We have a street sign!!

This actually happened nearly 2 weeks ago, but we have been busy worrying about mortgage stuff and life in general, so not much updating or anything has been happening here.
The whole mortgage thing, that will eventually get explained.  I don't wanna jinx anything for now.

But, a couple of weeks ago, we went out to see our SR, Shelli.  We pretty much just like to visit her whenever we can because she is so amazing and nice and friendly, plus we had a paper that we hadn't signed that she needed.

We scheduled a quick meeting with her today, too, for some concerns we had.  I feel a MILLION times better after talking with her and can't wait to just have everything squared away.  She also said that we SHOULD have an address by Tuesday next week!! It's super funny how excited that makes me.

Anyways, when we had visited 2 weeks ago, I noticed that we had a street sign!

I'm tellin' y'all.... it's the little things!!

And other than that, nothing too exciting except dealing with this wonderful mortgage company. But that is gonna be a post by itself, and I don't want to jinx it!

So, happy 2 week birthday, street sign. You're adorable and I like you lots :-)

Meetings-- Guardian

Let me preface this by saying I know absolutely NOTHING about low-voltage wiring, or anything about what this whole appointment was about.

But, thanks to this little world of blogging, I was able to at least somewhat educate myself as to what to expect for this meeting.  And because of that, it was painless, we got right down to the point, got what we wanted, and left spending very minimal amounts of money.

Things we don't need:
Surround sound.  The way technology is now-a-days, I am perfectly content eventually getting a sound bar or something like that for "surround sound".  I have no desire to have speakers throughout the house.

Central vac.  We have shelties.  Tiny, furry shelties. You've seen their cute faces if you've read any of the blog.  Well, those tiny furry shelties shed.  A LOT.  We got the sch-peal about the central vac, but didn't even inquire about pricing.  It wasn't for us.  Neat, but not for us.

TV prewiring. We don't plan on hanging any TVs. Don't like the look of it.  I must prefer an entertainment center with the TV sitting on it.

With that being said... what did we get??
5 cable outlets-- one for each room, the basement plus one in the family room.
We opted for the alarm system as well.  We originally weren't. Figured we didn't need it, but we really really liked some of the features. Especially the whole being able to control it from your phone deal.
So, with the alarm system, we get 1 control panel, 4 door contacts {for each door}, glassbreak sensors on the windows in the morning room {most vulnerable area in the house}, and some type of fancy smoke detector.

And that's it! We walked outta there spending a whopping $350.  We will have the option for cable in each room, and a security system.
That's it.

Easy peasy.

Meetings-- Rite Rug

We did all of the meetings that were required of us right after signing the purchase agreement on the same day.

Now, we were exhausted because we had just driven over 14 hours from Florida the night before.  It was the end of the holidays, we had to get ready to go back to work too, but we knew these meetings had to get done.  So, on December 30th, we scheduled our meetings with Guardian, Rite Rug and NVR Mortgage {We were told that we had to schedule these meetings within 2 weeks of signing our Purchase Agreement}.

It helped that they were all in the same city {and even better that it's the city we currently live in}... but I also had done my research through blog reading and the good ole Google machine.... so I kind of knew what we were getting into.

Our first meeting was with Rite Rug.

I was definitely most excited about this meeting.  We were finally going to be able to see and pick out flooring for our ENTIRE home.  I know I've already written and shown you our choices for these, but I wanted to kind of summarize our experience with Rite Rug.

I wasn't happy with our sales rep.
I might have read a blog or two too many about how awesome people's appointments had gone, and how overwhelmed they were.  I read about how great their sales reps were with showing them so many different products and options.

Even being pretty tired from our travels, I was quite excited to be heading to this appointment.

What we got was NOT a great sales rep, and I wasn't overwhelmed.

I do believe we made awesome selections, but we weren't shown ANYTHING.... We had to pull samples and look at everything pretty much by ourselves.  And I felt like the sales rep was just kind of a babysitter to make sure we didn't destroy her showroom.

Let me explain:

We arrived at Rite Rug a bit early {we are all about that being punctual business, and normally arrive REALLY early most places we go}, but they were open, and our sales rep, Stephanie was ready for us.

