peek...Will keep you all posted! 

Rusmur Floors...The one stop flooring shop

This was the appointment I was the most worried about...and by far the only one for which we had done extensive research. Fresh from the meeting with the Guardian rep,we were anticipating an onslaught of extensive information and choice palettes, as this seems to be the pattern for every meeting we have had up until now.  Given the fact that there are so many options to chose from.... hardwood(real or engineered), bamboo, vinyl, laminate, marble, granite....I'm sure you get the picture....we were worried that we would end up liking materials which would put us way over our budget.

The week before the actual appointment, we spent a lot of time scouting Home Depot, Lowes and other local stores, in an attempt to find out the nuances of every material and what appealed to us the most... this, I felt helped us during the meeting, as we had already discussed what were the must haves on our list.

Even though Rusmur floors has many beautiful and cost effective options at their store, Ryan homes allows you a limited choice range which are fairly basic. All flooring materials: hardwood, vinyl, granite, carpet have 4 grade options( based on quality) and possibly 1-3 choices in each grade. As a result of these scant options, finalizing our choices was not that hard.

We decided to go with hardwood floors for the entire first level, stain-resistant carpet for the basement and basic carpet with a thicker padding for the entire 2nd level. We selected granite for all our bathrooms and laundry room and a simple accent tile for around the tub in the master bath.

I have attached a picture of our selection below. The darker cabinet on the left and the granite sitting on top of it, is for the kitchen, while the other cabinet and the tile selections below it, are for the bathrooms. The tiny bit of carpet seen in the left corner, is our carpet choice for the basement.

While I wished we had nicer options to chose from, we still left the appointment pretty satisfied with the selections we made..... and for once we did not change "ANY" of our choices 24 hours later...now that is a first for us :)) !!!

GUARDIAN.......Angel??

Power outlets and electrical wiring...a complete no-brainer...but not while building a home...who knew deciding about them would be as traumatic as pulling out teeth!  We went to meet rep from Guardian totally unprepared. By the time he was done with us, we were sucked into a whirlwind of information but still had no decisions made.

Contrary to what I believed, Guardian does more than just electrical wiring for cable, data and phone. Technology is so advanced, that now there are some really amazing things that can be done in a house which I especially hadn't known up until this meeting. I sat there watching my husband and the rep talk about things in a language which might as well have been in Greek...thankfully one of us understood it! :)))

We did our research on all that he showed us AFTER the meeting.  Some of the things which we had to chose from included:

1. Home security system. They provide security sensors for all the doors only and motion sensors for the room with one keypad. For added keypad or security sensors for the windows there is an additional cost. They also offer security cameras but that does not have recording capabilities, so pretty much is like a monitoring system....but only if you are actually at home.

2. Lyriq: I thought this was pretty cool, unfortunately the price was not. Basically they install inbuilt speakers in rooms of your choice such that if you play music in one room, you can hear it in the other rooms.  We found wireless speakers at Best Buy which had the same capabilities but is not in-built and also way cheaper. 

3. Home Intercom System: This one is just a regular intercom system only you pay for every room you install it in.

4. Surround Sound System: They have 4 grade levels in this. The first 3 grades have Klipsch speakers. The 4th level is the Bose sound system. all the packages includes an LG DVD player, receiver, sub- woofer, amplifier and a universal remote.  They also have packages where they just pre-wire your home. However the DVD player, amplifier, woofer and remote are not included in this package.  

5. Central Vacuum: I hadn't heard of this one before this...its pretty fancy but at the end of the day a vacuum cleaner is just a vacuum cleaner.

After scouting around for all our options we decided to get only the security system with an additional keypad and the surround sound system with Guardian. Per the regulation of the home builders association, Ryan homes provides all their homes with a power outlet every 7 feet apart. That's a lot of outlets up until you actually start thinking about the furniture, TV and other electronic placements.  The power outlets can't be moved, for every additional outlet there is a an additional cost (as if the prices weren't adding up already).  

For now I think we are ok with all the wiring and outlet choices and placements...but heaven forbid I decide to rearrange the furniture...Oh well that's another topic all together.  

BLIND SIDING....

We met with our Ryan homes representative for the first time after signing our property papers to finalize some of the choices we had already made and to pick a color for the siding (i.e. the exterior of our house)....sounds like a fairly easy task right??....WRONG!!!

Every time you think about the money your putting in to build your dream home and realize you will have to live with the choices you make for several years to come, even simple decisions start looking daunting.

Ryan homes has a policy which does not allow you to select colors which are used upto two houses next to your own. Based on this, our Ryan home rep gave us a few options and we immediately gravitated towards two colors 1. Autumn Beige 2. Sandy Tan. As it was nearing their office closing time, we were a little rushed and ended up finalizing Autumn Beige as the color we wanted to go with.

On returning home, I started scouting blogs of other Ryan home owners to look at the popular siding selections and was shocked to find that autumn beige looked almost pink!!! (check this blog to see what I mean: http://dillonhome.blogspot.com/2011/07/sowhat-do-you-think.html)

Worried about our selection, the next day we drove to a Ryan home township about 40-50 mins away from where we live. This township not only has the Florence model home but also several different Florence home constructions.  This time, looking at the swatch in natural light, the autumn beige did seem to have a pinkish tinge, while sandy tan had a touch of green.

Driving down through the community we fit into the role of stalkers almost perfectly. After our second drive thru the neighborhood we started getting dirty looks from the residents and had no options but to leave....however not without pictures of "Florence" style homes in both Autumn Beige and Sandy Tan.

