Getting Closer and Another Upgrade

Building is fast and furious in our neighborhood now.  It's actually starting to look like a real development.  Two of our three surrounding neighbors now have their concrete poured.  We should find out our start date any day now.  Our neighbor now not only has a hole, but also has concrete and their lumber is in!

Also, we decided to upgrade to stainless steel appliances.  This may be a mistake with young kids, but I think they will look way too nice with our cherry cabinets and dark stained wood floors.  We had the upgraded black appliances, but we just have our doubts about how that will look with the cherry cabinets.  We figured the kitchen is too beautiful to cut this corner.  We'll be talking with the SR tomorrow about which appliances we'll be getting instead.

Our Neighbor Has A Hole!

Our lot and behind it...our neighbor's hole!

Granted, it's not our hole, but it's something. Our neighbor now has his hole and foundation.  That's means we're getting closer!  We're taking in our second deposit this week so that we can get this show on the road.

Also, we made some of the first purchases for our new house this weekend, including ceiling fans for the kids' rooms and guest room.  It's getting real!

Some quick changes and ordering lumber!

Got a call from our SR yesterday.  Apparently in our model, the Victoria Falls, you can't have both windows and a fireplace on the same wall without the four foot extension.  We don't really want or need the four foot extension, but really do want the fireplace.  So, we took the windows off that wall, which saved us about $1000.  We then took one of the windows and put it on the rear family room wall, so now we have three windows back there overlooking the backyard and forest.

There was also a math mistake on our last change order that resulted in an error of $1200 in our favor.  So, we took that money and chose to put the recessed lighting package in the basement for about the same price.  So now we have 13 recessed lights in the basement instead of having to buy several cheap lamps that the kids were sure to break repeatedly.  Sweet!  And we came out $500 better on the deal!

We also got word that our lumber is currently being ordered!  We should know by tomorrow whether they will start building before the holidays or not.  We are very excited over here!

LOTs of good news!

We drove out to our neighborhood so that our SR could show us how our lot would be laid out. When we got there, our SR said that she was talking to the construction people and they want to break ground around Christmas. At first we were a bit freaked out... we need time to get our house sold! But, since they promised us a delivery around April 15th, even though our house will be done in March, we can move in any time between completion and April 15th! This gives us a ton of flexibility! If our house sells, we won't have to rent and move twice!  Also means that we should have a foundation up by New Years! Awesome news :-) Can't wait to visit something other than dirt, although I love my dirt :-)

Then, Mauria (our SR) took the wheel and measured out our lot for us. We got to see where the house would be and how big our yard will be. Our yard is HUGE! When she was going over the space she told us she is so surprised that our lot, which is very big, flat, and has trees to one side, didn't have a premium on it. Her guess is that it was released and sold so quickly that they didn't have the chance to see it and determine a premium on it. Not only do we have a large backyard, we also have a very large side yard!

We are so excited and it really seems like the stars are aligning for us. We will blog once we have a pre-construction meeting scheduled (which should be in the next few weeks!).

Finalization Meeting

As we drove up to our area of the neighborhood the first thing we noticed was a house, oriented like ours, sitting beautifully as you turn the corner. That house was just a pile of wood last week!

This meeting was amazing!! Here are some of the key things that happened during this meeting that brought about unexpected happiness:

1. Turns out we do not have a walk out basement as we originally thought. Why is this good? We save $4000 on whatever they do to make it a walk out, the distance between the door in the morning room to the backyard is way shorter, and, as a result, we can put in a patio instead of what would have been a high and expensive deck! This was what we really wanted and we were amazed at this great turn in events.

2. On Friday new colors and other areas were approved. This meant we could get the darker wood floors at the entry level price!!

We also will be getting a crisp white trim rather than the almond on the outside of the home. We chose from the new colors and picked our brick, a maroon door (the color is off in this picture) and a taupe colored siding (color off on this picture), and black shutters.

3. We found out that due to the placement of our house, much like the house we saw as we pulled into our neighborhood, we will have "high visibility view". This means that we will have BEAUTIFUL views from the upper level of our house. What it also means is that we had to add 3 windows to the upper level due to the HOA covenants to maintain the beauty of what people see as they enter the neighborhood (so they don't see a plain slab of siding). So, Andrew got an extra 2 windows for his room and Evan got an extra one!

4. The shower door in the master bath will have clear glass!

5. We upgraded our faucet again to the highest one so it matches better with the stainless steel sink. It is really pretty. Never thought I would be this excited about a faucet! It really completes what will be a beautiful kitchen.

6. We met the neighbors whose yard backs into our yard...and they are STEELER FANS!!! Bonus, Steeler parties on Sundays!

7. We get to walk our lot next weekend to see exactly how big our yard will be and where out house will be placed. Can't wait to do that!

We walked out of there sooo excited!! Since we pushed our completion date to help prep our house for sale, our pre-construction meeting will not be until mid-January. She said fro the time the first shovel goes into the ground it will be about 100 days. We are estimating beginning of May with any delays. Hoping time will fly and we will sell our house at the price we need to move forward comfortably!!

Visit to the model home

On this chilly, windy day we hauled the kids into the car and drove about 40 minutes to go walk through the decorated Victoria Falls model. Each time we see it we love it even more! We took some pictures and they are posted on the hoe picture page. Tomorrow is the finalization meeting... how exciting and scary!