We get back to the back of the building, and she has all of our information handy and ready to go.  She pretty much just let us go to it.  We had a bit of small talk in the beginning, letting her know of our travels and such, so she knew we were a bit exhausted.  We explained the layout of the home, and what we were interested in for each room, and then we started choosing.  I am not sure if the trip and being exhausted part played into the way she handled us or not.....

She said it was easiest to start the choices by picking out your hardwood/resilient areas.  She asked if we knew what we were choosing for our cabinets and countertops.  I told her that we had the cabinets picked out as the Maple Espresso, and we were in between 2 granite choices, Caledonia and Luna Pearl.  She was unsure that Luna Pearl was an option for our Ryan Home.  We assured her that it was, as our SR absolutely loved this granite, and it was even installed in the home that we were able to go visit in the neighborhood that had JUST finished being built.

With that being said, she went and grabbed the sample of Luna Pearl that they had.  We were pretty sure (like 98% sure) that we were going with this particular granite, so we moved ahead with that as our decision.
We explained that we WANTED hard wood in our kitchen area, so she pointed to where those were at and let us choose.  I picked up a few samples that stuck out to me, set them over with our samples of cabinet color and granite, and we chose.
"That looks nice", "Those go great together" were about the only comments we could get out of her.

But, we moved on.  And this was pretty much how our appointment went.  She showed us one or two samples of carpet, explained why she liked the one, and that was about it.  We talked through why we liked one over the other for carpet, and she just nodded and agreed with us that it was a "great" idea, etc.

I felt like I wasn't being SOLD anything.
And maybe that was a good thing?? I know we did go in pretty much KNOWING what we wanted for our flooring choices.  We even had an idea of how much it was going to cost to upgrade things, thanks to our awesome Ryan Homes SR.

All in all though, if this is a "review" of our Rite Rug experience, I was less than impressed.  I wanted you to sling carpets and flooring choices at me left and right. Not just show me one or two.

Are we happy with what we chose? You're damn right we are.  I haven't had ONE doubt about what we chose and I love each and everything that we picked out.

We spent more than anticipated, but that is mainly because we hadn't considered the fact that we were most likely upgrading the carpeting in all of Zone 2, as well as the basement, and we weren't given a "heads up" as to how much that was all gonna cost.

The ONE thing that shocked me was that we had to pay EXTRA for ceramic tile in the master bath.  The flooring, I get that part. But not for the upgraded shower and tub that we already spent so much money on to upgrade.  I think I mentioned this previously.  To make your bathroom look halfway pretty and not standard, you have to pay even more for that than you are already paying.
But- I plan to use this tub a LOT and I want it to be pretty, so we did choose to upgrade all the tile in the master bath.

Wanna see our selections?? I've included a page at the top of the blog where you can click to see em there, or head on over to our  "Selections" post to read all about them and see what we picked!!!

Selections

So, as I've said.... I have been playing catch up since we signed and decided to build a house with writing this blog.
We signed our purchase agreement on December 19th.  We were told then that we had 2 weeks to get to appointments with NVR, Rite Rug and Guardian.
Let me tell you how much I panicked.  We had planned a trip to Florida to visit my family. We hadn't been down there in a few years, and I was super excited to be spending Christmas with them.
Not to mention, we had planned a day at Disney.
Our SR, Shelli, assured us that we had plenty of time, especially since it was around the holidays anyways.  We got all of our meetings scheduled.  We had already planned to head back a day early from Florida {we were driving that 14 hours, with the dogs in tow}, so we scheduled all 3 of our appointments for that day we got back... December 30th.

Before I talk about those appointments-- let's take a second to admire Disney.

I won't lie-- I teared up when they lit the castle up like this.
And yes. That IS Olaf on stage.

Okay. Now on to our home selections...

We made all 3 of our appointments the same day, as I said... I'll write about the experiences of each of those in a separate post- just so you all can know how our experiences were with each of those.

But, let's show off these selections...


First up...
Our hardwood flooring and carpet choices.

