Officially Approved...

For the mortgage!

Meeting with Guardian Friday afternoon and then we'll hopefully have a schedule for our first meeting with our Project Manager. We are set to break ground within the next few weeks! I can't wait to finally see the progress. One can only dream so many nights about what the future house will look like. It'll help to make it all feel so much more real once activity starts to take place on the lot.

Random Happenings

We were planning on meeting with Guardian tomorrow afternoon, but they called to reschedule today because someone "double-booked" the appointment timeframe. Now we are planning on meeting next Friday, March 30th. At this point, I'm just trying to get this meeting over and done with. Electronics aren't really my thing. However, since we have to wait another week, I thought I'd ask you fellow bloggers for some suggestions about locations for extra outlets. A while back I saw a few posts where people suggested putting an outlet in the master closet, but I can't remember why that place was picked. Let me know if you added other places too and if you're happy with your choices!

We also still have to finalize our fireplace stone color. Right now, we are under the impression that we only have two options of stone. When we went last weekend to the model home, these were the selections:

Turns out, after an email our SR sent to her manager, she said that both of these are the same? Buckingham Shadowledge. She told us that there is another option, Tuscan Autumn, which is also a selection for exterior house stone. We'll have to make a drive back to the model home tomorrow to settle this. I'm hoping for the "browner" of the two selections. I am worried that Tuscan Autumn will have too much green in it. I tried looking for other stone fireplace colors on blogs, but I have only seen beautiful pictures! If anyone could help me out with stone choices that you had, that would be great too!

One last final image for the night has to do with our neighborhood!

We are lot 128! Our neighborhood is slightly different as I had mentioned before in one of my first posts. The green lots all had houses built on them from 2006-2009 by a different builder. Ryan came in during 2010 and started filling the spots you can see with numbers. There are about 30-40 other houses around us, but I took a close-up of our street. We are the last lot to fill in our street's circle. It's also awesome to already have existing houses on either side, so even without the house yet we can somewhat tell how close we will be to our neighbors. Every time we have driven through the neighborhood, we have seen several families walking and kids riding bikes. We also met the family across the street and they have three young girls. We are excited about joining a neighborhood with young kids since we have a daughter.

Floorplan & Selections

We're going to have some slow stretches over the next few weeks until we break ground, so I thought I'd update with some pictures of the Milan floorplan for our family and friends to see. I'll also add what selections we made in terms of upgrades for our home.

The First Floor

The Second Floor

Selections:

Elevation B w/a partial stone front (half wall)
Siding Color- Stone Mountain Clay
Black shutters and front door
White exterior trim
Morning Room
3 Piece plumbing rough-in for unfinished basement
Cherry Bordeaux Cabinets in kitchen and bathrooms
Cabinet crown moulding in kitchen
Recessed lights in kitchen
Butterrum granite laminate countertops
Stone fireplace in family room
Optional Study on first floor
Fourth bedroom
Double bowl vanity in master bathroom
7 Ceiling fan rough-ins for all bedrooms, family room, study and morning room

We were also able to work in all appliances into our offer. We wanted to fit all of our structural needs for the home through Ryan and make upgrades down the road as we need to and as our family may expand.

Moving Along...

We signed off on our final change order tonight! There was really nothing to change, but we had to give our final approval for the major interiors/exteriors for the house. I'll add our overall upgrades, decisions, later this week! Since we only have to meet with Guardian at this point, our sales rep will put in the word to get things moving! Hoping for an end of July closing date!

Flooring Selections

Last night's flooring meeting was quick, easy and painless! I wasn't too worried about it taking all that long. We were pretty much in agreement about most of the options/choices going into the meeting and finalizing the countertop selection wasn't that bad either. We also made an agreement beforehand not to add on anything extra or make any more upgrades. We want to stay firm to our initial selections of upgrades. We also know that with an infant and any children we may have in the future, hardwood flooring or tile/ceramic floors would not be very practical. We figure that down the road when she and any siblings are older, we can upgrade and make changes then. I know the cries and bumps she's experienced here in our little apartment with carpet and hardly any padding underneath have been frustrating enough. We can make updates in the future as the builders' grade options will need to be changed down the road.

Here are our choices!

Tahoe Cherry Square Bordeaux cabinets

and 

Butterrum Granite laminate countertops

Claire wanted to help!

Flooring option

Carpet selection next to the flooring

All selections grouped together

***I am so grateful to have found the blogs that many of you have created and updated along the way of your own experience building with Ryan. It has really helped to give us visuals of the products and see the ups/downs along the way. I knew that I wanted to document our own journey, so I figured that by starting this blog, I could not only share our decisions with family and friends, but help out another family thinking about building too.

Another Milan in our neighborhood that's almost finished! I wanted to add a picture of what the house looks like with the side garage entry since that's what we'll have too.

She Said, "Yes!"




It's Official!

Well, "she" was our Sales Rep who called my husband today to tell him the good news! The bank approved our offer, and we can now officially move forward in this process!

Other Updates:

Three days ago, we met with our rep from the mortgage company to sign and organize all of our documents for the loan paperwork to be processed. I was fairly impressed with how smooth the meeting went. It helped that my husband was very prepared with every document copied and organized in a folder. We met for about 35 minutes and were told that we'd hear back that official word soon. We don't forsee any issues with being approved for the mortgage. We both have excellent credit (mine is slightly higher than his, if you were wondering!) and we have been extremely careful about not racking up any debt over these past four years of renting.

Tomorrow night we will be meeting with the flooring company to finalize our cabinets, countertops and carpet selections. Excited to be making these decisions!

We will have our meeting with Guardian in two weeks to talk about the electronics/technology options for our home. Personally, I'm more excited about tomorrow's meeting!!

 

Tick Tock

We are currently caught in a waiting game. We signed our contract on Monday and thought we'd hear back with the official word of, "Yes! You're good to go!" But we will not hear from the bank until Tuesday. Our neighborhood is slightly more complicated than others since Ryan is purchasing lots from another developer that stopped building in the neighboorhood a few years back. I'm pretty sure the original developing company had money issues with the housing crisis 3 years ago. Now we must wait to get the final approval for our contract. In the meantime, we are still scheduled to meet with the mortgage company tomorrow morning and the flooring people on Wednesday. Hoping Tuesday brings great news!