Photo Update

A lot has happened over the last couple of weeks, but not really a whole lot to write about.  So, I thought I would use this as an opportunity to simply post some recent photos to give everyone a visual update on the progress.

I'm really liking the Hardie Plank siding. It gives the exterior a very nice finish. Very few seams and it lays very flat, none of the ripples that you get with vinyl siding. Its kind of hard to tell in the pictures here, but My one complaint about the exterior so far is that the porch column nearest the garage door is not straight. It appears to be off by at least an inch or so at the top or the bottom. I'm sure we can get it fixed before closing though.

The Kitchen

We have our cabinets, counter tops, flooring and some appliances now.

 

 

 



I do wish we could have gone with granite counter tops, as they do make a huge difference in the kitchen. Since we did go with laminate, I'm very happy with the choices we made in style at least.

Pre-Drywall Meeting

We had our pre-drywall meeting this week. I must say I am very pleased with how things have worked out so far. Although I thought things were taking a turn for the worse. This is the first time I've ever been involved in building a home, but my step-dad has built three homes now and as a crane operator, he has seen alot of homes in the contruction process by a lot of different builders. I had my him walk through our home with me this past weekend and he noticed a lot of things that I hadn't. Here are some of the things he pointed out to me:

1. Above the rafters it appeared that the support beams for the attic space had just been pieced together, he stated that it was most likely to code, but just didn't look good and meant that I would never be able to finish the attic space without redoing the rafter system.

2. At the peaks of the A Frames they did not miter where they join at the apex, this left a rather large gap at the peak in some places.

3. HVAC loop from bedroom 2 and 4 connected. This meant that when both doors were closed the air circulation update I mentioned in a previous post would be negated. Picture below.

4. A triple beam which supports the roof rafters at the front of the house was not nailed together.

Well needless to say I was a little concerned about these things and probably went about trying to take care of it the wrong way. Let me explain. I was in search of information about Ryan Homes building policy so I went to their facebook page and sent them a message, I was a little brash and told them that I had noticed several issues and wanted to know what their policy was on correcting these issues. I was expecting a corporate policy respose, something very generic like "we strive to make our homes with the best craftsmanship possible, yada yada yada." But instead they actually researched my name and found out where I was building and spoke with the PM about my complaint. No doubt this surprised him, because I hadn't even talked to him about the issues yet. Here I was searching for information and to some level ammunition if the meeting didn't go as smoothly as it did, and instead I felt like I got him in trouble and he didn't even have any warning. Sorry S.R.

Well we ended up having our meeting the next day and everything went awesome. The PM stated that all the issues I had would be repaired and those that wouldn't, he explained why. Here was his responses to the issues above:

1. Rafter, He stated that the reason the rafters looked pieced together was because if he hadn't done that I would have about a 1 1/2 foot step in the attic space floor. He took it upon hiself to add the extra attic space floor supports in order make the entire attic space level. It does meet code but then he went above and beyond in order to better serve his customers. Thanks S.R.

2. A Frame Peaks, This is just a matter of how Ryan builds their homes. Part of how they are built so quickly is that they are framed in panels off-site and put together on the foundation like a puzzle. This gap is just a result of building technique, and while it may not look great in its current phase, the building method actually makes the home stronger and we will never notice this after the siding and aluminum trim is in place.

3. HVAC loop, well this was incorrect and the PM immediately stated it would be fixed. This would have been correct if we hadn't chosen the 4th bedroom option. It would've been correct in a loft layout.

4. Triple Beam, the PM agreed that my step-dad was right, the triple beam is supposed to be nailed together and he would have that fixed. (update): The PM called today for our weekly update and stated that he found that the triple beam had actually been constructed offsite and was fastened together, but he was going to have the framers throw a few more nailes in it just to be sure.

Moral of the story is, just because it's different doesn't mean it's wrong, and always ask questions.

As for how the rest of the meeting went, we marked a few bad wall studs and braces, and made sure that all of the electrical options my wife and I selected were correct. Fortunately for me the electrician was still on site. something to keep in mind is that some electrical options don't cost anything. Here is what I did. I had a switch put into the master bedroom for the flood lights out back. This way I don't have to go downstairs to turn on the lights in the event that I hear something outside. I also had the electrical outlet inside the cabinet above the microwave turned into a halfhot with a switch under the cabinets. This will allow us to install under-cabinet lighting after we move in with no need for splicing into anything or dealing with the battery operated lights. Another big plus for us was that the electrician made a mistake and put our third flood light on the wrong corner of the house. Instead of pulling the whole cable, he is leaving it as a pre-wire, and putting the light to the correct corner. This means after we are in all I have to do is find a light that matches the others and I can have all four corners of the house lit up. We also discussed the common area that will be between our home and our neighbors to the right. He stated he would check to see what the plan was for the area, and try to get approval to have sod put in so it will blend nicely from our home to the neighbors.