Both of these are upgrades from what comes standard in the home.  We pretty much took one look {and feel} at the standard stuff and said nope.  We knew we wanted something different for the carpet.  And we had definitely already discussed that we wanted hardwood in all of the "resilient" areas, so it was just a matter of choosing which one we wanted.

We had pretty much narrowed down the cabinet and granite choices, so it was just finding stuff that went well together and matched the rest of our home.

So, here they are!  The hard wood is called "Dundee Strip Saddle" and is 2 1/4" wide.  The carpet is called "Sand Swept" by Simple Touch. It's a good mixture of beiges and browns that will provide a neutral color throughout the house, but I also like it because it will help hide any "accidents" that might happen with the littles {cuz let's face it.... everyone, even dogs, will have an accident}.

The hardwood will be in all of the resilient areas downstairs... this includes the kitchen, morning room, foyer, family entry and powder room.
The carpet will be in pretty much every other area.  Living Room, Family Room, Formal Dining Room, all upstairs bedrooms, stairs, loft and basement.

Here is a photo of the cabinets we chose for the kitchen {Maple Espresso}, along with our granite choice {Luna Pearl} along with our hard wood floor choice.  I think they look great together!!

And, here's EVERYTHING together.  Cabinet and granite for the kitchen, hard wood, carpet and our handrail color for the stairs {which is called Dark Oak}.  And if you can't remember, we chose the upgrade of having the white balusters with the wood handrails.

We did choose something a little "less" for the upstairs bathroom and the laundry room "resilient" areas. We DID upgrade them though, to a vinyl.

This vinyl is called Station Square.  This photo is of the vinyl sample along with a sample of the Fairfield Honey cabinets {which is the standard color that comes with the home} .  We kept the standard colored cabinets in the upstairs bathroom, as well as the cultured white marble countertops that are included.  I figured it wasn't worth the upgrade price, and I can always stain them myself later {which I totally plan to do, AND have it pinned on my Pinterest as a project to tackle}.

And now for the master bathroom.  We upgraded to have the giant soaking tub and the glass surround shower.  It was a must-have with our home.  I have read many RH blogs and seen many upgraded bathrooms, and just adored every one with this upgraded option.  I have loved all the tile that people picked and couldn't WAIT for my turn to pick something out.
I was a little taken back when I was told what our standard options were.  It was either a white or almond colored ceramic tile. And let me just say..... YUCK.  Not for me.  Especially after I had seen all of the different photos of these gorgeous bathrooms.
It meant that we would have to just upgrade that tile as well.  I most definitely wasn't expecting this expense, but it is so going to be worth it....

Here's what we picked... The floor tile will be 12x12 and the wall tile will be 9x12, and the tile is called Heathland White Rock.  The decorative tile to go with it is called Gemstone Listello.  They were NOT one of the premade sets that went together... I grabbed other decorative tiles and placed them together til I came up with this pair.

And... our cabinets in the master bath will be the Maple Espresso upgrade cabinets wtih the cultured marble counter tops.

Here's a close up of the Gemstone Listello decorative tile :-)

The last part of our selections are for the exterior of the house.


For our siding, we chose "Irish Thistle".
Our stone is called "Autumn Buckeye Ledgestone" {kind of appropriate if you know us}
The Shake on the house will be done in "Sandy Tan"
The Front Door will be "Raisin"
The Shutters will be "Dark Berry"
The trim on the house will all be done in Almond.

I will say that I am just a BIT bummed because I really really really wanted a red door.  We were told that based upon our choices for stone and siding, that we were limited to the color we could do for the shutters and the door.

I most definitely didn't want to change anything just to get a red door.  Once we are in the home, if I want to make our door red, I will make our door red. I think it might really make that stone pop that has the reddish tint in it too.

So there you have it!  All of our interior and exterior color choices. It's funny. I have read SO SO SO many blogs about people freaking out about their decisions.  About worrying that they aren't going to be great together.  As of this point, I haven't felt that way.  I love everything we have chosen and seriously can NOT wait to see it all put together and be ours.

I'll be going a bit into detail about each of our appointments in the next few posts!

