Lots of updates! YEA!

We just got the following email from our project manager:

I wanted to give you a brief update on our progress.  This week we installed your drywell, exterior concrete, driveway, resilient flooring, installed your tile in the bathrooms, set your island cabinet, and touched up the paint.  Next week we are going to be installing light fixtures, plumbing fixtures, and finish floors. 

I CAN NOT wait to go see and take pictures tomorrow morning!!!!

Stone and Cabinets!

Our stone is up!   I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE the way the stone turned out!  I also am in love with our shutters and siding against the stone.   YEA!

Here is house with the shutters (almost all) in place.

Here is a close up of the stone so you can see WHY we liked the "winestone" shutters & doors... notice the purple stones mixed in with the other colors!

Now I am starting to visualize my grand-scheme idea of extending the garage roof over to the right in order to create a larger cover for the front door area.  Our thoughts are to create a column with the bottom half covered in the stone... can you "see" it?

Things are going on in the inside as well - it looks like we have some cabinets, counters, banisters, trim, and paint!

Here is the living room and dining room.  The dining room has the ONLY window that faces our too-close neighbors house.  BUT, their house has NO windows that face our window.  YEA!

Here is the "foyer"... or  really just the long hallway that leads to the back of the house.  Notice the banisters are installed!

Here are the kitchen cabinets and counter under cover - we choose Fairfield Maple Spice Timberlake with Butterum Granite Formica.  

Here is our attempt at a photo while lifting the plastic cover... you get the general idea.  They are basically the same color as our old house, but with a simpler design on the front-- which we both REALLY like much more!

Our island is sitting in the family room at the moment... waiting to be installed.

Another look at the banister from the upstairs .. I think it is still going to be stained.

The boys bathroom sink - -ours looks exactly like this so I didn't bother with a photo.

I just had an idea to maybe build or buy a tiny shed/organizer and put it right in this little "nook" for the lawnmower and power washer.  We'd rather keep everything out of the garage because we both did not like how the garage at our old house looked AND the shed we had there is WAY too big for any empty space on the new lot.

We will not be visiting the house for another whole week, so I am excited to see what happens over these next 7 days?????

Siding & Shutters - no stone yet

The stone is not up yet, but the siding and shutters were up -- so here is a photo.  I really like the colors so far -- but I am sure we will like it even more with the stone.

Siding is ISLAND PEARL and shutters are WINESTONE

Right now, the drywall is up but we didn't take any photos because there really isn't much to see except a bunch of white walls.  We will more than likely not go back again until 2 weeks from now, so I have a feeling we will have a TON of photos then (or I hope so!).    

Pre-Drywall DONE and Settlement Set

We had our pre-drywall meeting last Thursday (3/15) and our settlement is set for April 27th!
Prior to the meeting, we verbally requested our air conditioning unit (and any utility units) to be placed on the right side of the house since we have that big open space on the left and would like to make use of the bigger part of our yard without any obstacles (like a big and ugly air conditioner).  We will more than likely never use the yard on the RIGHT side of the house and/or do much landscaping because our neighbor is so close, so we asked if it could be placed on that side.  
When we drove by the house one day, the cables were all sticking out of the wrong side of the house... but our project manger quickly fixed that for us and we were VERY happy to see the cables sticking out of the correct side of the house at the pre-drywall meeting!

Hello cables and such on the RIGHT!

This is the big open space that I keep mentioning -- this shows where our yard stops (the outer black barrier) and the long straight space that is common, but not easily accessible to any lot but ours.

This is the corner of our lot up to the 2nd black barrier (the first one is just a run-off barrier during construction)... it looks like a decent amount of space, but it is deceivingly downhill. :( 

Now we are just on the count-down to settlement and excited to see all the options we choose start to come to life.  This week is drywall, stone & siding, and shutter.  I will hopefully have some great pictures this Saturday when we visit!

Site Plan and neighbors

When we picked our lot, we loved that it backed to preserved land AND we loved that there was open space to one side.  We knew that the house to our right (facing the house lot #328) would be close... but, of course, it is a bit closer than we really want to even think about.  It is just so crazy how they organized that lot and I just hope we will like those neighbors.  :)

Our lot is #329:

In the space just above this text is a flat, open field of grass.  GREAT - almost private -  space for our boys to play!