It's a House

O.K. we have structure. It’s been a while, so let’s go back a bit. I’ve been stalking the house for the last two weeks as progress has been fast and steady. It only took about two days to get the entire house framed and then on the third day we had a shingles. This was awesome, because we have had such a wet summer this year we were lucky enough to be able to avoid having the house rained in so mold concerns are minimized.

In only two weeks we have had the house framed, HVAC, plumbing and windows installed. It’s been very interesting to see the house go up and everyday something new has been done. The garage is still one of my favorite things about the house. Its huge on the inside with a ceiling height of about 13 feet. I did have one concern though, there was water shut off valve that was installed which stuck out of the wall nearly a foot. The bad part about this was where it was located. It was on the left side of the garage right where the driver’s side was would open up. Seeing as how we actually intend to use the garage, this would have meant that every time I got out of my wife’s car I would either smack the pipe with the car door or my face. I spoke with the PM about this and he stated it would be moved. I went out two days later and it was taken care of. I’m glad this worked out so well for obvious reasons, but also because it was the first real issue I had ran into and it gave me a good idea as to the kind of service I can expect from out PM in the future. (I will say that I’m not real pleased with the method that Ryan home uses to allow you to speak with your PM. I had to call a corporate number and leave a message for him to contact me. Although this is not a preferred method for me I guess I understand, and it all worked out so I can deal with it for now.)

I’m not sure who the plumber was for our home, but he obviously did not use any real common sense. When deciding where to place things. Aside from the issue mentioned above, he also placed the one of the hose bibs in a rather useless place. It’s on the left side of the house right behind the porch, pretty sure it will never get any use over there, but we will see. The other hose bib is right next to the back deck so at least that one isn’t horrible.
On the subject of HVAC, I was pleasantly surprised that Ryan has updated their HVAC systems. They have started to use a method that I learned about in the MI Homes. This update involves adding additional vents outside of the bedrooms that allow for better air flow. In our last home we had to leave doors open to the rooms or else they would be freezing in the winter, so I’m hoping this will help.
Guardian came out and met with me a earlier this week about the placement of all of our low voltage electrical outlets. It only took about 15 minutes and he pretty much knew where everything would go before I got there. Today when I went by it was all installed. The best thing about all of this was the hose they installed for me to go from the outlet box where the surround sound will go to the outlet behind the T.V. I requested this because the way technology changes so quickly now, I didn’t want to have an HDMI cable ran know and then when they become obsolete have to right back to running a cable along the wall again. The hose should make fishing the next cable through with no issues. We are supposed to have our pre-drywall meeting next week so I’m looking forward to continuing the process from here. I will try to keep things updated.

Sorry the pictures don't show this all that great, but the orange hose is what I'm talking about here.

Buying Stuff

We made our first purchase for our new home today.  We bought the refrigerator. We are lucky enough to have a Sears outlet here and I highly recommend you give them a look if you have one in your area as well.  The outlet here sells appliances that have damage (mostly cosmetic) for prices far below retail value.  We were able to get a Whirlpool that retails for more than $2,500 for only $1,400.  It has some scratches on the sides, but I don't think we will even be able to see most of them.  There is one that we will likely be able to see, but its like I told my wife; we could pay full retail price for one and then when our kids smack it with a toy the next day, we would have a damaged fridge that we paid full retail price for.  I think that made her feel better about the purchase.  Its a great fridge that is very large and has pretty much everything that she required, so it made cense to make the purchase.  Its pictured below (we are getting it in black.)

Breaking Ground

Well its been a couple of weeks since anything interesting has happened really, but things are moving right along now.  We broke ground two weeks ago, and by this past Friday we had our full foundation completed.  We were a little concerned about the grade of our lot, but now that we have a foundation we can tell a little more about the elevation of the yard and we are much more pleased with it.  We are both very happy with our brick choice and honestly it makes us wish we had a partial brick front so that we could see more of it.  The thing I am most happy about right now though, is that due to the grade of our yard and the crawl space, we are going to have a rather tall garage.  I'm hoping this will not only give me more head room, but also give me noticeably more space over the garage doors for storage. 

