Wiring

Last but not least...time to choose the wiring and security options. After this we don't have any more options and it is all out of our hands. Time to sit back and watch the house be built!! Oh yeah, I suppose we need a fridge, furniture, ceiling fans, a fence, paint....

Anyway wiring consists of deciding the number and placement of cable outlets, phone outlets, network outlets, surround sound, and security options. As part of our incentive package we get one room wired for surround sound (speakers not included) and prewiring for security. Security is monitored by alarm.com and you can go hog wild with options there. You can sync it to your iPhone so you can turn on lights, lock and unlock doors, open the garage, give people entry codes to your house and the list goes on. They also provide monitoring for fire, CO and police security. We decided to keep it pretty simple here. We are having the house prewired since it is part of the incentive package and that includes 3 door sensors and a motion detector. The keypad is extra, and signing up for monitoring and the additional perks is also extra, with monitoring being a monthly fee. We chose to get the door sensors and motion detector installed along with a second motion detector and the key pad. We are not signing up for monitoring or any of the electronic entry perks at this time. Since it will be prewired and we'll have the key pad we can pretty much activate with alarm.com at any time. We just didn't feel it was necessary at this point, but who knows, maybe we'll change our minds in the future.

As far as the outlet wiring goes, 4 lines come with the base cost of the house and you can mix it up as you like and choose where to put them. Additional lines cost extra, $120 per line, but it is MUCH easier and cheaper to add these things as you build the house rather than after the drywall is up. We tried to be smart about this and add plenty of outlets for cable, beyond what we really want or need so that when we sell in the future we have an appealing set up. Currently we don't have a phone landline but were advised it was smart to at least put a phone outlet in the house, particularly in the study, so that if future owners/renters want to use that as an office and have a fax, it's all set up.  I'm including a floor plan with the locations of the outlets and monitors we chose to place. We ended up with 8 cable outlets, two phone outlet and three network outlets. We added an extra motion detector and put door sensors on the three doors to the outside. They keypad will be in the mudroom as we plan to use this entrance most frequently. We aren't planning to hang a TV above the fire place, mostly because we just don't like to look up at it while we're watching TV. Instead we put a cable outlet on each wall to give us the option of placing the TV on either side without having to run wires all around the family room. The surround sound wiring will also be added to the family room. We considered the loft but as it butts up against the kids bedrooms we didn't feel we'd want to be blasting the sound up there.

Here's the key for our abbreviations:
C - Cable outlet
P - Phone outlet
N - Network Outlet
DS - Door sensor
MD - Motion detector
KP - Keypad
SS - Surround sound

1st Floor Wiring

2nd Floor Wiring

Flooring

And now we come to flooring.... This has definitely been the most difficult part for us thus far. Just being in California and trying to pick flooring options in Virginia is hard enough, add to the fact that we weren't overly thrilled with the choices, and flooring was a bit frustrating. I'd read many blogs were people were shocked about the prices of the floors and disappointed by the lack of choices and I have to say I fell in that category as well. I'll start off by saying our rep at Rite Rug has been great, very responsive to our many email questions, very willing to accommodate us with a FaceTime meeting and very willing to assist us with design choices.

We were initially sent a powerpoint form Rite Rug with a basic explanation of the types and levels of flooring along with some pics of samples. We were also sent a spreadsheet listing the websites and options for tile, carpet, wood and vinyl floors. It was honestly very overwhelming to look at the many choices online and actually try to pick and coordinate colors. But before I get to that I'll give you a run down of how the process works. 

Carpet and vinyl flooring is included in the base price of the house, A level carpet and A level vinyl that is. This means a 6lb carpet pad, bottom of the barrel carpet without any stain treatment, and with the shortest warranty and limited choices. Same with the A level vinyl, basically the lowest quality they offer with very limited choices is included in the base price. You can go up from there to level B, C, etc. As you increase your level you increase your choices and obviously your pricing as well. But...the choices are still surprisingly limited. 

We were pretty sure we didn't want to do hardwood. While we love the look, we have a dog, are considering a second dog and have little kiddos so it just doesn't seem practical. We didn't want to spent a ton of money on wood floors just to feel like we had to cover every inch of them with rugs or watch them get scratched and ruined.  So that leaves vinyl or tile in the areas we weren't going to carpet. Here's where it gets a bit weird...Ryan Homes has some pretty strict rules about what types of flooring you can put where. For example in the dining room it's hardwood or carpet...that's it. No tile or vinyl is even considered. Our rep from Rite Rug said we can do a Non Standard Request but they gouge you on price. So the plan for the living and dining room looks like it's going to be carpet. The family room will also be carpet as well as the whole upstairs (excluding the laundry room). That was the easy part, we chose a level B carpet with an 8lb carpet pad. The carpet is from the Graystone collection and the color is Seattle Mist.

