blog update

I am leaving town on Tuesday for a fun-filled 2 week visit to see my family, with my son.

I decided to take down a bunch of posts regarding the very confusing previous weeks regarding everything going on with the SR and NVR and our VA loan.  At this point, everything was sorted out and is chalked up to the VA's new procedures for 2013 so there is no one to blame.  We are still waiting on the VA appraisal to come back, and I'm really hoping it's this week.  Tomorrow will be 14 days, (they have 19 days as a guideline).

At this point, what has been frustrating over the past two weeks, turns out to simply be something no one can control so I don't see the point of leaving those posts up when they do nothing but express frustration with the process.

We are peaceful and happy and just waiting on our VA appraisal to come back so we can get a start date.

I should stop asking questions.

Checked in with my loan officer because I had a bad feeling that the VA's "19 days" could only mean business days.

She wrote back and said no, it's 19 days total, HOWEVER it is only a guideline...and they are not bound for the 19 days...they just TRY to get it done by 19 days.

And after the debacle with the SR yesterday, at the end of our convo she said she would still check with the sales manager to see if there was anything they could do about the kitchen enhancement package and get me an answer by last night, even though I told her the answer was probably no and I was moving on from it, she still said she would fight for me and try to figure something out and get back with me last night.

I should not be surprised that I did not receive an email, phone call or text regarding this matter.  {update: I just texted her about it, and it was a no}

I am moving on.

For those who asked, the kitchen enhancement package was a measly $295 package that installs a wastebasket in one of the cabinets on a slider so you can pull it out.  It also includes under the sink pulls, it turns those fake cabinet pieces into a place that pulls forward and it holds sponges.

Since we spent probably $15,000 in upgrades on our kitchen to make it a "dream kitchen" we figured that would be one more thing to fancy it up and one less thing we would have to do later.  We fully knew this probably cost nothing to do ourselves and had let it go, until it became her mistake for not adding it and then telling us we could have it for free.

Then it became a matter of...you said we could have it for free, so where is the change order that we sign for the credit?

Which turned into 2 weeks of "I'll get it to you later today...tomorrow...this week"

Which turned into her saying she never told us we'd get it for free.  And since it was never in writing, guess who loses out?  Us.

So there's that.

So as of now, her and I have no more business, that was the one thing that was being strung out, waiting on her...but we are letting it go because we are not adding that small amount onto our mortgage after the fact.

The only thing at this time is the VA appraisal, and waiting for that to come back and praying the house appraises for what we pay or else that causes more delays.

The thing that sucks is there was a beautiful house for sale in our community that we inquired on when we first found this neighborhood but it was under contract. Well it fell through and it's back on the market...

Now that we have made all our selections, and floor plan we don't want that one but still!  Had it been available we probably would have bought it, moved in and would be enjoying our new neighborhood and amenities!  ugh!

I'm going out of town with my son for 2 weeks to go visit my family and I'm really hoping that gets my mind off of all this, actually I know it will.  I will be back May 15 and I really believe everything will be started by then.   Then I can actually get back to enjoying this process and out of this phase which is literally the worst part of this whole thing.  But I keep thinking of my beautiful lot, my beautiful house and I know this will ALL be worth it!

landscaping package

Still no response from the SR regarding the things in my last post.  I'm sure I'll get the whole "the weekends are the busiest" and whatever excuse, but likely I will have to remind her this week.  Is it so terrible to want answers?  I have stopped in the model several times in the past few weeks as I have had errands to run over there, and we stop in to say hi, and my son loves her.  We have only had to wait to talk to her once, all the other times, we are the only ones there.  I feel like I'm giving her such a bad rap but then again, it is undeniable the communication issue that lies there.  She is very sweet and I enjoy visiting with her.  I do not enjoy being on the other end of an email for days on end.

I had been curious as to what we would get as far as landscaping.  I was told at the pre-construction meeting we would get a "starter package" which included some shrubs, a tree at the side of the house, a tree in the front of the house and sod on our entire lot.  I asked if we had a choice regarding the tree in the front.  I really love River Birch trees and I noticed a nearby Ryan Homes development had them in the front yard.  Of course I was told no, and we would get a red maple.  I think we will probably move it to the back right after we move in, and plant something else in the front.

I took a picture of my neighbor's landscaping.  This house has been finished for weeks and for whatever reason it has not closed escrow yet... I think there is something fishy going on there, like they are trying to pull out or something.

Talk about a totally basic package.  I do love the crepe myrtle side tree though.  I'm told RH gives a local landscaper the authority to pick 1 of 4 trees for the front yard pick, the one he feels is healthiest and most appealing.  But so far the only tree I see them putting in the front yard is the red maple.

We will have one of these on each side of the garage.

 They landscape a big around the corner of the garage to the front door.

 My other neighbor.  I just love the colors she has picked for her elevation.

 I noticed this on the ground near the tankless water heater.  Not sure what it is?

 Looks like they mulch around the air conditioner.

 A spigot on each side of the house.

