Oh, Baby!

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

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

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.

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).

***Check INSIDE INFORMATION ALONG THE WAY for the price sheet***     -Luke and Ashleigh

Exterior Color Choices

Selecting the exterior options was fun.  Driving around the neighborhood was essential and overwhelming at the same time.  The number of selections and color combinations that our neighborhood offers is astonishing.  Dark to light, brick to stone, tans or grays, subtle or bold…. You feel the first world problems yet?!

The sales rep fielded my concerns and squashed them at the same time.  The choices get narrowed depending on models and location within the neighborhood.  First up was the stone or block, pick one of the six choices and color options narrow depending on the HOA’s pre-selected color combinations. 

The color collections were fairly simple to navigate and predictably we agreed on everything except the color of the door (the door of all things).  Not wanting to haggle about a simple, yet significant choice, we agreed on the others selections.  That can’t happen and thankfully, our sales rep sided with my wife and the selections were complete:

               

               Stone:                 Dakota Ledgestone

               Siding:                Graphite Grey

               Shake Color:       Silver Mist

               Shutters:             Dark Navy

               Door:                  Outer Space                               -Luke

Guardian Appointment

This appointment was non-eventful for us.  We read so much (thanks to all the blogs) about the options and what to expect during this meeting.  We sat down with a nice man, who resembled a used car salesman, and braced for his pitch.  After 10 minutes and a kick under the table, we slowed him down and politely said we know what we’re getting, give me the pen.  After another redirection and explanation, we got down to the details of what we actually were going to purchase or lack thereof. 

We found the alarm system to be a good option and reasonably priced, but not something we’re interested in.  Installation was free (2-3 doors, 2 keypads, 2 motions, and a smoke detector) but the monthly subscription was locked for 36 months at $40/month or $50/month depending on options. 

Whole house speaker systems and surround sound options would be nice, but not for those prices.  They seem to be consistent with the inflated Ryan Homes options and can be done separately much cheaper with more options.  We contemplated getting something ‘roughed in’, but that lasted all of a few seconds.   Music and entertainment is going wireless, we’ll spend our money in that direction instead of something we think ‘sounds’ nice.   

We left that meeting with our heads held high and ZERO dollars out of pocket.  We had 3 cable and 3 phone options included with our selections.  It was painless to switch that to 5 cables and 1 phone, no questions asked.     -Luke

Interior Selections

Selecting the interior options was not done during one specific meeting or appointment.  We walked through several models and came across the options displayed in the basements.  And without fail we left with a different selection every time!  But to our advantage we were able to test the detail and durability of the products.  Lastly, my wife has a strong belief that there must be a contrast between the flooring and cabinets.  If they can’t match exactly, they must be distinctly different.    

NOTE: when we go into appointments, our mindset is that structural and substantial selections must be made now to prevent them from being difficult and expensive later.  However, we sacrifice in areas when the typical ‘do it yourself’ can tackle the projects.

Simple decision for us was to upgrade all the cabinets throughout the house as their construction was solid wood instead of veneer or particleboard.  The ‘upgrade 2’ came, along with mentioned above, dovetailed corners and upgraded soft-close slides.  RUSHMORE PAINTED HAZELNUT

Granite came standard, with an option to upgrade for a greater number of color choices.  It was not worth the price considering the color selections were similar.  SANTA CECELIA LIGHT

We do a lot of cooking and with the family growing, the GOURMET ISLAND was a must!  We opted to take a credit for the tiled backsplash as I’ll do it later.  Kitchen faucet fixtures were upgraded to BRUSHED NICKEL.

Continuing the cabinet upgrades discussed earlier, all bathrooms we chose WYOMING CHERRY JAVA cabinets and left the standard marble top.     -Luke

NVR mortgage appointment

So I’m going to try to keep this from being a rant.  

But.....  man oh man was this appointment miserable for us!  First and foremost, this was not a simple meeting.  They truly expected us to have all documentation on hand (less than 48 hours after we signed our purchase agreement) and be willing to hand it over for them to process us for a fully underwritten loan.  This sounds fine, except for the fact that we didn’t really want to go with NVR and already had a mortgage broker picked out.  The loan officer couldn’t fully answer my questions except to say that we had to be fully underwritten with them in order proceed.  Her rationale was that if we didn’t manage to get a mortgage with the other company, at least Ryan knew we were fully qualified.  To an extent, we understood that.  But, the purchase agreement technically read that we had 7 days to apply for a loan with a mortgage company.  We reread the section and never saw anything about it having to be NVR.  At one point, the loan officer said she was going to make some copies for me and we were almost done.  Nearly 20 minutes later she finally came back and said she had been talking to her manager.  It seemed as though she wasn’t used to people asking questions about why their rates were so much higher than the market was dictating (the hubby has these constantly refreshing on his phone!).  She said the market rates weren't accurate.  When I asked about lock in periods, she was quick to say NVR was the best and couldn’t be beat.  But when I asked when we could lock in she said not until about 70 days from our projected delivery date.  So she wanted us to sit there and watch the rates tick higher and higher without locking in for months!  When I mentioned other products with different lock in periods, she told me I was wrong and they only locked for 30 days.  I’ve had clients use these different brokers and truly have longer lock in periods.  To be blatantly told incorrect things as facts really undermines my trust in a company or willingness to explore their options!  Rant over...sorry, I guess that really did turn into more of a rant!     -Ashleigh