Final Selections

Today we chose the locations for our hosebibs and spotlights. We also looked into getting a rough-in for drainage and a waterline for a sink for a future wet-bar in our basement. It ended being too expensive so we decided not to get it. A bar without a sink it will be! We are ok with that though because our kitchen is at the top of the basement stairs. Not too far to travel if we need a sink. We also have a powder room in our basement with a sink. We weren't dead-set on a location for the bar so now we can always decide that later.

We decided to have them "delete" the shelving in the laundry room. I want to be able to put in cabinets instead. I got that idea from another blogger! He said that they use drywall anchors and it is pretty difficult to remove on your own. I don't want to have to patch any walls! More on the laundry room later.....

We chose our brick, siding, shutters, and door colors. We originally picked a different siding color, but we weren't able to get the color shutters and door that we wanted with it so we changed it. I'm glad we did. I like the color we ended up with the best.

Brick = Virginia Vintage Tudor
Siding = Georgian Gray
Shutters = Black
Door = Black
Trim = White

Now that all of our selections are locked-in, we are ready to just sit back and wait for them to finish building our house! Can't wait! Our tentative date for breaking ground is May 9th. I thought she originally said April 25th. Doesn't matter either way I guess. The "delivery" date is still the same.

Advice for people making their exterior decisions: Drive around and look at what your neighbors have. The brick samples look nothing like they look on an actual house. Some of the samples I consider to be ugly actually look really great on a house. It's hard to look at something so small and try to imagine it on a house.

The Details

We are building the Yorkshire! After looking at several different neighborhoods and pretty much every Ryan Home model, we decided that the Yorkshire has the best floor plan for us. The neighborhood we chose also has the biggest lots (1/2 acre!) than all the others. When we visited, there were only four lots left and we only really wanted one of them. It has neighbors on each side but there will never be any behind us! There is a line of trees at the back of our lot and then a non-busy road. This was very important in making our selection. I know that I will never have to worry about looking out my back windows and staring at someone else's house. Our view is beautiful!

Each Ryan home had something about it that we loved but none of them really had EVERYTHING. The Yorkshire is the closest! There were two things I had to give up: #1 was a second floor laundry room (it is on the first floor). #2 I wanted a two-story great room but I can settle with a two-story foyer instead. The media room in the basement isn't really as big as my husband was hoping for. We aren't going to have that part finished, so that we can finish it ourselves and extend it more into the storage area.  We really wanted a 3-car side-entry garage as well but our house is very wide and the lot isn't wide enough for either.

Here's the house! Ours will have a front garage instead of the one on the side. There's no actual model in our area. We did get to walk-through one under construction though.

FIRST FLOOR

SECOND FLOOR

BASEMENT

What We Got

First Floor
2-Car garage, facing front
Service door in garage on the back wall
Garage door opener
4' Extension in family room
9' Ceilings
Stone fireplace (Buff) with two "eyeball" lights above
Optional window on back wall of family room
Morning Room - my favorite room in the house!
Recessed lights in kitchen
Gourmet Island
Granite countertops (Brazil Black)
Gas cook-top
Stainless steel appliances (no fridge)
42" Wyoming square cherry spice cabinets
Upgraded pull-out faucet
Double wall oven
Crown molding, tray ceiling, chair rail, and cased door openings in dining room
Crown molding in study and foyer
Study with 15-light french doors
Hardwood floors in kitchen, morning room, foyer, and powder room
Carpet in study, formal dining room, and family room with upgraded padding
Ceiling fan rough-ins in morning room and family room
Upgraded toilet to be taller

Second Floor
4 bedrooms, 2 baths, open foyer
Crown molding in foyer and second floor hall
Luxury Owners suite - comes with double doors & with 2 walk-in closets!!
Tray ceiling in master
Luxury owner's bath w/double doors, soaking tub, separate room for toilet, & double vanity
Ceiling fan rough-ins in all 4 bedrooms
Upgraded toilets to be taller
Carpet with upgraded padding

Basement
Finished with recessed lights
Powder room with upgraded taller toilet
Carpet with upgraded padding

 Stone for fireplace - looks better in person!

Wide-plank Oak Saddle Hardwoods and stair railing
(Foyer, powder room, kitchen, & morning room)

 Bathroom floor, cabinet, & countertop

This floor will also be in the laundry room

 Dark carpet for basement, light for everywhere else there is carpet

 We were having a hard time choosing between the left & right options for the kitchen. We went with the right!

Wide-plank oak saddle hardwoods

Brazil black granite

Wyoming square cherry spice cabinets

Everything all together!

We have an appointment next week to pick out the brick for the front of the house and the siding for the rest of it. I haven't put much thought into what I am going to choose yet but I really love the colors in this brochure:

Guardian
We got the networking package. We also had the home audio speakers installed. One in the great room, one in the kitchen, and two on the second floor. We are very excited about this! We love to listen to music while we clean. We got the security system that also monitors smoke and CO2 detecters. It comes with a motion detector in the main area and censors on all exterior doors. We also added some window censors. We upgraded the security system so that we can turn it on and off from an app on our iPhones!


Current House
My husband and I currently own our condo. We plan on renting it out once we move into our new home this summer. Fortunately, the mortgage is low enough for us to be able to afford both. That means less stress when it comes to moving time. We also want to fix this place up a little bit before we start showing it to potential renters. It will be a lot easier to replace the carpets once we are out! We are going to use a property management company. It just seems like the best way to take some of the stress away from ourselves. Has anyone else had success with using a property management company?

Well, that was A LOT for one post! Let me know what you think!