Tiling is Complete (Update from Week 11)

We went to the house this Saturday to check on the progress.  All of the tiling in the bathrooms was complete, light fixtures were installed, and we had a second coat of paint inside.  They also started installing the siding on the back of the house.  It was really great to start seeing all of our selections come together.  So far we love everything we've chosen.

Here are some of our progress pictures.

Garage

Rec Room

Stairs in Rec Room

Rec Room

Heading up to the kitchen

Morning Room

Kitchen

Hutch

Living Room

Powder Room with our hardwood peaking through

Living Room

Guest Bathroom 

Close up of the Guest Bath tile

Light fixture in Master Bath

Master Bedroom

Soaking tub with tile

Shower

Master Bath Vanity and Tub together 

Railings

Panorama of community

Front of our house

Light Fixture by Garage

Light fixture for deck

Garage

Construction Update - Week 10

We came back from vacation to find a lot of progress on our house. Since we were last there the drywall was complete, cabinets were installed, and tile was started. It was so exciting to walk through and see so much done! It is really starting look like our house. As a bonus when we walked in there was crown molding in the living room and rec room which we didn't even pay for. Also we didn't realize we got metal balusters on our stairs which was a nice surprise. We can't wait to go back next weekend and see what else gets done!

Garage door installed!

Brick is complete!

Kitchen cabinets 

Hutch

Crown molding

Metal balusters

Main floor

Bedrooms

Guest bathroom

Master bedroom

Master bath

Tile in the master bath

Rec Room

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.