 

 





Aside from that we also stopped in today to speak with our sales rep, and were surprised to met our future neighbors.  They seem very nice and we look forward to getting to know them better.  We were able to put in a request to have our island turned perpendicular to what it is on the floor plan.  We figure this makes the island more usable when working at the stove/oven, and also opens up the path from the living room to the back door, and garage door/mud room area. 

 

Pre-Construction

We had our pre-construction meeting two weeks ago with our PM.  He basically went over all of the specifics of the home as far as our floor plan and all of the changes that had been made to it.  We also went over the flooring choices, and low voltage wiring options.  Its wise to keep track of the changes you've made up to this point in order to ensure that they are all documented during this meeting. 

I was able to address several concerns that I have about the floor plan and my involvement in the process.  for starters I had walked through a Milan that is being framed now and noticed that there was dead space underneath the stairs, behind the closet.  I requested to have this entire space finished so that we could make full use of it,  he stated that we couldn't do that because of corporate policy regarding following the blue print for the home.  We were able to come to a compromise that I think I will be very happy with, but if you mention this earlier in your process you shouldn't have any problem.  I also requested that I be kept aware of what contractors are coming in and when so that if I chose to, I can speak with them about some specific requests.  one example I gave him was that I'm interested in having a switch placed in my master bedroom for the flood lights in the back yard.  It doesn't make much cense to have flood lights for security if I have to go all the way downstairs to turn them on.  We discussed the third car parking pad, but we will have to come back to it when the time comes to have the concrete guys in.

Our lot had been cleared the day before our meeting, so after the meeting we were able to walk the lot.  It had not been graded yet, so it was hard to tell exactly how our yard was going to be.  I did explain to him that I did not mind a grade to the yard but I did not want a ditch running through the middle of the yard.  I had went out several days prior to the meeting and marked several trees that I wanted saved, luckily all the ones I marked were saved, but I'm going to have some real work ahead of me when its time to clear the rest of them. 

All in all I think we are very pleased with this process so far and look forward to moving ahead. 

wires and floors

Since my last post we have had our meetings with Guardian and Rite Rug.  Guardian does all of our low voltage wiring, and Rite Rug as you can imagine provides us with our flooring options.

Guardian, in my opinion was overpriced. Especially for their audio/video wiring.  For a basic alarm system with cellular monitoring, and mobile access it cost $250.00 to install and $45.00 a month for monitoring for 3 years minimum.  But we felt like if we didn’t do it now, we would keep putting it off and both of us think it is important to have a security system in our home.  I did opt for a speaker pre wire on the back deck and to have the wiring ran for the T.V. in the family room.  This cost a total of $1130.00.  Ryan Homes give you 2 phone connections and 2 cable connections for free.  I was able to convert one of my phone connections to a data connection in the Study, and then added cable to the Master Bedroom and the family room.  Guardian charges $125.00 for each cable outlet, whereas Time Warner Cable only charges $80.00 so we should be able to save a little this way.  If you decide to have your wiring put in for a Television don’t forget to have Ryan add the electrical outlet as well (additional $125.00). 

At Rite Rug we were able to see each flooring type in different types of light and decide.  We decided to go with laminate in the foyer because I expect that after our carpet is wore out or ruined I will be replacing it with hardwood throughout the first floor.  It saved us a couple hundred dollars to do this and we liked the look of the laminate options better anyway.  We upgraded the carpet throughout the house and upgraded the pad downstairs to level 3 and upstairs to level 2.  Our dogs spend most of their time downstairs and figured the waterproof barrier and anti-microbial pad downstairs would help reduce their impact on our new home.

We upgraded the linoleum flooring in the Kitchen, but stuck with the basic stuff in the second bath room and laundry room.  In the bathroom we went with the tile option on the floors and shower walls.  We also changed our granite option for the master bathroom, because our original choice of sandstone varied too much.  The lady explained that sandstone tile can come in several shades that depending on the other choices made for the room, may not compliment the room.  She recommended the new option below and we agreed it would be a better choice.   

We were also able to see all of our options together so it was nice to see how they complement each other. 

