Showing posts with label homesite. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homesite. Show all posts

Monday, January 26, 2015

Starting to See Some Progress

We drove by the house this weekend to see the progress.  We have foundation walls now and underground plumbing is supposed to go in this week.  It's exciting to start seeing some progress on our house and the community around it.  

We had our puppy with us so we didn't stop in the model, but it looks like they are still trying to sell one of the townhomes in our block of six.  They've sold three across the street from us in the next block of eight.  

We were the first to buy in our block of homes.  Now that the block is almost sold out and the next block has started selling, my husband and I can't help but wonder who our new neighbors are.  It would be really great if they are some other young professionals, but I'm sure whoever our neighbors are, our home will be a thousand times better than our current apartment.  We are so excited for our move in May!

Here are some pictures from our visit:

This interior unit is our elevation, but we don't know what color our shutters and door will be yet.
Our homesite with foundation walls
Back view of our homesite
Our block with the foundation walls poured
The March delivery homes have most of the exterior complete now
The entrance to our community
So much work has been done since we signed our purchase agreement in October!  It's amazing!

Friday, January 23, 2015

We received our first update

Last night my husband and I received our first construction update email from our PM.  By the end of the day today, all of our foundation walls will be poured for our house and the other houses on our block.  Next week the plumbers will work on all of the underground plumbing and connections. Our PM even included a picture of the work in the email.  We're really looking forward to driving by the homesite tomorrow.

Work on our house

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Pre-Construction Meeting Follow-up

Since I only did a relatively quick post after our pre-construction meeting, I want to go through some of the questions we asked our PM during the meeting along with his answers.
  • What are the anticipated dates for the pre-drywall meeting and settlement?  There aren't any tentative dates yet, but it should be in 8-9 weeks and possibly longer depending on the weather.  We'll get an email from our PM 2 weeks before the pre-drywall to set up the meeting.  He anticipates that settlement will be about 6-7 weeks after the pre-drywall meeting.
  • We want to bring our own home inspector to the pre-drywall meeting and the pre-settlement walk through.  How should we coordinate this?  Once we select a home inspector we should send their license and insurance information to our PM, so that the inspector can be approved by Ryan Homes to be allowed in the house while it is still under construction.  Our PM needs this information at least a week in advance.  He also said that he would schedule our pre-drywall in the morning and then our inspector could come through with us that afternoon.
  • Can we visit the homesite whenever we want?  Yes, we just have to call in advance.  24 hours notice is best.  Our PM wants us to visit as often as we want, so that we really feel like we are part of the process.
  • Will we get updates throughout the construction process?  Yes, our PM will either call or email us weekly with updates on what was completed during the past week and what is scheduled for the upcoming week.  
  • How many steps will there be to our front door?  Our PM anticipates that there will be 1-2 steps, and if there are 2 steps they will be spaced out (one closer to the sidewalk and one closer to our door).  He does not want to have to put up a railing since it changes the look of the front of the house.
  • Are there any exterior outlets and where are they located?  Yes.  There will be an outlet by the front door, an outlet on the deck, and an outlet out back by the AC.
  • Are there any exterior lights? Yes, there will be a light on the deck and a light by the front door.
  • Will there be drywall in the garage? Yes
  • Will there be outlets in the garage?  Yes
  • Can we put a deadbolt on the garage door? No, because that has the door is according to the plan and can't be changed. Our PM said he will give us contact information for a handyman that can install a deadbolt in our door after settlement.
  • Can we move the recessed lights above the island so they are centered?  (We plan to replace the recessed lights with pendant lights after we move-in.)  No, because there is a joist that runs over where we want to move the lights.  Our PM said we can revisit this during pre-drywall in case there ends up being a way to make the lights more centered.
  • Can we pick our own slab of granite?  No, but there shouldn't be too much variation in the slabs.
  • Is there an outlet on the kitchen island?  Yes, there are two outlets on the island.  One will be on either end.
  • Is it possible to move the attic access to the closet? No, because there isn't enough space in the closet.
  • Can you change the wire shelving in the laundry room so that we can put in a stackable washer and dryer set?  Yes
  • Where is the thermostat located? On the wall between the stairs on the main floor.
We also went over the placement of all of our prewires and all of our options.  During the meeting we went floor by floor.  Our PM gave us details on what would be on each floor and gave us a chance to ask questions.  

The only question we still have is what color the exterior siding and shutters will be.  Our sales rep has been calling the main office daily to try to get us this information, but the designer for the community still has not yet decided on the color scheme for our block.  We know it will be something neutral and it is our only minor issue so far, so it is not really bothering us.  Overall, we are really happy with our entire Ryan Homes experience so far.  We can't wait to stop by our homesite this weekend to check on the progress!  

Monday, January 19, 2015

Pre-Construction Meeting Complete

We had our pre-construction meeting today, and we found out that they broke ground already and put in the footers. We thought that construction would probably start before our meeting since we waited a couple weeks to schedule it until we had a day off.  It was so exciting to see that construction already started!  From here on, our project manager will be sending us weekly updates.

