We are having a slow week regarding construction, which we expected. They are pulling permits and we are waiting patiently for our pre-construction meeting.
In the meantime, we thought we would take a TIME OUT and take it to a personal level.
Our home delivery is likely to happen at the same time as our baby delivery. That's right, we have a third, sweet little girl due in May. She is a surprise blessing and we couldn't be happier! She is one of the reasons we are building now, so we can gain a fourth bedroom. Another key reason is because one of our daughters will start school and we want to start her off at the correct school instead of moving her mid year.
Yes, the new home and construction is amazingly exciting. Our second daughter has already claimed her room and calls the house the tea party house (the model had a tea set in the bedroom she chose). But, as exciting as it is, it can also be stressful. We don't want to let that overshadow the sweet little blessing that is on the way. Thanks again for going through this journey with us...hang on for the ride! -Luke and Ashleigh
Friday, January 15, 2016
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Let the Good Times Roll!
All too often you
fight for something so long and so hard that it becomes almost impossible to
relish in the good news. As you read, we've had some great appointments and received amazing finishes, only to get confronted by continuous hurdles. We have been plagued with ups and downs
throughout this process and are ready to move forward.
Well.... right now
lets bask in the good news!
We have been waiting on
a response regarding the location of our welled-exit (stairs coming out of the basement from double glass doors).
Engineers and management (and us) have been discussing the option to have it
exit out the side of the house. This would allow us more space for a
deck/patio and not interfere with the morning room. If it came out of the normal location, it would walk out right near/under our beautiful morning room. We actually got this
idea from our neighbor (shout out to Stephanie!) who has this option and didn't have near the
trouble that we are having. We want this exit, just don't take up half of
our yard and back of the house to do it! Turns out we have an easement for storm water management going alongside our property line that could interfere with this. Note, we were not informed about his easement until we began asking about the exit. This was frustrating and not a best practice). Regardless, GREAT news...our lot is
large enough that the easement doesn't really affect this step: APPROVED for the side welled-exit!
A few days ago our
sales rep referenced changes for 2016 to their 'gourmet kitchen upgrade' and
we may be able to participate in the new features (this was at our meeting to pick cabinets and exterior colors). We were all hoping we
could qualify because even though we signed in 2015, we're breaking ground
in 2016. We already have the Kitchen Cabinet upgrade 2, but the new
changes incorporate dovetailed drawers (much more durable) and soft-close
drawer slides (slam it shut and it still closes slowly- that
will help the kiddos not lose a finger) After a few emails, headaches, and
great work by our sales rep: APPROVED for the soft-close drawers!
At our
flooring appointment, we were told that our selections do not include a
tiled back-splash. I'm sure we saw it
somewhere buried within our selections, but we couldn’t find it nor
talk with someone at the sales office to confirm. We proceed at the
design studio and opted not to tile the back-splash because we
didn't like their selection for the extra cost. Sure enough, my awesome wife found it
once we got home and contacted the sales office: APPROVED for the
tile back-splash credit! -Luke
Saturday, January 2, 2016
We are FLOORED
Talk about an awesome
experience, options galore...if you have the bank account for it! We think this
appointment goes one of two directions based on your preparation and
personality/decisiveness: you are either overwhelmed and likely disappointed, or decisive and somewhat content.
Walking in we are greeted by a wonderful lady who knows the showroom and options inside and out. She has a sheet pre-filled with pricing for every option imaginable. This took what little anxiety we had and crushed it. She was very open with the pricing, which we appreciated. We literally walked around with the sheet (and took a screenshot of it) for a reference as we shopped. We knew our overall budget would be dictated by these choices, so we were very mindful of price. For us, the quality difference had to be significant for us to spend our money on "options". Otherwise, we were saving our money to do after market upgrades.
Walking in we are greeted by a wonderful lady who knows the showroom and options inside and out. She has a sheet pre-filled with pricing for every option imaginable. This took what little anxiety we had and crushed it. She was very open with the pricing, which we appreciated. We literally walked around with the sheet (and took a screenshot of it) for a reference as we shopped. We knew our overall budget would be dictated by these choices, so we were very mindful of price. For us, the quality difference had to be significant for us to spend our money on "options". Otherwise, we were saving our money to do after market upgrades.
First up was flooring for the entire main level. Standard (meaning included) for us is:
Level A hardwood in the entry, half-bath, kitchen, pantry, and garage entry
Resilient in the morning room (despite the morning room being almost $17K, NO wood) Level A carpet in the living room and family room.
ZERO of these options worked for
us. We’re not snobs (promise!)...just people with reasonable
sense of quality and durability (read we would like our finishes to last more than a few
years). Ryan could do a much better job having relevant standard options. We knew going into this
appointment that we probably wouldn't love the standard options. But, the carpet was so thin and stiff and scratchy that we wouldn't have ever used it as indoor carpet in our house. The consultant also let us know that the standard option had a stain fighter that would last through one cleaning and then be worthless. Also, the standard padding left a lot to be desired because it basically felt non-existent. So, we upgraded our carpet one level (both upstairs and on the main floor). We upgraded our carpet pad one level for the main floor only.