Lot 98-- The Site of Our Future Home

That cute little highlighted lot on the development map? That's OUR lot. Lot number 98.

We went back and forth with whether or not we wanted to pay a lot premium or just stick with a lot that had no extra costs.

Well.  When it was all said and done, we went with one that did have a premium.  Not because we just love to spend money, but because we decided that a walk out lot was perfect for us. 

In our neighborhood, if you have a home with a walk out, you are required to have a deck.

A deck was definitely something we wanted.  And when Jason and I discussed everything, the walk out was great for us.  We have 2 shelties {that are going to live forever, and don't you DARE tell me otherwise} and we just think that it'll be great in the winter time to be able to just open a back door and let them go outside to play or do their business and they won't have to go up or down a set of icy stairs.  Believe it or not, these dogs used to be Florida boys and had NO idea how to even get up a set of stairs.  They're pros now though.  But, safety first, right?

Our Boys <3

Plus, we like just having that outside access if needed via the walk out.

And, the square footage of the basement can be counted in our total for the house with a walk out.

And let's face it:  I'm a Florida girl.  Y'all have NO idea how excited I was the first time I went into a basement.  I have such great plans for our basement and hope it's going to be a fabulous area.

We also like lot 98 because it's on a cul-de-sac.  I know I mentioned this before, but it's nice knowing that we will have that dead end, and eventually just another cul-de-sac on the other side of the road.  No main drag of road for people to go flying down.  And a nice little bit of privacy with being on a cul-de-sac.

OH!!!

And, let's chat about the VIEW we will have.

Jason standing at the front of the lot, checking it all out

I learned rather quickly that all of Cincinnati is covered in hills.  Our area is no exception.

Well, with those hills come gorgeous views.  

From our morning room and back deck, you'll be able to see rolling hills for miles.

In the fall, think about those fall leaves changing colors.

And in the winter, pretty snow all over the hills and naked trees.

And don't worry about the spring and summer.  That's baseball season and we live at Great American Ballpark during that time of year.

I asked about measurements on the lot, for anyone curious (I know I was).  Our lot is just shy of a quarter of an acre. Front width is 96.15'.  Rear width is 55.64'.  And Front to Rear is 115.16'.

Here's a few more photos of our lot!

We were the lucky ones that got to put our "SOLD" sticker on the lot sign the day we signed papers. The little guy on the bottom is Baby Jay Bruce.  You can follow all of his adventures {he goes EVERYWHERE with us} by searching the hashtag #adventuresofbabyjaybruce.  My selfie stick would have been ideal here.  Didn't even think about it. 

And here's a photo of OUR lot!   That house you see in the back with the wrap on it is nearly finished now.  The one on the very left of the photo has framing and wrap on it now too! They seem to go up so quick!

And finally, the day we went out to the model home to make our selections for siding, counters, cabinets, stone, etc...... it had snowed earlier in the day.  It was really the first snow we have had all season.  I felt it was only appropriate to snap a photo of our lot's first snow <3

I most definitely did NOT get out of the car for this photo though! It was super cold, winds were really strong, and just nope.  Car snap shots will have to do ;-)

January 10th

Can't wait til we have our address!! It's going to be exciting hear that little bit of information.  But, for now, our cute little Lot 98 is absolutely perfect and ready for our home!

Let's Talk about SPECS, Baby.

You can stop laughing at the title of this post.
I won't even lie- I've known I wanted to start a blog for this home building process, and seeing other bloggers out there that have their "options" listed for what they're getting, that I wanted this to be my title for this post.
And now that I think about it, these aren't even really "specs", but options that are included with our home.
So, let's talk about those options. And nope. I won't be changing that tile.
So go ahead and giggle a little.

