Now...we wait.

Kinda bummed that the SR forgot to add the extra window to our FINAL change order, the one where we were about $9,500 over budget but made our peace with it...

then to get the call that she forgot to add the window and send another final change order with a $495 increase...

ugh.

I'm hoping everything is right because I really do not want to go one penny more.  Thank goodness for low interest rates!

I did ask her again about the whole delay and she explained it again.  I guess the city only allows so many permits at once, so they are the ones that are holding it up.  It normally takes about 2 weeks to get the permits, assuming the city is releasing enough to get our name in there.  If they don't release enough and we don't get put in there, then it delays it another week or two.  She did say that the PM has a meeting every Tuesday and he always knows one week in advance who will be getting permits so he can schedule the crew for foundation, so he should know this week if we will be started next week (2 weeks behind original date).  We are really hoping we get started but in the meantime we have a lot of saving to do so the longer it takes the better I suppose.

This is the second new build we have done and man, you don't realize all that a new house needs!  First off, blinds or window coverings.  I actually think I plan to do some sort of roman shade or cornices downstairs and leave my big bright windows blinds-free.  We'll see though, none-the-less it is an immediate expense.  Another biggie is some sort of fence.  We have a little Shorty Bull (miniature bulldog) and she doesn't try to escape or anything but it will be oh-so-nice to let her out in the morning and not have to watch her.

Anyone put in a fence recently?  I'm curious as to the pricing for vinyl 4 foot fencing.  Or 4 foot picket. We have the super HUGE .18 acre (lol).  I think it's 7,800 sq ft or something.

For now I leave you with a pic of our little bulldog!  She can't wait for the new house!  :)

And we wait for those permits and our official start date!

Pre-construction meeting

I want to say the whole thing went smooth but the beginning was rocky.  My husband couldn't go because he had to work so it was just me and my 3 year old son.  Had I known it would take 4 hours I would have packed him a lunch.  He got kinda crazy toward the end, the the PM took him outside to play so I could finish up (which I appreciated!).

I will preface this that I LOVE our SR and our PM seems like a totally great guy and someone I look forward to working with.  The things that happened were things that corporate changed and failed to notify the SR and the PM.  None of these things were the fault of them as we had to spend time making calls and figuring a few things out.

A little on our background:

We just accepted a job here and it was not a paid move.  We had to move from PA to SC with less than 30 days notice.  When we signed our contract, they told us we would have a June 1 delivery date.  That's 2 months.  So we put 85% of our stuff in storage, are living with the bare minimum in the only apartment that would rent to us for 2 months.  oh, and with a 3 year old and a dog.

So when they told us they are looking at a June/July delivery date now, I almost cried.  It may seem dramatic but we are not from here, so it's not like we are already comfortable here.  We are actually living in a small town 20 min away from where our new house will be.  And I was not preparing for most of our stuff to be locked up for nearly 4 months.  And our apartment is not nice by any means.  Well unless you like cooking and doing laundry right next to each other.  Yes, our washer is right next to our stove.  awesome.

They knew I was disappointed and the only answer they had was that home sales are booming right now and they are having a hard time getting materials.  So apparently once we get the permits, then we go into a pot of people and spin around until our number gets called.  Hmm.

Then, we started going over the house plans, a few things were missing.  Cue disappointment number 2.  We were promised by the SR to get the top of the line crown moulding, and wainscoting in the formal living room.  I guess there was confusion over that and we only are getting the crown moulding and chair rail (wainscoting was a $1695 upgrade).  Whatever.  I guess I kinda felt annoyed that the SR had told me multiple times we were getting that, then to find out we are not, and her not even have a solution for me (or even just give it to me for free!) was irritating.  So I lost that battle.

One other thing was the paint.  As you know the Divine White is the only "white" they have and it's more of a yellow/tan.  I have been bothered about this from the beginning and the only solution I was offered was "we will paint the ceilings white but everything else has to be Divine White".  When I asked how much that would be she said "oh, not much".  So I said ok.  Um yeah.  So when we start going through and talking about paint, I said how much was that upgrade and she said "$1290" to which I responded "take it out".   When we are deciding whether or not to add a $200 light, then obviously $1290 is a lot to us so yeah, not going to work.  I did find my peace about this as I went back in the main office of the model to see Divine white and I think if a dark color is painted next to it, it will look white.  I'd just have to steer clear of any colors that are too light as they will showcase it's yellowness.  And if we have to paint the ceiling...so be it.