I will be speaking with our PM at our meeting in a couple weeks about the stair rail.  They said that the stair rail will be stained to match the flooring in the foyer, but as I stated before, that flooring will be replaced relatively quickly, so I’m going to see if he can match the hand rail to our kitchen and bathroom cabinets instead.  (fingers crossed)

 Also, since I didn't get any pictures the first time we picked our counter tops, here is a picture of our laminate counter top choice for the kitchen.  It came down to choosing a fireplace or granite counter tops for about the same price.  figured it would be cheaper to add a different counter top later than it would be to add a fireplace.  Besides my wife didn't really care for any of the granite options and wants to look at recycled glass or concrete instead. 

Options and Signing

We signed our Purchase Agreement about 5 weeks ago now and we should be breaking ground in the next 2-3 weeks.  We were very excited about the purchase agreement because it was the first real step in this process.  It took about 2 1/2 hours to choose our home plan discuss the structural options and choose the exterior colors of the home. 

We chose the Milan plan.  We also considered the Venice and the Rome, but for the money the Milan seemed to fit our needs the best. But this was the easy part.  I'll list below the structural options we chose we a brief description.

Elevation E - Approx $3,500 - This is approximated because of the credits that are included due to neighborhood standards.  This is apparently a rare elevation as I cannot find a single one on the internet.  It is a full siding elevation with a full 6 foot front porch.  It is the only elevation for the Milan that includes a porch.  (Siding in our neighborhood is Hardie Plank, there is no vinyl option)
Study - $995.00 - this replaces the living room by closing it off and adding double French doors. 
Fireplace - $3,100.00 - you can place this on either exterior wall of the family room and upgrade to granite or natural stone, but we didn't find that necessary.
4th Bedroom - $995.00 - Replaces the loft with a bedroom.
Double Vanities - $995.00 X2 - We did this in both bathrooms upstairs.
Tile Surround - $995.00 - Puts ceramic tile in the bathroom on the floors and the wall of the shower.
Attic Storage - $1495.00 - I hardly think this should be an upgrade, but if you want you be able to use your attic at all its a must have.
We also added a third parking pad to our driveway for about $1K, extended the Deck to a 14X16 for $1.2K and
Upgraded our carpet pad downstairs to the 3rd level and upstairs to the 2nd level.
Added several electrical outlets throughout the house, and did ceiling fan prewires in all the bedrooms.
I have also requested to be able to place a Pipe in the driveway for future upgrades such as landscape lighting or a pet fence. and have asked to have additional brackets placed in the floor of the laundry room to help reduce vibrations during the spin cycle.  (These are both tips I got from other blogs about the building process with Ryan).
42 inch cabinets are included in our neighborhood as is the hardwood foyer and several other options such as garage door openers and faucet upgrades.

At this meeting we also chose our siding color, brick color, and cabinet color.  I did not realize that we were going to be choosing these items so I did not have a camera to take pictures, sorry, I'll try to get some asap and have them posted soon. 

Mortgage Whoas!

O.K. so initially we decided that we were going to go with NVR Mortgage.  NVR is the parent company for Ryan Homes and Ryan is currently offering $3K towards closing if you use NVR.  Considering that NVR is not a bank, but simply a broker, we decided that there was no harm is giving them a shot.

We started the process with NVR and it was going really smooth.  We had been through this process twice before, so we knew what documents would be required i.e., pay stubs, bank statements, tax records and so on, and we already had them in electronic format so they could be sent quickly.  We filled out the paperwork for the loan and then waited.  In about 3 days we had all of our loan paperwork in the mail.  My wife and I sat down to sign the documents, and that's where things started to seem funny. 

We were about half way through the paperwork, when we got to the good faith estimate (GFE).  As we looked it over we noticed that nothing seemed to add up.  The numbers from one page didn't seem to carry over to the next page and the numbers from our initial purchase agreement didn't seem to line up with the paperwork from NVR.  I have a co-worker and good friend of mine who does mortgages on the side with Horizon of NC INC.  I highly recommend this company as I have used them twice now, to any of you that are purchasing homes in NC, especially in the Charlotte and Greensboro areas should consider them.  Anyhow, I sent the GFE to my friend and asked him to look over it for me.  I just wanted to make sure that an experienced eye had looked at it and agreed with what we were getting ready to sign. 

My friend called me back within about 20 minutes of receiving the GFE and told me that he agreed with my initial concerns, nothing added up and it was not made very clear and easy to understand.  essentially his concern was that NVR was not being very honest about our numbers.  They had not given us any of the lender credit and they had underestimated most (if not all) of our charges and fees.  This meant that we were going to have to bring between $3K-$6K to closing even with the $3K that Ryan was offering us towards the closing costs. 

