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Quick Update & A Few Pictures

When I went to see to the community back in the begining of June our street looked like this

So my assumption was that when I came back in mid July there would be a road there!

...Not the case.  In fact the street still looks exactly like this. Apparently, it's been raining like everyday so they haven't been able to pave the road which is putting us slightly behind schedule.  Initially we were told construction would start mid to late August.  Now its the begining of September. Hope the ran stops so we can start making some progress.

Other news...I found a picture of our actual kitchen cabinets on another blog.  Ryan just started offering these cabinets and I hadn't seen a picture of them in an actual Ryan home until now. The same blog also had a picture of the exact combination we chose for out bathroom.  I feel much better having seen them now. I like them a lot!

Houzz.Com

Bored...thought I'd write another post.  Another new obsession: http://www.houzz.com/.  I think I have read every Ryan blog known to man and stalked every possible picture of my kitchen cabinets soooo now it's time to stalk furniture and decorations!!!!!!!!!!! Love houzz. Not sure how I didn't know this existed prior. If anyone has not been on this website..you can pretty much search any design idea and it will bring up thousands of pictures to look at and get ideas from.  Perfect way to waste hours of your life.

But since this is a Ryan Homes blog it always comes back to Ryan.  I haven't heard much from my SR.  I've sent her a few emails but she says she doesn't get them.  I believe we are supposed to start building next month so I hope she will be more responsive once things get started. So far she has not impressed me....and also she calls me "hun" and I believe we are pretty close in age. Can't stand that...

Obsessed w/ Ryan Home Blog Spots

When I was pregnant I watched every single baby show known to man and now that we are building a house I'm obsessed with Ryan Home blogs. Seriously getting out of hand.  I'm getting my MBA online and I also do most of my work for my job on a computer....but lately whenever I even touch a computer before I know it I'm on a Ryan Home blog spot.  I actually hide my screen from my husband because I'm tired of his judging eyes. He thinks I have a problem.  He's probably right.

The bad thing (besides not getting any work done for school or my job) is everytime I see someone elses house/kitchen/etc I'm look ooo that looks nice. Why didnt I do that??? ...Maybe I should submit a change request. And I have yet to see a kitchen like mine that I have really loved. It's driving me crazy. Like most first time home owners I just want everything to be perfect. 

That said, this is our starter house and we are purchasing it primarily as an investment.  5 years from now we plan to move into our forever home. My husband picked out a lot of things in the home we have being built (kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinets, and a lot of upgrades).  The next house is all mine <evil laugh>

Our Design Choices

We chose the Lausanne Square Maple Espresso Timberlake Cabinets for the Kitchen and the bathrooms, the Luna Pearl granite and the Rural Living Deep Java 5" throughout the main floor.  We told the sales rep at purchase we wanted engineered hardwoods on the main floor. She put them in as laminate and assured us that was the same thing in their system.  BUT when we got to the design center they told us that was incorrect and so we had to pay an additonal $1600 to upgrade to the hardwoods we thought we already had.

 

Bathrooms - Square Maple Espresso, Upgraded laminate flooring and santa cecilia granite.  This granite was just a substitute.  CTI didnt have the actual santa cecilia which is less grey and more marble looking.

 

Our carpet choices for the basement (left) and the 3rd floor (right). Main floor hardwoods in the middle.   We went with the highest upgrade berber  in Frosty Taupe for the basement because we figured we will be spending a lot of time down there.  3rd floor carpet was D level (Favorite Choice Gallery). I really wanted it to be stain resistant or else we could have gone down a level. 

 

Laminate for entrance next to downstairs berber.  Laminate is called Station Square.

 

We are very excited to see how this all comes together. Our Pre-contruction meeting is in August so we still have another month or so before anything happens really but they are starting on our actual street now so soon we will be able to see our lot.  In the meantime I guess we can just wait and pray the interest rates don't keep going up...

Model Home

Here's some pictures of the Model.  Our house will be set up just like this one with a Bay Window on the side of the living room.

Catch Up - Loan Pre Approval

So when we were signing the purchase agreement the sales rep told us that by putting a minimum of  5% down we could avoid mortgage insurance with a conventional 30 year loan. This was a big deal to us because the MI was like $350 a month.    However, a few days later a NVR loan officer contacted me and let me know that if the MI was waived the interest rate would go up from like 3.75% to 4 something.  I was more than a little annoyed by this.  I don't want to assume we were purposely mislead but I did have an uneasy feeling about it.  From that point forward I've had a bad feeling about NVR.  And then when I went online I saw so many bad reviews for NVR, it just confirmed my feelings.  NVR was offering $10K towards closing  but my husband and I decided to go with our bank because we just feel more comfortable working with them. Hopefully it works out for us : )