One other issue.  If you get a morning room, apparently it doesn't come with an overhead light.  Without a morning room, the dinette area has a chandelier.  With a morning room, you get nothing.  So I asked "you mean to tell me I spend $9k on a morning room and don't get any type of overhead light or chandelier for free?"  They ran some numbers and were able to get it for me, but yes I did have to pay for it.

Other than that, we had a fun time going through everything.  I had to correct a few areas, they had the wrong siding and shutter, were missing the extra master window (and I highly recommend getting that if you are getting a Florence with morning room.  The peak on the morning room forces the windows upstairs to be moved right next to each other and when we walked thru the Florence model, it was dark on the side with no window.  Having a window there was a must for us.)

Then we went up to the lot and he showed us what will happen.  We have some trees on our lot but they all have to be removed.  Bummer but they aren't at the back of the lot, they are at the middle right where the morning room will sit.  Our lot sits higher than both the lots on either side which is kinda cool.  Love love love the lot.

Back to the sales office to discuss final numbers.  We made one last phone call to upgrade our carpet padding upstairs.  We ended up just about $10k over what we wanted to spend but since our interest rate is so low, we are just going to go with it.  It's only about an $85 increase a month from where we wanted to be and at this point there was just nothing else we could get rid of happily.  We have already settled on it all.

Oh and one more thing, we decided to upgrade the 10x12 slab to a 10x19 which will extend the patio all the way to the end of the family room.  It will basically fill up the rectangle at the back of the house from the morning room over.  It was $6/ft to do it, so it was about a $420 upgrade but I think it was worth it to get that extra slab for a bigger table and nice BBQ.

And about the financing.  I have not been all to pleased with our loan officer who has not once called me throughout this process and I feel like I have to pull information out of her.  Looking at our closing costs estimate... I almost fainted at the fact that all the money we put in would be going toward closing costs.  However after digging around and talking to the SR I realized you can choose a different rate and not pay points and there are ways around paying so much at closing.  So we are going to look at our options but we really planned on getting that money back since our house will need a fence, a fridge, a dining room table, a couch....and then some.

I have noticed some people list pricing and I know it's different in every state.  I think it is the cheapest here, we are in north west South Carolina.  I will list just so we can see the difference in the upgrade prices!  And coming from PA I have been pleasantly surprised at the cost of living down here!

Florence $145,900
morning room $7,995
extra windows morning room $995
extra window master bedroom $495
gourmet island $2,495
granite on gourmet island $695
hardwood on entire bottom floor except laundry was around $10,000
tile in laundry room $175
carpet padding upgrade $695
carpet upgrade $695
premier VI appliances $3,995
concrete pad upgrade to 10x19 $420
cabinet upgrade butterscotch maple $3,295
bathroom cabinets upgrade $600
fireplace upgrade to stone $700 (fireplace with slate was free so we had to pay the difference)
upgraded garage door to carriage style $595
homesite premium $2,500 (toward the end of cul de sac, and needed tree removal)
overhead light in formal living $200
chandelier in morning room $195
gas range $275
tile upgrade master bath $1,295
tile upgrade secondary bath $220
secondary light on the outside of garage $298

Things that came free with the 65th anniversary package:

-Hardwood in foyer ($225)

-Hardwood in powder room ($200)

-42" wall cabinets ($595)

-granite in kitchen ($1,690) does not include island upgrade

-Feature III Microwave ($995)

-Owners bathroom full upgrade to glass shower ($2,590)

-6x6 tile surround Master Bath ($195)

-Double Bowl vanity Master ($695)

-Chair Rail and crown moulding ($995)

-kitchen/bathroom cabinet hardware ($200)

-slate fireplace ($2,595)

-overhead lighting Progress Bravo package ($600)

-concrete patio 10x12 ($780)

-kitchen faucet upgrade ($295)

-Elevation B siding veneer ($1,895)

-kitchen cabinet crown moulding ($595)

Total included upgrades: ($15,140)

Also, the house comes with sod on the entire lot, and a minimal landscaping package in the front bed, as well as a tree in the front yard.

Pre-construction meeting today

I'm a little nervous going into this because thus far, our NVR processor has been sweet but kinda distant.  I have sent emails that go days without being returned, tried to leave a message and her mailbox is full.  She said we were clear to build and approved for financing but I have not received any such paper confirming this.