My friend then took a few minutes to explain to me that with his company, he could get me as much as $800 back at closing, and that was without the $3K that Ryan was offering.  I've been ripped off enough to know, that sometimes it better to go with someone you trust and know what your getting into, than it is to go with what sounds like the best deal.  So, we decided to Kick NVR to the curb.  If you are considering a Ryan Home please get GFE's from other lenders/Brokers.  If you would like, you can take the GFE from the other lenders back to NVR and they will likely match the others and you can still get your incentive money from Ryan to boot.  For us however, I felt it was more important to deal with a honest and reliable company in the first place. 

Ryan Homes, Milan Floorplan

My Wife and I recently sold our home (the amazing thing is it only took 24 hours).  The quick sale of our old home put us into thinking mode and had us scrambling around for new home opportunities in the area.  We spent several weeks looking and never found a home that had what we were looking for within our price range. 

 

That's were Ryan Homes comes in.  To be honest with you we didn't start looking at new constructions initially because I didn't think it was possible to get what we were looking for in these typical cookie cutter neighborhoods where every home is stacked on top of the other.  here is the list of things we were looking for in order of necessity:

Great School System
Lots: approx. .5 acres and up
Cul-de-Sac lots
close to work, but not close to any major commercial areas
Homes that were of quality construction with energy savings built in

With that being said we wanted all of this for under 250K. (Sounds impossible, right?)

In the beginning of our search we just started punching in names of builders that we knew of in the area and checked out their websites.

(note to builders:  Many potential customers start here these days, and if your website is not full of details, and information about the homes your are currently offering, you ARE losing business.)

 

Once we narrowed it down to several builders who were actively selling in the areas we were looking for and within our price range, we started to look at the home plans and neighborhood layouts.

We found several that matched this basic criteria.  We drove to their neighborhoods and took a look at them in person.  We ended up looking at MI, Eastwood, True and Ryan.

True Homes makes a beautiful home with some great features and layouts, however by the time we added the options necessary to us we would have gone way over budget, They did not offer the standard options that some of the others did leading to more options therefore, more money.

Eastwood homes were also very nice, they didn't have the wow factor of True, but they had several options that the others did not, and the options made their homes very appealing.  The big issue with Eastwood was location,  They were just a bit farther out than we really wanted to go. 

MI homes probably impressed us the most.  The quality of construction was amazing, and the energy efficiency of their homes was outstanding.  Not the fit and finish of some of the others, but since my wife and I are very practical people and not interested in all the glitz and glamor options, they were 1st on the list at this point.  Their prices were also the best out of the whole group.  In the end, their neighborhood wasn't what we were looking for.  They had very small lots (.10 to .15 acre) and a very very restrictive HOA. 

 

So the last builder we looked at was Ryan Homes.  (of course it was, once you find what your looking for why would you keep looking).  Ryan Homes had several neighborhoods in this area, but only one was within our price range and still actively selling.  We went to look at the Sheridan neighborhood and fell in love.  The neighborhood didn't look or feel like your typical big builder neighborhood, the homes were spaced out and because there are actually several different builders in the neighborhood, all the homes did not look the same.  The best thing about this neighborhood was the lots.  They were due to release a half acre lot within the next week or two that was in a Cul-de-Sac and had only a 5K premium on the lot.  This was leaps and bounds above most of the other neighborhoods we looked at.  Most other neighborhoods with other builders had at least a 2.5K premium on every lot in the neighborhood, and some even had premiums as high as 20K for larger, but still unusable (due to grade) lots. 

                                                              (This is our home site)

My wife and I always looked at it this way.  The important thing to us with new construction was the lots, location and price.  As long as they met those requirement, most all builders will have a home plan that we can learn to love.  Ryan just happened to be the only one that could meet those standards. 

Above is a picture of the lot we chose.  half acre wooded lot in a cul-de-sac.  The lot backs up to an empty field which is the future build site for the Redeemer Church (I'm not sure about their denomination, but could it could be our future Sunday meeting spot.)  There is a small common area to the right of the lot that separates our lot from our neighbors, but there does not appear to be any plans for future development in the area.  It's almost everything we wanted and then some.  We are very happy and blessed to have found such a great lot and at such a great price.