And read on.....
This is what comes INCLUDED with our home {I'll make notes if we are changing something}:

• 9' Ceilings
• Wall Paint, Trim Paint {We opted for NO paint upgrades as we can do this ourselves later on}
• Buff Colored Mortar with Brick Option {We changed our elevation- More on that later}
• Elevation B
• 2 Car Garage- Front Entry (includes Garage Door Opener-- YAY)
• Appliance Package (Black and White- Dishwasher, Stove and Microwave)-- NO REFRIGERATOR {not happy about that part, but oh well. I already have one picked out that I like. We also opted for the Stainless Steel Upgrade}
• Carpet- Living Room, Stairs, Family Room, Zone 2 (all of upstairs)
• Resilient Flooring {aka vinyl}- Family Entry, Hall First Floor, Laundry Room, Powder Room, Bathroom #1, Foyer, Kitchen, Owner's Bathroom
• Recessed Lights- Kitchen
• Standard Bathroom Stuff- toilets, itty bitty tubs, cultured marble counters, standard cabinets (color is Fairfield Square Honey)
• Double Bowl Vanity Bathroom #1 and Owner's Bathroom
• 42" Kitchen Cabinets- standard color- Fairfield Square Honey
• Laminate Countertops
• Light Package
• Basic Landscaping Package {sod in the front, seed in the back}
• Unfinished Basement
• Three Bedrooms with Loft
• Second Floor Laundry (with electric dryer hook up)

There's definitely other stuff listed, but do you really want to hear about the insulation, driveway width and siding mumbo-jumbo?

Didn't think so {and if you did, I'm sorry. Haha! I wanna move on to the fun things}.

So let's talk about what we got as an incentive.....

If you check out the website for  Stone Ridge Estates for Ryan Homes, you'll see right smack dab on the front page that they are offering FREE morning room upgrades.  That morning room comes at a value of $15,995!! When I first heard of morning rooms, I wasn't sure I really even cared for one. But after seeing several of them, and how much it brightens the room and adds square footage, and just how great it looked, I knew that it was gonna be a great addition.  And a "free" one.

And, after you see all that we did as far as upgrades, you'll get this part... We were able to negotiate to get granite in the kitchen as well!  Small victories, folks.... small victories.

So let's talk about what we upgraded.... 

And a disclaimer..... for family that read this.....

We didn't win the Powerball {well, actually... we might have and I just don't know it yet. It hasn't been announced as I write this post}. We most definitely are NOT made of money.  But, you know this {especially if you're family}... we work HARD for what we have.  We have great jobs and most definitely earn every penny we make.

I am going to list prices of all of these upgrades.  It's another one of those things that I have noticed people do with their home building blogs- and apparently what lots of people {myself included} look at when they read these things.
I'm not going to give a total of what we spent, or how much we are going to pay every month.  If you're smart enough you can do the basic math to get a guess.

Just remember, this is our dream home.  We plan on being in this home til we are old and grey. It's worth every penny we plan on spending and paying.

And with that being said.....  UPGRADES! With bonus explanations, because that's how I roll.

• Lot Upgrade. AKA "Homesite Premium" {$7,500}.  We ultimately decided on a walk out lot.  A couple of things came into play here... We figured it would be GREAT to have that walkout option in the winter so the boys would be able to just go straight out back and not have to climb stairs to get in and out of the house {via a deck, which is discussed further down}.  Plus, it adds on to the square footage of your home. Plus, it was a nice lot in the new phase of the development. I am not sure on the size of the lot, but I wanna know now, so I'll be asking the next time we mosey on over to the development.

• Elevation. We went with "Elevation E", Partial Stone Veneer Front. {$8,995} We went back and forth with this decision.  In the end, we went with this elevation since it has a great front porch.  Ask Jason. I have always always always wanted a front porch. We first thought we wanted the included elevation and save on the money for upgrading.  But, with this elevation, we get a cute little nook inside the loft. AND a front porch.  I made Jason PROMISE me that every Friday, after work, we would sit on our front porch and drink a beer and just enjoy the porch.  He said yes {I don't even think it was reluctant.  He knows how much I've wanted a porch, so I THINK the answer was easy for him}.  So, y'all just remember. Fridays at our house after work-- beers on the front porch.  You bring the beer, we supply the porch ;-)

  

  Here's a stock photo of our elevation.  Look at that amazing porch!
  