The same neighbor's kitchen.  They went with the same cabinets (but didn't add the crown moulding to the tops of the cabinets), and they went with Santa Cecilia granite which has gold and yellow tones (we chose New Caledonia which is gray toned).  They also have the same flooring as us, those beautiful dark hardwoods!  They had a different appliance package too.  They chose to leave off the cabinet hardware as well, and let me tell you it is very hard to open those cabinets without hardware!  We both laughed when we tried to open a drawer, we had to open the cabinet by the bottom just to open the drawer because those cabinets fit together so tight! Guess we are going to have to make that one of our first projects, and she said they did too!  They are such beautiful heavy duty cabinets.

Also if you look at the wall color, that is "divine white", the same color we are getting.  It doesn't look yellow or tan (what we didn't want), but it is not quite white.  It will be fine, we aren't worried about it.  

Elevations

I really could not believe how expensive the elevations were.  We had a target amount we wanted to spend and while I would have really liked some stone on the house, it just didn't matter as much to me as the interior of the house.

Here is Elevation B on the left (what we are getting, minus stone), Elevation A in the top right (no roof peaks), and Elevation C in the bottom right.  We got a free upgrade for Elevation B, siding which was an $1800 elevation.  I think the only way to have gone cheaper would have been to go with elevation A, but I really liked the roof peak, and covered porch on B and so we kept it.

I know certain communities have certain looks to them, that likely require certain elevations.  Our community did not, and since we are the very first Florence in our entire neighborhood, we didn't have to select anything based on anyone else's choices.  

Here are some of the other elevations which are adorable but not budget friendly:

Ours will look identical to this...black and white made it look the closest to the gray and black shutters.  Our door will also be black, and this house is not quite finished so it lacks the lights and post.  I quickly added a carriage style garage door that we upgraded to in Paint.  I think that the garage door gives it a bit more character than the plain, no windows garage door did, and I think it was worth the upgrade.

I am hoping by adding some planter boxes to the bottom two windows in the front will give it a bit more charm.  I really like it and I think it will have a simplistic, classic look with the colors we have chosen.

We have a spy!

My neighbor across the way just moved in, and she is my new spy!!  She just texted me these pics!

We have a tarp!!

It looks like they have put up a tarp and started with some prep work.  The PM told me they would be doing this, which was all they could do without the official green light.

Come on VA appraisal!

We were told even if it takes the full 19 days, we will close July 1 as long as the weather cooperates.  So, that's only a one month difference from our original date...not too bad.  And hopefully the VA won't take the full 19 days and we can close in June!

choosing our cabinets and some future designing

I'm bored and twiddling my thumbs at this process...and want to write a post about the cabinet choices we debated on.

Here is an image I found of the base cabinet.  They are called Fairfield Maple Spice.  I was completely content to go with these and we upgraded our cabinets later on after we saw some other options (and looked on Pinterest at different kitchens).  I really like the color of these though.  I think the reason the prices get higher, is because with the standard option, it has a veneer middle panel instead of being solid, plus the door size is smaller leaving a gap in between the cabinets.  The gap gets smaller the higher up in cabinet you go, and in the top cabinet (maple butterscotch), there is virtually no gap at all.

There were a few other options that we didn't really consider but were still nice cabinets...I am not sure of the names off the top of my head but they were Cherry which is not my preference.

The only two upgrades that we went back and forth on were the Maple Espresso and the Maple Butterscotch.

Ideally...what we would have LOVED and paid for (but they wouldn't do) was a two tone package like this (because they would have been two different cabinets from two different packages and wouldn't have gone together as far as the quality...which I understand)

In the end we decided on the higher end Maple Butterscotch cabinets because we are doing dark wood flooring and thought the Espresso would just make it all too dark.  We also opted in no cabinet hardware, they only had the options of the knob and we really want some kind of handle, like this one from Ikea

And a backsplash like this...maybe a light blue or even just a white glass

That just left our bathroom choices.  Initially, I really wanted granite in the upstairs bathrooms, but the Maple Butterscotch downstairs cramped the budget upstairs and so we left the standard cultured marble tops, which are white).  Since we loved the Maple Espresso, we thought they would look great in the bathrooms and add some contrast to those white tops.  We also chose to leave off the cabinet hardware and will likely use something similar to the handles in the kitchen.

It should look something like this.

We even thought about doing granite in the master and leaving the Maple spice and cultured marble in the secondary upstairs bathroom, but ultimately decided we didn't want 3 different cabinet choices in the home, and we should keep the upstairs uniform.

One thing I plan to do, to add some depth and "designer style" to the house is this:

I think it looks really neat to paint the doors black (or espresso).  I plan to do it downstairs too, as well as our pantry door in the kitchen.

Here is an image of our kitchen looking at the pantry and the angled wall that is empty.  On the very right, the opening goes into the laundry/mud room.