Carpet (upstairs and main level): Greystone, Cold Water
Carpet (basement): standard carpet Baseline/Rockport
The wood was very narrow planked (2" I think) with a high gloss sheen on all of it. To be honest, it felt very 1990s, not 2016! We had done some research and even asked our sales rep to pull some figures for us regarding wood. So, although we felt like many of the prices were inflated, we didn't have sticker shock. We opted to upgrade our wood to the 5" plank option. You can see on the pricing sheet that it was a (relatively) minimal cost to change from standard to this upgrade. However, there was an increased cost to add this to the morning room. If we had not added this option, it would have been beautiful wood flowing into a 1970s resilient piece of vinyl. I did bring up to our sales rep in the model home that resilient was really an outdated standard when compared to other building companies and that it didn't make sense !
Wood: Armstrong, Rural Living, hickory, misty gray, 5" plank, hand-scraped look
Next it was time to think bathrooms. The option included as standard for flooring was resilient. The standard material for shower wall tile is 6x6 tile, white or almond in color. After that, you had to pay huge sums to try to find a tile you liked. For the inflated price point, we could not find a single tile that justified the price. It wasn't that we despised all of the options, we just despised paying exponentially higher prices than necessary. So, we opted to keep the standard flooring and standard wall tile in white. We will put some sweat equity in and take care of the bathrooms later (we plan to tile the floor ourselves and take out 1-2 rows of tile in the shower and put in an accent tile of some sort). We did add 2 corner shelves in the master shower because we knew they would be difficult to install after the tiling was done (stainless steel look, about $120 for the pair).
Side note: We were told we had a $300 tile backsplash credit that would cover the standard backsplash. This was (again) the white or almond tile. Neither of those blended with our cabinets. Our paperwork had not been sent to the design center, and the allowance was not listed on our original purchase agreement (it came in the form of a change order later). So, we opted to call our sales rep and take the $300 in the form of a credit (it basically just came off of our overall price).
Level A hardwood in the entry, half-bath, kitchen, pantry, and garage entry
Resilient in the morning room (despite the morning room being almost $17K, NO wood) Level A carpet in the living room and family room.
ZERO of these options worked for
us. We’re not snobs (promise!)...just people with reasonable
sense of quality and durability (read we would like our finishes to last more than a few
years). Ryan could do a much better job having relevant standard options. We knew going into this
appointment that we probably wouldn't love the standard options. But, the carpet was so thin and stiff and scratchy that we wouldn't have ever used it as indoor carpet in our house. The consultant also let us know that the standard option had a stain fighter that would last through one cleaning and then be worthless. Also, the standard padding left a lot to be desired because it basically felt non-existent. So, we upgraded our carpet one level (both upstairs and on the main floor). We upgraded our carpet pad one level for the main floor only.Carpet (upstairs and main level): Greystone, Cold Water
Carpet (basement): standard carpet Baseline/Rockport
The wood was very narrow planked (2" I think) with a high gloss sheen on all of it. To be honest, it felt very 1990s, not 2016! We had done some research and even asked our sales rep to pull some figures for us regarding wood. So, although we felt like many of the prices were inflated, we didn't have sticker shock. We opted to upgrade our wood to the 5" plank option. You can see on the pricing sheet that it was a (relatively) minimal cost to change from standard to this upgrade. However, there was an increased cost to add this to the morning room. If we had not added this option, it would have been beautiful wood flowing into a 1970s resilient piece of vinyl. I did bring up to our sales rep in the model home that resilient was really an outdated standard when compared to other building companies and that it didn't make sense !
Wood: Armstrong, Rural Living, hickory, misty gray, 5" plank, hand-scraped lookNext it was time to think bathrooms. The option included as standard for flooring was resilient. The standard material for shower wall tile is 6x6 tile, white or almond in color. After that, you had to pay huge sums to try to find a tile you liked. For the inflated price point, we could not find a single tile that justified the price. It wasn't that we despised all of the options, we just despised paying exponentially higher prices than necessary. So, we opted to keep the standard flooring and standard wall tile in white. We will put some sweat equity in and take care of the bathrooms later (we plan to tile the floor ourselves and take out 1-2 rows of tile in the shower and put in an accent tile of some sort). We did add 2 corner shelves in the master shower because we knew they would be difficult to install after the tiling was done (stainless steel look, about $120 for the pair).
Side note: We were told we had a $300 tile backsplash credit that would cover the standard backsplash. This was (again) the white or almond tile. Neither of those blended with our cabinets. Our paperwork had not been sent to the design center, and the allowance was not listed on our original purchase agreement (it came in the form of a change order later). So, we opted to call our sales rep and take the $300 in the form of a credit (it basically just came off of our overall price).
***Check INSIDE INFORMATION ALONG THE WAY for the price sheet*** -Luke and Ashleigh
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