Also, we had a goal price of what we wanted to spend on the house.  In South Carolina the prices are really inexpensive but we still chose the smallest house so we could splurge a bit and make the inside super nice, which we have never had.  It's crazy how fast things add up and before we knew it, we were $5,000 over our budget.  It is not a super big deal but that was before our flooring appointment which then added another $3500.  Sitting at $8,500 over budget, I am curious as to where our mortgage payment will be, and what kind of closing costs we are looking at.

We are doing a VA loan so it is zero down but we had to pay $6,100 just to start the house with Ryan homes (3.5% down) and were promised through and through that if we do 100% financing, we will get all that money back.  In looking at the preliminary estimate from NVR it showed a VA funding fee which does not apply to us and a few other things that brought our money back at closing to only $2500 and that included the $4000 closing cost credit.  So basically our closing costs were $7500???  Yeah right.  I am going to be upset if this is the truth and we better get most if not ALL of our money back and then some.  Especially since the SR promised me we would get it back.

I emailed the NVR loan officer this morning requesting a new prelim doc that I could review BEFORE I go into my pre-construction meeting and sign off on all our upgrades.  If we are still in our target mortgage payment range, we may go ahead and upgrade to level C carpet upstairs with the level C memory foam pad ($2000 total).  She said every $1000 adds $5 a month, so it would be an extra $10 a month.  However, we are already about $50 over from where we wanted to be.  I could care less about the total purchase price amount but this move down here was a lateral pay shift and I really want our bills to remain the same as what they were up in Pennsylvania so that not much changes in the way of our budget.

Anyways.

Here's to hoping we can nail everything down and quit worrying over all this.  I'm excited to meet the PM and get a start date.

cabinet and paint

At this point, I'm just so sick of stewing over our choices and am ready to be done!

They are not able to get the cabinets in Hazelnut glaze.  Not sure why...some excuse about how each region is only allowed certain colors...I'm guessing that they got a deal on a bunch of the butterscotch and so they don't want to have to do a specialized order but it's fine.  We chose a gray/black granite called New Caledonia and up next to the butterscotch glaze, it looks great.  Not yellow at all.  But, the hazelnut just has a darker glaze in the crevices that looks nice.  I suppose we could always glaze them darker later if we wanted but I'm sure it will be fine.

Now, onto the paint.  I am the most easy going person but this has been one of my biggest annoyances. They only give you 5 paint choices and they are all TAN.  They don't offer even a WHITE.  I have made it known to my sales rep from day one that I don't like yellows and tans and didn't want anything in my house to be in that color scheme.  Paint was the number one thing because they spray it all at once, including the ceilings and I don't really feel like painting ceilings.  In fact, I know I would probably just opt not to paint because of how annoying that will be.

So, I simply asked that my walls and ceilings be painted the same white as the trim.  Um...hello!  It's a color they are ALREADY USING in my house, why would it be an issue?

For some reason you guys, this is a huge issue.  They said we can upgrade to a 3 tone package but it's 3 tones of tan, still no white.  So my issue had to be taken up the ladder.

Got the call today and they are willing to do a nominal paint upgrade fee to paint the ceilings white but the walls have to be divine white (the lightest tan).  This is it:

I am happy in that now I don't have to worry about me and my husband painting our ceiling and dripping on our very expensive and beautiful hardwood floors...but I'm still annoyed that this color will be in every room.  If it was white, I probably would have opted to just paint accent walls...but this is going to force us to pretty much paint every wall.  Or else I'll just have to add in some room accents that tie in this color and call it good.

What it really comes down to is this: I am paying money to build this house and it's frustrating that I would have to jump through so many hoops to get the walls painted a color that is desirable to me.  It just doesn't make sense.  I am hoping once we get in there, it isn't as tan as it seems and it will work out.

To give you an idea for my style, I found this pic on Pinterest and these are the colors I want in my house:

I guess I just think it would look bad with a tan ceiling LOL!  Maybe I am just overthinking all this.  I'm just ready for the house to start construction and no more changes can be made.

We have been renting for so long now that I just want my new house to be right and not be disappointed about any choice, especially when it was something as simple as paint.

Rite-Rug appointment

We had our flooring appointment and it sure was fun!  But of course we ended up going up in price a bit more to get some of the fancier upgrades.  We keep telling ourselves we went with a smaller house so we could upgrade it more.  And I actually drove an hour away to tour the Florence and it is plenty big for our family of 3 with the occasional guest from time to time.  We are SO EXCITED!!