I'd love to put a cabinet like this (to add to that two tone look) on our angled wall and make it our coffee bar like this.  I love this idea!  One thing is...I don't think there is an outlet on that wall... (Anyone with a Florence want to let me know if there is?)  The only other thing I thought to put there was a command center wall like this:

But I do have a wall in our formal living room/office that I may use for this, or may choose to do this in our laundry room/mud room area instead.  We have a little nook area across from the washer dryer that I thought something like this may look cute:

However our nook is WAY smaller and I am sure we won't do cabinets!  I was thinking of doing a low shelf that the dog crate and food bowls would be at the bottom, and then a few shelfs for shoes and a drop spot for my husband's gym bag, then a few hooks for my purse, my son's school stuff/backpack, and then on the left wall doing a big command center so we can see when we come in/go out.  I think the mud room is a great place for the command center because it can be an eye sore if it's not kept organized, and I'm not sure I'd want it in my kitchen.

One other thing I know I definitely want to do:

Behind our front door, this looks so beautiful!

And I am pretty sure I am going to repaint my front door (it will be black) to something like this beautiful blue.  I just think it would be so beautiful with the gray siding and black shutter with white trim.

And this picture has me thinking I may even choose to paint the back of it too:

With a beautiful wreath on the front (I want to make something like this, maybe with our initial instead)!

And if you've made it this far in this picture heavy, super long blog post...

here is a cute free printable I found!  Love the colors!

Click here for Free Printables

Is your Pinterest board exploding like mine???  I do have to say I am so glad Pinterest exists though, it really helps the non-designer design!!  

Even more delay

My loan officer called yesterday. Turns out RH spent all week scrambling to gather a list of things needed for the VA appraisal before it could be ordered. The SR had wrong information again.

We have to drop off a check Monday and the appraisal will go out Monday.

Here's the fun part...the VA has 19 days to do the appraisal.

So...yeah. I knew going with the VA would have hiccups but whatever. I am now looking at the bright side...more $ to save up for new furniture for my house.

And I am praying we close by the latest, mid-August when my son starts preschool.

I guess the VA changed things for 2013 which is why there is so much confusion and back and forth...no one had dealt with the VA yet on these new procedures. Lucky us to be the first and throw everyone off kilter!

The only other option is to go FHA which we don't want to do because we would lose our 3.5% down payment to the mortgage which we want back to furnish the house.

Blah.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Let's talk appliances!

When choosing our home selections, we knew we wanted our kitchen to be nicely upgraded as we have never had a nice, big kitchen before and it's an area we always wished we had.

One of our first upgrades was our appliances.  We went all the way to the top with Premier VI  (the choices are II, IV and VI).  When struggling with other options, we looked at Premier IV but after looking at how awesome the VI were, we knew we didn't want to give them up.

I really wanted a wall oven, but it wasn't offered in my model, so the next best thing was a double oven range.  Premier II did not have it, so it was out of the running.  I noticed some people get the bottom of the line and then sell them and buy nicer ones, but I just knew that was too big of a pain for us and didn't want to do that.

Premier IV and VI have the same oven.  (We did pay a small upgrade fee to get a gas stove)

GE Model# PGB930SETSS

We LOOOOVE this range.  It has 5 burners, and the center one is an oval so you can cook on a griddle (comes with it) right on top.  The bottom is actually a baking drawer so you can cook two things at once.  One of the other things I love is that the screen is glass touch, which will make it easy to clean.

So, we knew with either IV or VI we would be getting this stove, score!!  The dishwasher was the same with Premier II and Premier IV, but was upgraded with Premier VI.  

The dishwasher:

GE#PDWT380VSS

I love that the front is clean and sleek.  The buttons are on the top, but you can only see them when you open it.  One of my favorite features is you load an entire bottle of detergent in there, and it uses it.  Once it gets low it gives you a warning light.  All the jets and stuff are cool too but the detergent thing is extra cool to me.

While the dishwasher was cool, the main thing that swayed us to Premier VI is the microwave.  It is an oven in and of itself!  

GE#PSA1201RSS

 I love the glass panel display, easy clean!  It cooks in all these ways: 

Speedcook, Microwave, Convection, Bake, Broil, Warm, Proof, Toast

I thought this was so cool!  Instead of waiting to heat up a big oven, I can cook cookies in the microwave!  Or I can cook my son some chicken nuggets for lunch and they will be all nice and crispy (instead of soggy in a regular microwave!), and I won't have to use my big oven.  It seemed perfect for lots of different things in my daily life!

Looking up

I stopped in the neighborhood today and was able to see the Project Manager's truck parked so I stopped in to see him for a minute.  It just so happens that the house he was parked in front of, closes escrow tomorrow, and it has the countertops we are getting so I was excited to see them in person!

It looked SO GOOD!  I didn't take a pic because they went with a different cabinet choice so it wouldn't look like what ours will look like but I just seriously love the color so much.

I was able to get some clarification on the start date.  Ryan Homes sends for a VA appraisal before the house is started, to assure that the house will appraise for the full value at closing.  That is the only hangup at this point and after talking to the SR, she said that should come in this week, and hopefully tomorrow we will get the good news that we will hit the ground running next week!  I'm realllllllly hoping that this is true because every week longer, is another week wasted!!  I really want to be in my home, in that town.  Right now we are 20 min away in a small town, in a small apartment 2 floors up with a kid and a dog and trust me...it's not all that exciting.