  

• Basement.  We got the finished basement {$13,995}. We knew from the get-go that this was a must for us.  Think man cave.  Think super amazing Cincinnati Reds man cave. We have so many ideas for painting, decoration, and just general amazingness.  It's probably already one of my favorite areas in the entire house.  
• Couple of things we did NOT get as far as upgrades here:  No rough-in for a future bathroom or no finished bathroom.  The reason?  When you go up the basement stairs, there is a bathroom immediately ahead of you.  If we are to use our basement as a man cave/recreational area, that means there will probably be a reason to use a restroom.  But, no one is going to be living down there and therefore there's no reason to upgrade and get a full-on bathroom when you can just climb some stairs {plus, going up counts as a flight of stairs on your FitBit.  You're welcome.}
• We did not finish any other part of the basement.  Check out the floor plan of the basement again... They have this weird option of finishing a "media room" or an "exercise room". Cool, but I HATE the way its broken up.  We really really tried to get the SR to let us just finish the basement PLUS the media room area, and not include a wall or a door, but we got the big fat negative as far as that goes.
• We WILL have that optional double patio door for the walk out. It's obviously included in the price of the lot, since the lot itself is considered a walk out lot.

• Kitchen.  We upgraded to a kitchen island {$2,195} but decided we did NOT need the gourmet island.  It just took up too much of the kitchen space. 
• We upgraded the kitchen cabinets to the "Upgrade 1". {$2,595}   Basically, this means that we get a different color finish than the standard Fairfield Square Honey.  Also, the drawers are 21" deep, you get 3/4" thick wall shelving and a veneer center panel. 
• And then, remember... we were able to negotiate for a free granite upgrade!!!!
• Appliances: We upgraded to stainless steel. {$1,195}  Keep in mind- some of these upgrades will eventually just be a difference in a price of what was offered.  I'm not going into deets with that and you're just seeing the full upgrade price!  It may not be what we are actually paying for the upgrade!

• Owner's Suite.  Bathroom Soaking Tub and Glass Shower Surround {$4,495}.  Need I say more about this?! I want a soaking tub SOOO bad.  And, with this upgrade, we get a seat in the shower as well.  Just in case you're still asleep when you shower in the morning.
• We also upgraded our cabinets here.  If you're gonna make one part fancy and snazzy, might as well make all of it fancy and snazzy. {$500}

• Interior Stuff.  Carpeted Stairs with White Balusters {$895}  The home we got to visit that was the Milan floorplan actually had the metal balusters.  I liked them. They looked very fancy and formal.  The white balusters were WAY more our style and make the upstairs look just as sharp and pretty.  Plus, it'll make Christmas decorations super pretty with balusters and a handle instead of just a wall or what not.

• Electrical Stuff.  Ceiling Fan Rough-Ins. {$295} We decided to put one in each room plus the family room.  I'll most likely have to find someone to do the electrical work as I won't do it myself. Something about climbing a ladder, holding a fan, and messing with electrical stuff that just doesn't sound fun to me. 

• Exterior Stuff. A Deck. {$4,595 plus $895} Another thing we went back and forth on. But only as far as size goes.  It's REQUIRED for us to have a deck with the walk out lot.  This is half the reason we chose a walk out lot, because we knew we wanted a deck on the back of the house.  Also, because it's a walk out, we have to have extra stairs (that's the plus money I put there).  We opted for the larger deck, because why not!  Finished size will be about 14x16.  Should run about the whole back length of the home (minus the spot where the morning room will be)

And there ya have it! Our upgrades.  Is it everything we want? You damn well better believe it.  Every bit of it.  Did we want more? Yeah, of course. But they weren't things that we deemed necessary.  The major things we wanted in a home will be built along with the house, and that's all that matters.

So whew!  I think that's enough for now.
I'll be going more into our color selections in our next couple posts, as well as what we had to do next as far as everything else!

The Rest of Our Story!

I have to back up just a bit and fill you in on us being prequalified through NVR (the finance company that is "sister" to Ryan Homes). When we had driven out to see the Florence model, we spoke with the nice man about being prequalified for a loan through NVR.  He had given us an application to fill out that we could return to our Sales Rep, Shelli, if we found something we wanted.

