CTI and guardian options selected!

Yikes! Today was the day I have been waiting for!!!!! We met with both CTI and Guardian today. Below I will add some of the photos I was able to take (once I remembered to take them after being so overwhelmed with all the options to choose from) and descriptions of each but I plan on creating a separate tab to list our entire selections. Keep in mind the lighting in the photos isn't great, the actual colors may be a shade or two lighter/darker than what is below.

Flooring

Basement level and living room carpet and the large tile above is the foyer and powder room tile

Again the tile above is in the foyer and powder room, the carpet on the left is basement and living room while the carpet on the right is the entire top floor (bedrooms, hall and stairs)

Bath-Owners

Owners bath granite, cabinets, tile surround (the tile closest to the top of the picture) with accent and floor tile (lower tile).

Bath-Hall

Sandstone granite and white timberlake cabinets

Tile surround(top tile) floor (bottom) and accent on the far left, also you see a corner of the carpet which will be in the hall outside the bathroom. These tile selections are just a shade or two lighter than the selections for owners bath

Kitchen

Kitchen granite, cabinet, ceramic tile and adjoining living room carpet selections

Again, counter, cabinet and tile selections

Tan and brown granite with maple glaze hazelnut cabintes

Found a kitchen setup with cabinets very similar in color so we took a picture with our granite choice on top

Floorplan and elevation type

Also here is a link to the floor plan
http://www.ryanhomes.com/file-grab/69cedf99-8fca-4f3b-9ff7-a9464f648011

...and pictures which will give a good idea of our elevation.

Ours is the far right end unit. Unlike this photo all units are brick (obviously different colors). We will have the fiery brown color for shutters and door (looks more red than brown) along with the bump out window and door frame and peak directly above as seen in this picture.

Much ado about nothing

So much has happened and yet so very little has happened since my last posting! Here is the rundown.. Met with NVR  on 22 Apr and submitted our loan application. Everything in that regard was fairly straightforward and now we wait... and wait some more as some unfortunate news regarding our potential delivery time frame has put us back a few months. Originally we were looking at early September and now due to some permitting issues between the county and the developer we are being pushed back to December. Originally we were pretty frustrated, we really wanted to be moved before the holidays and colder winter weather. We may get lucky and find out on the 19th (when the county and developer have their meeting) that they will allow the permits to build our unit, however if it looks like they will hold out, the developer has agreed to put us up in their neighboring apartment complex come September and pay first months rent and half for the remaining months. If it goes that route, things will actually work out pretty well since we will be able to save a fair amount of money in the final months. Either way, it's a relief after getting that disappointing phone call saying we would likely have to wait even longer...

And on a much more fun note from all the above, this Tuesday we have our meeting with both Guardian and CTI! This I have been waiting for! I'll update on our selections Tues night but for now we were actually thinking of switching our granite choices to something darker than the Santa Cecelia. I found this photo on another blog and we both really love how it gives more contrast in color.

Thoughts on design...

Waiting to hear back from CTI to set up an appointment. Hopefully soon but in the meantime I'm about to shut down google with the number of times I've been searching different mozart designs! I've found a few different things that might give a good idea of what we are going with so far...

 We chose the maple glaze cabinets (similar to what is pictured here, just with a distressed look) and santa cecelia granite but may change the granite. I love how this looks but since hubby wants to go with ceramic tile floor I am not sure how the cabinets will look with that. Maybe they have a darker color stone that will contrast enough.

I had to add the picture of this backsplash! I would love do this later on...

We also went with white cabinets and the lighter santa cecelia in the master bath and guest as well, and should look similar to what is pictured above

And finally, we opted for a fireplace in the rec room, although ours will be with the slate surround

SOLD

So... imagine a giant SOLD sticker right across that sign!

It would have been there if it wasn't down pouring and muddy! We plan on going back on a better day and slapping it across that bad boy:) We did get a picture of hubby and I placing the sold sticker on the little map in the office, I'll post it once our SR emails it. Today was the ever exciting (or excruciating depending on how you feel) meeting where we went over the buyers contract and signed the mountain of papers. I am so ready to start picking out carpeting, tiling, and all the rest of the details!

Just getting started...

So I am entirely new to the world of blogging but I have been obsessively looking through the many blogs about building with Ryan homes and decided to document our experience from the very beginning. I have seen so many others sharing great tips, ideas, experiences, and frustrations so I want to get in on the fun!

So here it begins... We live in the DC metro area and have been looking for a home for well over a year now. We started our search all over the place, but mainly looking for a SFH. We have been pretty disappointed so far, never finding something that was right. We happened to find a ryan homes community being built after a day of checking out open houses and after looking at models, pricing, options, and some serious discussion we were sold.. we loved the idea of building a home from the ground up and customizing it to be exactly what we like! Here's the catch.. we decided on a townhome! A few different reasons and cost being one of them. Ryan had recently changed their package options and the starting cost of their smallest model (florence, I think?) began pretty much at the top of our budget. (They had just changed their package options and increased their prices too!) Sooo.. we decided we would start lower and upgrade with the amenities and features we knew we would want to make it perfect for us! I feel way more comfortable with this since the pricing is well within our budget and we have friends doing the same thing although they are building in a different community. Plus a townhome realistically fits our needs right now and if we have to move because of the military in the next few years, although we really hope that doesn't happen, we think it will be easy to rent out.

So we put down a lot hold for an end unit and chose to go with the Mozart model with detached garage! We added a few options straight up, like upgrading to granite countertops in kitchen in bathrooms, stainless steel appliances, ceramic tiling, upgraded cabinets, deck, rough ins for ceiling fans (5 in all), recessed lighting in the rec room and fireplace (we are still debating if we might keep that or not) and roman shower for master bath (that might change as well). This is all preliminary and
tomorrow we meet to draw up the contract and go over everything in much more detail. I can't wait!