This was the first time we met our project manager and he was very helpful. He answered all of our questions and was willing to accommodate us with some special requests such as moving the shelving in the laundry room so that we can put in a stackable washer and dryer set. He was very open to us bringing our own inspector to the predrywall and presettlement meetings. He also said we can stop by the homesite whenever as long as we call in advance.

We were really happy to see all of the progress in the community while we were there. There was another set of Strauss homes finished and one almost done. The condo models were also opened and another condo building was going up. The playground was complete too. We can't wait to see how far along the community is when we move in May. 

Our homesite
The footers on our lot
The alley behind our homesite with other Strauss town homes 
Newly built Andrew Carnegie NVHomes 
More Andrew Carnegie NVHomes 
New building of condos
More views of the other Strauss town homes in the community
More views of the other Strauss town homes in the community

Saturday, November 15, 2014

TAC Tile & Flooring Meeting

We had our meeting with TAC today to pick our tile and flooring.  This was the meeting we were most looking forward to and also most anxious about since we had no idea what everything would cost.  Since we signed our purchase agreement we have been visiting lots of Ryan Homes models in the area to get ideas for tile and flooring and also for general decorating.  I am so glad we spent the time going to other models because we went into the TAC meeting knowing what we wanted.  The samples at TAC's showroom were the typical sample size, which in my opinion isn't really enough to show you what your home will look like.  

The sales rep at TAC was very helpful and patient when we were trying to make decisions.  She started by pulling out our granite and cabinet selections.  We are getting the Santa Cecilia granite in both the kitchen and master bathroom, and we are getting the Lausanne cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms.  We wanted a nice sleek, modern look, but we also wanted our choices to be timeless.

After we had the granite and cabinets out, we started by discussing what type of flooring we wanted.  We decided on vinyl in the laundry room (which is standard), 12x12 tiles in the bathrooms, carpet in the bedrooms, and hardwoods everywhere else.  First we selected our hardwood.  We could only get engineered hardwood in the basement since it had to be glue down with the concrete slab.  That worked for us since we had decided we wanted the dark engineered hardwood that was in the model home.


Our flooring selection with the kitchen cabinet sample.
 After we decided on hardwoods, we moved onto picking the carpet for the bedrooms.  We went with a neutral color but not too light.  We also upgraded to the next level up since it is more stain resistant and we have a puppy.  We also picked a basic vinyl for the laundry room.
Our carpet selection with our hardwood and cabinets.
 After we finished up our flooring selections, we moved on to tile.  We started with the master bathroom.  We went with level C tile in the master bathroom.  This gave us a listello, 9x12 wall tile, and 12x12 floor tile.  We selected neutral colors with grays in the stone listello.
Our master bathroom selections with the cabinet and granite samples
Close-up of our master bathroom selections

Next we moved on to the hall bathroom tile. We had seen the basic tiles in a hall bathroom at a model and hated how cheap it looked.  However, We didn't want to upgrade the tile in here too much, so we went with level B tile which keeps the basic white 6x6 tile on the wall but includes a 12x12 floor tile.  We also added a listello, since it was only $65 and will make the bathroom look nicer.  We stayed neutral again with a natural stone and glass listello.
Our hall bathroom selections

Close up of the listello for the hall bathroom
We finished up by adding a tile backsplash for the kitchen.  We chose to mix and match with a neutral off white main tile and a gray stone and glass accent band.  We wanted the off white tile instead of the gray tile that the accent band was shown with in case our granite ends up more yellow in color.  It was $1295 to add the tile backsplash, but we knew we wanted a backsplash and like the option we chose.
Kitchen backsplash option with the small tile accent band instead of the brown/orange color one

Close up of the accent band with the granite
 We walked out of the meeting spending $10,000, but we felt like we got everything we wanted.  This was definitely our favorite meeting.


Thursday, October 23, 2014

Homesite Reservation on our Second Visit to Greenbelt Station

About a month after our first visit, we went back to view the model home at Greenbelt Station again after viewing other houses in the area.  I had crunched the numbers and knew we could definitely afford a Strauss townhome while living comfortably and paying off student loans within the next couple years.  Still my husband was waiting on his bar exam results, so we were going to hold off on purchasing until November.  We showed up to the model and about 5 more homes had sold in the past month and the base price had increased $5,000.  We walked through the house with this information in mind.  Once again we loved everything we saw.  This house was perfect for us.  We knew we wanted to be in this house in this community.  The sales reps were now selling homes with delivery dates in May 2015, which lined up with our timeline to buy.  We didn't want to risk another price increase, so we put down a $1000 homesite reservation fee.  This gave us a few more days to think about it without risking the price increasing again.  

We went back on 10/23/14 with our realtor to sign our purchase agreement.  Signing the purchase agreement paperwork took about 3 hours.  We got our $1000 homesite reservation fee back and paid $5000 as an initial deposit.  We also got a list of companies that we would be working with to finalize all of our options.  We had to meet with the vendors within 30 days to make our selections even though our house wasn't going to be ready until May 2015.  In our area, Guardian handled security, phone, internet, and in-home sound systems, and TAC handled carpet, tile, and flooring selections.

We were so excited to be getting our first home!

The laundry room in the model.  It's located on the same floor as the bedrooms.

The kitchen at the model.  We ended up selecting these cabinets.

The main floor of the model

The master bedroom