This is our laundry room tile

This is our hardwood.  It's hand scraped, and it's called Frontier EEL5204  Brushed Tumbleweed

 Master bathroom accent tile SA55 5x8 Random accent strip

 Master bathroom tile SD94 10x14

 Carpet on stairs and upstairs: Collinsville 700 Taupe Stone (level 2), upgraded to level 2 padding (8# I believe)

We currently have the cabinet on the right, Butterscotch glaze.  I saw the Hazelnut glaze online and like it a little better because it's not quite as yellow but I have a feeling they will come back and say they can't substitute it.  Should find out today or tomorrow.  {UPDATE: No on the hazelnut)

This is the paint color and I am not happy with it.  I am fighting to get just plain white.  I like a cooler color palate of grays and blues and this color just will not work with what I have in mind and the biggest issue is they paint EVERYTHING this color, even the ceilings.  I'm trying to save myself the headache of having to repaint.  So far they haven't been overly cooperative with it and I'm supposed to get an answer today.  How hard is it to just paint the walls the same white as the trim?  {UPDATE: It was $1295 to do just our ceilings white, and they will NOT do our walls white.  No thanks.  Guess we will live with it} 

Our lot!

Our cabinet, countertop (Caledonia) and hardwood.  LOVE the contrasts!

Another pic of the bathroom selection.  Espresso cabinet, cultured marble top, tile and accent tile.  

Tomorrow is the pre-construction meeting!!  We can't wait!!  Once we get the paint, and cabinet questions sorted out we are officially done making changes, thank goodness!  It's been stressful trying to decide!

All is a "go"

We received the approval from NVR and our house will start the building process March 25, which is my husband's first day at his new job!  Exciting stuff!

Now if only we didn't have to live in an apartment for 2.5 months while waiting!

We are packing everything up this week and taking the moving truck down this weekend.  We don't plan to even really "move in" to the apartment, just sleep on the mattresses on the floor and live out of boxes.

I'm excited to drive over to the house every day and see it's progress!!

We made a few more changes to the house, we thought about downgrading the appliances to Premier II or IV but after reading up on the VI, we decided to stick with them.  The dishwasher has a compartment to hold detergent so you don't have to put it in with each load!  The microwave is also a toaster and convection oven, you can even bake cookies in it!  And the stove.  Oh, the stove.  It is awesome.  5 burner with a baking drawer too.

We decided to splurge and add hardwood to the rest of the bottom floor.  We tried to take it out of the family room because it was a big expense but overall we knew it would be one of those things we regretted, AND we knew if we wanted to have nice carpet downstairs, we would have to upgrade ALL the carpet upstairs too because otherwise it wouldn't match the stairs.  So, the only real thing we have left to decide is carpet, and I'm hoping we can stick to a more "builder standard" here considering we don't wear shoes in the house and the dog won't be allowed upstairs.

One can dream.

New home!

This is a blog to document our journey of building a Ryan Home in South Carolina where we are relocating in a few weeks!

After looking at many neighborhoods and many model homes, nothing gave us that WOW factor like the Ryan's floorplans and we loved the neighborhood.  We decided on a lot the end of a cul de sac and our view is beautiful trees behind us.

We chose the Florence as our floorplan.  It is the reverse floorplan.  It is about 2100-2200 sq ft with the morning room.

Floorplan options we chose:

-Morning Room with extra windows

-Gourment island

-Granite in kitchen

-upgraded master bath with glass shower

-hardwood in the entire bottom floor

-side fireplace with stone

-Elevation B, siding only

-upgraded appliances to Premier VI

-upgraded to gas stove

-added optional window in master bedroom

-upgraded to tile in both upstairs bathrooms

-upgraded to Maple Butterscotch cabinets in kitchen and Maple Espresso in bathrooms (no hardware)

-upgraded garage door to include windows and hardware (carriage style)

-add chandelier to morning room

-add overhead light in formal living room

-add second coach light to front of garage (elevation comes standard with 1)

Here is our cabinet choice.  Maple Butterscotch with New Caledonia countertops and Woodstock hardwood floor.  (We have since been told there are 2 new options so we may change the hardwood if they have a darker brown color, but so far they only had a cherry which doesn't go with our coloring at all).  UPDATE: We switched to a hand scraped hardwood.  Click here to see our flooring selections.

Another view.  We are choosing to go with the Graphite Gray siding, black shutter and the door is black.

Our fireplace stone.  

This is what our house will look like elevation wise

But with these colors.

(Just got this from the builder, but ours will be the reverse of this.  Also we are adding a second garage light as it seems weird with only one).

The house is set to be finished June 1.  We sent in our NVR package last week so we should get some news on that soon too.

Exciting!!!