And that is exactly what we decided to do.  We figured it would be good to know what we were dealing with as far as what we could afford.  Seeing everything that Ryan Homes had to offer, we were pretty sure that we wanted to build with them {I hadn't researched other areas or builders at this point yet}.  So, we filled out the application and emailed it to Shelli so that she could get it over to NVR.  We were told it wouldn't take long.  No more than a day, even though it was a Sunday afternoon.

Well, I got impatient come Monday.  Jason and I were both at work and texted back and forth wondering when it would be "okay" to call this mortgage guy and find out what the "hold up" was.  Of course, being who I am, I worried.  Maybe we weren't being approved.  Maybe our stuff was just THAT bad that they were laughing at us... I had no idea.

Jason called and then I got the text "Can you talk?"

Uh oh. Not good.  He wants to talk. Not text.

But, it was good.  Really good.
We were approved for WAY more than I ever though we would be approved for. So now going to visit this Milan model that we had learned about was attainable. And we would be able to do all we wanted and STILL have it be attainable.

So on that following Sunday, we went and saw that Milan that had just been built in our neighborhood, the day before it's family closed on it. And we loved it.
And we knew then that this was our floorplan for OUR house.


And the rest is history.

Well, kind of. We're building a home, and it's going to be amazing. But, we have to wait til May-June for it to be complete {aka delivery date}.  Here's the reason for that:

That May/June "delivery date" is perfect for us.  We signed that 6 month lease on our town house, so this time frame worked great for us.  There is a brand new phase of the development and this is the reason for the delayed delivery.  We hadn't picked our lot out by this point, but were PRETTY sure we would be in this new phase of the development.  It's on a cul-de-sac, and the future phase after ours will also be on a cul-de-sac.
There was one lot that Shelli said was great that we should check out.  Lot 125.  It had a delivery date of March/April.  We could make that time frame work if we loved the lot, but let's be honest... Who wants to pay both rent and mortgage?
That's right.
Not us.
So we visited lot 125, and we liked it, but we liked the new phase better.  That, and this particular part of the development will have a future phase that'll take the road all the way out to one of the main roads that gets you to the development.  We like it much more that we can be on a cul-de-sac and not on a main stretch of road with the potential of people FLYING down the road.
And let's have a laugh that even though it was December and it had rained like 4 days ago, the ground was a bit deceiving.  It was still kinda muddy when you went out onto the lot, and we got so yucky and muddy.  Not dry like we had thought.
Oooooopsie.
Anyways.
I'm getting better at this whole photo thing.  I didn't take any photos of the development map the bajillion times we have visited the model home so far.  And I didn't take any photos when we visited the Milan that was about to have its family close on it. I kinda felt that would be weird. I mean, what if I become friends with these people that we walked through their house before they officially owned it?  "Oh hey! Look at these awesome photos I took of your house before you even lived in it"
Not creepy at all.
But! I do have a print out that I can show you of the development!

VOILA!

Don't pay any attention to all of my scribble, or Shelli's scribble. haha!
This was all before we had chosen our lot and were discussing pricing, etc.
But, that little cul-de-sac is the one I'm talking about.  The one with the street name Abell Court.


So we decide on the Milan. We get this super awesome master list print out of all of the different upgrades and such that we want and will meet with Shelli to discuss these, and to make things official.

Stopping my SECOND super long post here.  I'm gonna try to make this like other new home blogs I've seen.  I wanna list out all of our included features and such, so that's in our next post. Along with more stories. Because, if it's not obvious yet, I love to talk.
And talk.
And talk.

We Are Building A House!

It is so crazy to think that we are going to be building our very own home.
After living and growing up in Florida, moving to Columbus, OH and then realizing that our TRUE home is in Cincinnati.... I can't believe that we are going to have a place of our own. And not only that, it's a dream home for us. Everything we could possibly want.