Graystone - Seattle Mist

And then we got stuck...tile vs vinyl in the foyer, hallway, kitchen, powder room, mud room and morning room. One of our incentives was a hardwood foyer but we decided that since we weren't doing hardwood anywhere else we'd do away with that and make the foyer and the front hall the same. Bottom line is we aren't crazy about the vinyl. In the house we are currently in the foyer has tile as does the kitchen and we really like it. We've become very interested in the wood looking ties. There are some gorgeous options out there and that seemed to be what we liked best. Guess what?! Ryan doesn't offer any of those options. Soooo what to do now? For a while we considered just laying the A carpet and A vinyl in those areas then ripping it up as soon as we move in and having the tiling done independent of Ryan. We could do this but it's not ideal as we will be moving in with a 2yo and a brand new baby, and having the house torn up as soon as we move in would be a hassle. So after a lot of up, down, back and forth we came to a decision we are comfortable with. We decided to tile the foyer, front hall, mudroom and powder room with a porcelain tile. It's from the Fidenza family and the color is Bianco. 

Fidenza Bianco

We ended up going with an upgraded vinyl in the kitchen and morning room. Our thinking is this...it's not a love match but it's great with kids and pets. Easy to clean, can take a beating, softer to cushion those inevitable falls and affordable. Our plan will be to change it eventually, but for now we are pretty satisfied with it. We ended up choosing a wood looking vinyl which we think gives the room some nice warmth and complements our countertops and cabinets very nicely. It's called Windsor Walnut Fireside by Armstrong.

Windsor Walnut Fireside

We went with an upgraded vinyl in the laundry room. That one is Station Square Pinnacle Peak Crystal, also by Armstrong.

Station Square Pinnacle Peak Crystal

Last but not least are the second floor bathrooms. We decided to do the same thing in both bathrooms for sake of consistency, especially considering we have the same cabinets and granite in each one. So the floor and wall tiles will be from the Brixton family in the color Bone with an accent piece, or listello, from the Marvel Collection - Wonder MV28.

Brixton - Bone

Marvel - Wonder MV28 (the symbols are not as predominant in person)

Everything was all fine and dandy until the sales rep brought up the closet under the stairs... You may not think a small storage closet would cause and issue, but for some reason Ryan Homes is really weird about that closet. The ONLY thing you are allowed to do is vinyl in the closet! Huh?? The closet is off the front hallway so the logical thing by our thinking was to tile it so it flows with the rest of the places off the hallway (mudroom, powder room). We were told this would be a NSR which we just don't get. RR recommended using the same vinyl that we will be choosing in the kitchen but we just didn't feel it would work since the storage closet is not directly attached to the kitchen. So we decided to use the same vinyl that we planned to use in the laundry room thinking that it was at least a tile look. Then we went home and our OCD kicked in and it started to drive us nuts! Why couldn't we just tile it so it flowed well off the hallway? We felt that it would look weird to have one random section of this vinyl on the first floor that wasn't found anywhere else. So we contacted our flooring rep and said we'd like to have an estimate for the tile in the closet. It's $300 for the NSR to tile that closet. It's a tiny space that will probably cost them $20 and 15mins to tile, but since it's an NSR they get you. So you may think we are crazy for going through with it however we're paying a lot of money to build a house and choose specific things we want, we feel it would be crazy to have this tiny section bother us so we are going with the NSR. 

A Lot to Choose

I'm going to backup a little bit because I skipped over the process of choosing a lot. Our development is going to have 34 lots, and there were about 14 left when we first spoke with the sales rep. Initially the lots were included in sales price of the house, but as they draw closer to building Ryan is now charging site premiums for the lots. So we were given a site plan of the development with the available lots and a corresponding page with the homesite premiums. Premiums began at $4000 and ranged to over $11,000, however two remaining lots were free!

Site Plan with Available Lots (M is model)

Initially we were going to choose lot 32 because it appeared to be quite wooded behind the house. It had a fairly high premium but we liked the privacy it afforded. After viewing the lot it was apparent that the wooded area wasn't that thick and you could see the other houses through the trees. We then looked at 14 and 18 which were definitely wooded in the back and private, however both had high site premiums. At the time lots 4 and 28 were up for grabs without a lot premium. Lots 1-11 have another development behind them and lot 28 seems to be a bit squished in there. After looking at lot four we decided it just may be perfect. Though it has a neighborhood behind it, it's quite a distance behind and would still afford us plenty of privacy, especially once we put up a privacy fence. Additionally the neighborhood behind has gorgeous and vey well maintained houses. The lot is .25 acres which is one of the larger of the lots (largest available was Lot 2 at .30 acres for $11k!) whereas lots 14 and 18 were a bit smaller (.23 acres) and both had about $10,000 lot premiums.  Another thing we liked about lot four is that it's pretty straight across all borders. The lots in the cul-de-sac all had a bit of an odd shape which would affect how far they would build from the street. In lot four you could build 20ft back (as per code) in a pretty straight line and not loose any backyard due to an odd shape of the lot. In the end we decided four afforded plenty of privacy, was in a good location on the block and best of all didn't have any site premium. So lot 4 is now the site of our future home!!!!