This shows the open area to the left of our house and that open space down on the side of  the fenced-in storm water pond.  

You can see the foundation on the house to our right -- and how close they are to us.  At least they are building a different model (the Milan) and hopefully it will be a different color too.

Our pre-dry wall meeting is on Thursday, so after that we will be on an official count-down to settlement!  woo hoo!  I am already on an un-official count down considering we are living with the in-laws (although we certainly appreciate them taking us in during all of this!).

Inside Framing Pics & other appliance choices

Russ went to the house yesterday and took TONS of pictures inside.  The framing of the walls makes it much easier to figure out, BUT it is still hard because our layout is flipped from all the plans and model home.  Check it out and hopefully I will get the captions right!

This is standing in the morning room looking through the kitchen, pantry, powder room, dining room , and then living room.

This is the family room -- we didn't get the windows on the side like our last house and we aren't 100% sure if we are happy with that decision... the view on that side of the house is almost all trees...

Standing in the dining room looking into the garage and mud room (not really a room, just a small hallway with a closet at the end)

Standing at the front door looking down the hall all the way to the morning room

Upstairs looking into the loft, laundry room, and side bedroom.

Master bathroom and huge closet beyond the bathroom

We are still a bit worried that our yard is going to by absolutely teeny... but at least there is a common area just next to our yard that we can let the boys run around and play in.

We are starting to make some decisions about stuff to go in the house because Ryan homes doesn't provide a washer/dryer or refrigerator. We *THINK* these are what we are going to go with:


Samsung Counter-Depth French Door Refrigerator Model #: RFG237AABP
I am not a big fan of a fridge hanging out too far into the space of the kitchen.  At our old house, the fridge was next to the wall so it wasn't too obvious that it was hanging out.  In the Rome layout, there is a small section of counter/cabinets that make it a little more of an issue for me.  We already have an extra refrigerator that will be in the garage (to fit all my diet cokes - ha ha), so I think I am willing to give up some cubic feet in our main fridge so it comes out to just the counter depth.  In the model, they had a HUGE fridge that just looked silly to me - hanging out into the kitchen by about 8 inches, so that sealed the deal that I wanted to search for counter depth instead.

Washer/Dryer:

At our old house, we had an upstairs laundry room -- but it was supposed to be a closet that was converted into a laundry room (by Ryan Homes - an option).  We got an HE front-loader washer and dryer and I was never able to use anything but the LOW spin setting because even that would shake the house like crazy.  From that experience (and the discovery of that mildew problem), I have decided to not get front-loaders.  

So we are going with the following:

LG 4.3 cu. ft. Large Capacity Top Load Washer Model #WT4801CW

LG 7.1 cu. ft. Large Capacity Electric Dryer Model #DLE4801W

And we are also getting an additional freezer for the garage - I just would rather have a separate freezer so we don't have any issues with stuff piled on top of stuff in that bottom freezer. :)

Danby 16.0 cu. ft. Upright Freezer Model #DUFM454WDB 

Now we just wait to see how things progress.  Russ asked the PM to add some wood into the framing in various places so he can eventually hang things without being confined to where there is a stud.  He plans to take much more detailed photos than the ones in this post so that he can use them for future house projects and KNOW where load-bearing walls and studs can be found.  :)

Some things on our current list of thoughts are:

1)  Will we be able to put a pull-out trash container in one of the cabinets?

2)  Will we be able to find some way to make use of the extra space on either side of the fridge?

3)  Are we going to have any decent yard behind our house... or will it be straight down... possibly even worse than our old house.

4)  Where will we put the dog cages?

5)  What will we do to organize the "study" -- the boys call it the "computer room"?

6)  How will we set up shelves in the garage... there is apparently a pretty large ledge that sticks out on the side where the stairs are (the only space for shelves)?

7)  Will our color choices look OK?????????  I hope so.

Shingles!

Our project manager sent this photo yesterday so I assume they will be putting on the shingles today.  Yea!  Hopefully the rain we had yesterday didn't ruin anything -- Russ is going today at lunch to check it out.