                                                            Autumn Beige Siding
                                                 

                                                                Sandy Tan Siding

We still haven't decided on the color we want on the siding, but we did call our Ryan home representative and let her know that we had changed our minds about Autumn Beige. I don't want a house which will have a remote chance of looking pink! In case you people have some suggestions or comments for us that might help us select a siding color, please let me know as we need to pick one soon!!

One mistake we made when selecting the siding color initially....we looked at the color choices in artificial light. The small swatches look very different in natural light Vs. indoor artificial light. Also, we let ourselves be rushed into making a choice without having given it too much thought and ended up regretting it pretty quickly( I don't want to imagine how much more I would regret it if I had waited until after the house was painted!!..YIKES).

I have realized in the few weeks that we have dealt with Ryan homes, they don't give the buyers too much time to make decisions, in the bargain, sometimes you end up making choices which you like, but don't necessarily love! However, this is "YOUR HOME".... if your going to build it from ground up, put in all that time, money and effort you should "LOVE EVERYTHING" about it not just LIKE somethings...This is my new Mantra..now only if it worked!!! LOL!

NVR Mortgage

This week one of our scheduled meetings with regards to our home was with  our NVR mortgage agent.

At the time of signing our initial property papers, our Ryan home agent provided us with a check list on documents we needed to supply for the loan approval. Having this ahead of time gave us the opportunity to gather  all the documents together without feeling rushed or panicked. This was helpful for us especially, as we currently live in two cities and our documents are not all at one place.

Though Ryan homes lets you choose another lender, they do give you incentives to use their own lender ie. NVR mortgage. You miss out on these incentives if you go with another lender. In our case the incentive was a finished morning room which allowed us to use the money to get a finished basement.

                                                           Model Home Morning Room

We also got pre-approved by another lender prior to starting the house search. This was recommended to us by our realtor.  The theory behind this is that, being pre-approved improves your credibility especially if you are buying a resale home. It gives the seller assurance that you can afford to buy the home and works in your favor if you are a candidate in the bidding game against someone who isn't pre-approved. In our case we were asked by our Ryan Homes agent if we were pre-approved even before she gave us a cost estimate for our home. I don't know if being pre-approved helped our cause.

Anywho, we have submitted all our paper work for NVR mortgage, signed close to hundred papers (exaggeration...but enough that I want to get a signature stamp made!) and are waiting to hear back if we are approved. Being the holiday season we were told it would take maybe two weeks before we would find out). Ryan homes also offers assistance to find you another lender in-case you are not approved by NVR which is a good back up to have.

We plan to lock in our interest rate 60 days prior to our closing date which is in May. I did read on someone's blog that he tracked the interest rates for a few weeks before locking the rate it. I am not sure on to do the tracking yet as I still haven't started researching it but would love hear some ideas if you have any!

   

Decisions...Decisions and then some more decisions!!!

Ever since deciding to buy a house our life has been full of choices and decisions. Resales Vs New constructions, Town house Vs Single Family home, Heartland Vs Ryan homes, Washington County Vs Allegheny county. If these selections weren't enough, our options increased by multiple folds and the decisions got harder once we signed the zillion initial property papers!!!

The two weeks, since signing have been a whirlwind of activity. While the process itself is exciting, it has been frustrating as well. The most challenging and perhaps the best part of this procedure has been selecting what the interiors of our home would look like. Who doesn't want to have all the fancy upgraded stuff in the house???... if I had a money tree I would get it all!!!...but deciding what is worth the buck has really started testing our decision making ability to the limit.

Currently my husband is spending most of his free time, finalizing all the options we can get within our means.

After multiple late night discussions some of the things we have agreed upon are:

• Elevation C with siding. (This elevation with partial stone finish  is gorgeous, but also way more expensive than the siding.)
• Hardwood floors on the first level.(I liked the hardwood they had in the model home and am considering going with it-->see model home picture below). Carpet in the rest of the house with ceramic tiles in all the bathrooms and laundry room.
• Granite(santa cecilia) counter tops in the kitchen with maple espresso cabinets. (If you put granite counter tops in the kitchen, Ryan homes gives upgraded kitchen faucets as well. The model home kitchen cabinets in the picture below are maple cognac)  
• Stainless steel appliance package except the fridge. (We didn't like the fridge they are offering in their package so decided to get our own).  
• Morning Room as a part of the promotion. 
• Finished Basement.
• Master bath with double sinks, shower and tub with granite(wheat) counter top and ceramic floors (we haven't met with Rusmur Floors yet so have not made a choice on the tiles).
• Recessed lighting in the kitchen, basement, great room and master bedroom. 
• Drainage system in the garage. 

We initially decided not to get the Fireplace installed through Ryan homes as we felt that we could put it in later. However, Nishant changed his mind after reading several blogs and fireplace reviews, unfortunately by then we passed our deadline for making structural changes to the house. So, we are going to try and have them put in a gas line so that we can install a ventless gas fireplace later else we will have to settle for the electric fireplace. If a fireplace is something you really want, its better to get the vented one through Ryan homes coz the fireplaces we saw at Lowes and Home Depot did not look authentic at all. If there are other stores which carry better ones please let me know! On talking to several home owners we found out that though gas fireplaces hike the bills more than the electric ones they tend to be more efficient than the electric. One of my colleagues stated that her husband only allowed her to use their gas fireplace when they had people over! LOL!!!  

We still have to decide on some more options and are still to meet with Rusmur Floors next week. We met with Guardian and the Ryan homes rep this week.. will write about that in my next post!

On a different note Here's Wishing  Everyone a Merry Xmas!!!