Our Site!!!

A pic my husband drew to show our family where our house will be :)

Decisions Decisions!!

We are not the type of people to enter into anything lightly We'll research the smack out of things before we join, buy or invest, so it was a bit out of character for us to decide to build with Ryan Homes without first doing many hours of research. True to form however, we did all of that afterward. There are quite a few blogs about building with Ryan which have helpful hints, and then there are the reviews... Many of the reviews we stumbled across are negative and we began to get a little nervous about our decision. It seems though that many problems that reviewers had with Ryan could be avoided by being diligent throughout the build process. Staying in contact with your project manager, having a pre drywall inspection and being proactive. So at the end of the day we are still excited about our decision and reading the blogs has been helpful in coming to that conclusion.

Now begins the decision making process and there are a TON of house features to decide on. We created charts, spreadsheets, pictures and diagrams to help us determine the house model we wanted as well as the features and upgrades to the home. It was days of back and forth and agonizing over all of the details and we are now locked into our choices and are happy with them. Colors were probably the most difficult to pick since we are doing it via pictures and FaceTime. We won't be making another trip to VA until we move out there so everything is being done from across the country. Everything we chose is listed under the 'Selections' tab but here I'll go into more detail on why we picked what we picked.

We chose the Rome model.
Rome Floorplan

Exterior
-Rome model - Elevation E with partial stone veneer

Schematic of Elevation E with partial stone veneer

This won't be our color scheme but it's the same model (and seeing as it is a model there isn't a driveway)

Shutter Options

Colors we chose for the exterior:  This was the hard part since we couldn't see it in person. Looking at many many pictures online helped us decide on color combos.
     -Siding Veneer Front - Island Pearl
     -Shake-Sandy Tan
     -Shutters- Red
     -Door - French Roast
     -Stone - Fieldstone Autumn Buckeye
     -White Trim

Vinyl Options

Our color selections with brick selection (brick will be in back and sides from siding to ground) The front door is dark brown 

Our color choices with stone veneer choice. The front door is the darker brown not red brown.

-Upgraded landscaping package
This is included in our incentives package. Ryan Homes will sod frond and back, our sales rep said they are the only builder to do so. The upgraded package consists of bushes, trees and flowers.

-Garage Door Upgrade 1
Also included, I believe it's just a nicer door

-Garage Service Door
Door from the garage to outside. Now on the floorpan this door is at the rear of the garage on the side, exactly what we wanted. However, our sales rep told us this is no longer how it is done and the door is toward the front of the garage on the side. Basically this means you'd exit in the front yard where as we wanted it to be behind the fence. There really isn't a point in having the exit in the front yard because you could just open the garage and exit that way. Our sales checked with the project manager and they can do this as a non standard request. So hopefully that will work out. We told them that if it could't be moved to the rear of the garage to just scrap it.

Interior
-Morning Room
This is included in our incentives package

-Morning Room Side Windows
The morning room is all windows on the back and french doors on one side. You have the option of adding windows to the remaining side. We opted to go for this so it will be an entire room of windows.

-Kitchen Faucet Upgrade 2 (Bronze)

-Kitchen Cabinet Upgrade 1- Tahoe Square Cherry Bordeaux
This is more that just looks. The included cabinets are thinner, have more shallow drawers and a finish that isn't as appealing. We went with Upgrade 1 which allows us to choose from the second row (except for the white one, that's Upgrade 2). We're both a fan of dark cabinets so we went with the Cherry.
     

-Gourmet Island
Included as an incentive - a larger curved island. I LOVE it!!

-Granite Countertops Upgrade 1 - Santa Cecelia Light
Included in the kitchen incentive. It's gonna look great with the cabinets!
     

-Cabinet Crown Molding Kitchen

-Range Gas Hook-up
I love to cook and prefer cooking with gas so we are changing form the included electric hook up to gas.