It seriously seems like a whirlwind for us, so let's look how we got here:

We had been in our town home for a full year (time flies, I'm tellin you!) and it was time to renew our lease. Jason and I knew that we really wanted a home of our own, but figured that we would sign another year long lease to give us time to get ready to buy a home.
We get all the information for our lease with the complex, and they give us two options...
1.  Sign a lease for 6 months and pay NOTHING extra a month. Our payment stays the exact same,
     its just a 6 month lease opposed to a year.
2.  Sign a lease for another year and pay an additional $100 in rent.

Say WHAT?!?!

It actually makes sense.  We originally signed our lease in December.  So, by signing for another full year, that means they have to turn the town house over in the winter. And they don't want to do that. That means that signing for 6 months, we would have to either sign ANOTHER lease for a full year come June, or find us somewhere else to live.

This made me mad. You obviously don't value us as tennants if you want to raise our rent that much.
So to the drawing board I went.  We had toyed around with new builds from the beginning, but still looked around for a home that was already built that had all we wanted.

That isn't an easy task.  And we decided after some searching that maybe, just maybe.... we should go check out a new build.  Why not get EVERYTHING that we want in a home the first time around??  So, one day while out and about, we followed one of the many signs you see on the sides of the road to go to a newly built community.  It was a Ryan Homes neighborhood in Fairfield.

They were closed.
Womp womp.

But, it lead to research. And research lead to us going to a Ryan neighborhood called Stone Ridge Estates.  Homes seemed within our price range, location was good {about 30 minutes for me to get to work, about 20 for Jason, and about 25 minutes to our summer home, Great American Ballpark}.
I filled out the little internet form for the community and we scheduled us an appointment to meet with Shelli.

{here's the link to Stone Ridge Estates if you want to see the community}.

We met with Shelli, who is just beyond amazing. I love her so much! We were able to take a look at the model home on site, the Naples, and immediately fell in love.  It was out of the price range that we thought we would be able to afford, so I tried really hard to not fall in love. Too late.
I had in mind that I really wanted to see the Florence floor plan.  Based on the PDF's online, this is what I wanted.  3 bedrooms, loft, basement, amazing soaking tub... It's what I wanted.
Shelli gave us information to go out and visit a local model of the Florence.

Let me tell you.  When we got there, it was NOTHING what I thought it was going to be.  Great building, but small.  It wasn't designed how I would want our home to be designed.  The gentleman at this model was really nice too and we chatted with him for a bit.  He gave us some information about prequalifying for a loan with Ryan Homes sister company, NVR Mortgage.  But, I was discouraged.  I had been impressed by the builds themselves, but I knew that the Florence floor plan was not for us.

We hopped back in the car and went on our way.  I did some internet research while Jason drove us home.  After looking online, I went through the stuff that Shelli gave me earlier that day, and noticed that there was a floor plan called the Milan that I hadn't noticed before.  How it slipped through the reasearch I had done, I'll never know.  But here it was.  2500+ square feet. 3 bedrooms, a loft, basement... big soaking tub.... Maybe we needed to see this one.

Unfortunately, in Cincinnati, the Milan is a brand new floor plan being offered so there wasn't a model to visit at the time.  HOWEVER, it just so happened that if we waited until the next week, Shelli had a home that was getting ready to close that was the Milan floorplan, and we could go visit it!!

YAY!

During that week, I researched other home builders.  Custom builders, other ones that had been recommended... and for what I could find within what I "thought" to be our price range, as well as what we wanted in a house..... we either could not afford it, or it wasn't what we wanted.

So we impatiently waited until we could go and visit this brand spanking new home. I tried telling myself not to get my hopes up, because it might not be what we want.

But, it was everything we wanted. And more.
Our forever home, our dream home, it's the Milan.  It is a great floor plan, great sized rooms, and all that we wanted.

I'm leaving this post with the floor plan of the Milan, and more story telling later.  It appears that I'm pretty long-winded and have written quite a story. And this is just about how we decided on our floor plan and how we got to the point of wanting to build a new home.


I've started our blog a bit later than other new home bloggers have, from what I've seen, so I'm pretty much playing catch up right now.  Which is good since we won't be in our home for about 5 months.

So, here's the floor plans... The rest of our story on the posts to follow!!

Can't wait to share more of our journey!!

Ashley