-Exhaust Vent Kitchen

-Appliance Pkg Freestanding Stainless Steel 4GH
I just love stainless appliances and we decided to go for the midlevel package

-2 Light Rough-ins over Kitchen Island
So we can install hanging lights over the island

-Gas Dryer Hook-up
We have a gas dryer that is only a year old so we figured we might as well use it

-Gas Fireplace Family Room Side
We chose side instead of rear of house because we plan to build a deck in the future and don't want to have to build around the fireplace which will jut into the yard.

-Fireplace Surround Family Room Granite -Ubatuba
It's the last one on the first row of the granite pic-Recessed Lighting over fireplace (2)

-Owners Bathroom Shower Upgrade with Seat
A tub/shower combo is what's included with the base price of the house. There are a few options for upgrades including a shower stall and soaking tub and a shower with a seat. Neither of us are bath takers so we decided to opt for a larger shower with a seat and no tub in the bathroom. We did toss and turn over this a little because we were concerned about resale value in the future without a large tub. Our realtor advised that often people say they aren't bath takers but everyone loves a good shower and she didn't feel it would hurt us in the future so we decided to just go with what we wanted.

-Owners Bath Cabinet Upgrade 1 - Tahoe Square Cherry Bordeaux
Same as kitchen- wanted consistency

-Owners Bath Vanity Granite Upgrade 1 - Santa Cecelia Light
Same as kitchen - wanted consistency

-Ceramic Surround Secondary Bath
This is for the shower, standard is fiberglass insert

-Cabinet Upgrade 1 Secondary Bath - Tahoe Square Cherry Bordeaux
Same as kitchen- wanted consistency


-Vanity Granite Upgrade 1 Secondary Bath - Santa Cecelia Light
Same as kitchen- wanted consistency

-House Bronze Finish
Fixtures in bathroom

-Attic Storage
Access is included, this add finish floors in the attic to allow for storage as well as widen and add a ladder to the access.

-Carpeted Stair with Metal Balusters

-Celing Fan Roughins x 8 (3 included in price) - 4 Bedrooms, Family Room, Loft, Study, Morning Room

Non Standards
-Gas line rough-in to backyard for grill
Our sales rep informed us of this option and we love it! No more propane tanks for the grill. This is a non standard but he said it's such a common request that it is called a 'standard non standard'

-Rear placement for garage service door
See garage service door explanation above


We still have to pick our wiring and flooring options but that is required to be done within 30 days whereas the rest is required within 14 days of signing the contract.

And So It Begins...

Hi everyone!! My husband and I are just beginning the journey to building our first home with Ryan Homes and wanted to document the trip along the way in hopes of helping others with the process. We are a military family living in Twentynine Palms CA (best place on earth...) and will be moving to VA where my husband will be completing his residency at the naval hospital in Portsmouth VA. We have one kiddo and one on the way as well as one fur kiddo. About 2 weeks ago we headed to VA for a house hunting trip, and really didn't have the intention of building, in fact we didn't really even plan to look at any undeveloped homesites at all. After looking at many houses that were either what we want in the wrong location, or the right location that didn't have what we want we stumbled upon Fisher's Cover in Chesapeake, VA. The location was perfect! The school system we wanted, easy commute for my husband to work, very nice neighborhoods surrounding etc. We decided we might as well meet with the sales rep for Ryan Homes and learn a little about the building process. Six hours later we walked away with a signed contract and 14 days to make all the decisions and choices about our new home!!

Here's a little info about the development. At this time they have only broken ground on a few homes and the model isn't even complete so it will be a totally new development.
Fishers Cove

In Fishers Cove there are 5 home models to choose from, all with different floor plans, prices, sizes etc. Here are your choices;
Springhaven
   Ranch
   3 bed
   2 bath
   2058 sq ft starting
   options to add additional bedrooms

Milan
   2 Story
   3 Bedroom
   2.5
   Loft (option to close off loft for 4th bedroom)
   2699 sq ft starting

Ravenna
   2 Story
   4 Bedroom (option for first floor bedroom)
   2.5 Bath (option for first floor full bath)
   Option for 2nd floor bonus room (FROG)
   2720 sq ft starting

Rome
   2 Story
   4 Bed
   2.5 Bath
   Study 1st floor
   Loft
   3286 sq ft starting

Torino
   2 Story
   4 Bed
   2.5 Bath
   Loft 3646 sq ft starting

I'll share all about our decision process in the next post, but here is how the process starts.

We spent most of the day with the sales rep, looking at floor plans, pics, a model of the Milan and running numbers to compare prices. By the end of the day we knew we wanted to build but still couldn't settle on a home type. No worries though because you have a 14 day window to make all your choices. So we set up a meeting toward the end of that time with our sales rep and that's when we will lock in our final choices for the home! We're on our way now!!!