Two rooms down, 10 more to go...

I painted!

Yup, I finally broke down and got some paint on the walls!  A friend came over to help get me (push me?) over the hump and it was a ginormous help.  With her coaxing, I chose SW Blonde to paint in the entrance hallway.  A few weeks later, I worked up the nerve to tackle the morning room, which I painted SW Bamboo Shoot.

SW Blonde in entrance.  Its really tough to get a good picture of this room
because it never gets much natural light.  I really like the color, which
is a nice warm yellow/brown.

It looks a bit different at night with the fluorescent lights

Showing off my excellent cutting-in job, not so easy with
that angled ceiling above the door

SW Bamboo Shoot.  I LOVE how it turned out.

The 12' ceiling was NOT easy to paint

You can see we also got blinds!  We ordered them custom cut from SelectBlinds.com and were very pleased with their service, prices and shipping.  All nine windows in the morning/family room are the same color, Cherry.  Select Blinds cuts them to width and length - the windows are a standard size, but having them cut to the correct length saves a lot of time.  When you buy blinds off the shelf, you have to take the bottom apart and pull the extra slats off - an endeavor that requires a large lot of patience, and in my experience, a stiff drink (or two).  These blinds were comparably priced to ones you can buy off the shelf at big box retailers.

The next big project will be figuring out a color for the family room/kitchen that coordinates with Bamboo Shoot and Blonde, doesn't clash with the new couch, and looks good with the floor, cabinets and countertops.  No problem, right?

The Ryan Granite Secret

Last week, during our period of agonizing over what kind of countertops to get in our awesome new kitchen, BF and I swung by the showroom of the local granite place.  Its the same granite place that Ryan contracts with around here for granite and Corian installation.

We weren't there for more than 5 minutes before the sales rep told us the secret: You are getting totally hosed if you upgrade to granite countertops with Ryan.

The sales rep estimated a total cost of about $2800 if we ordered granite directly from them after our home was built.  Ryan charges around $4,000 for all of the counters in the Ravenna, including gourmet island.
He shared with us that granite prices have dropped dramatically, and that most granites are now cheaper than Corian, which is not reflected on the upgrade sheet.  And prices may continue to come down.

So, by putting in granite counters after we close on the house, we will be saving ourselves around $1200.  And could use the laminate countertops for something else, like garage or basement workspaces.  Too bad we don't want granite - we want the more costly (and less pain in the ass) quartz countertops!  Those would cost us around $5,000 and while its nice to think about, I can't ever imagine myself spending that kind of cash on a counter.  Trip to Greece?  Yes.  Place to throw my junk when I walk into the house?  Uh, no.

There are, of course, good reasons to buy granite from Ryan, particularly if you want to have it and don't have the cash in hand.  Rolling up that cost into your mortgage and dividing it over 360 payments makes the cost per month almost invisible.  But, if you have the flexibility to do it later, definitely talk to your local granite place and see what kind of deal you can get so you can make an informed choice.

So, our informed choice is that we are going with laminate countertops (in Brazilian Brown - anyone have that color?) but upgraded the sink and faucet.  We got an extra deep, one bowl sink ($150) and a nicer Moen Faucet ($275).  If we upgrade, we will have to ditch the sink, but could keep the faucet.  But, since we won't upgrade for a while (if ever) we wanted to have a deep sink and workable faucet from day one.

I hope this is helpful for anyone else out there agonizing over countertops.

Final Selections & Neighbors too

We had our final selection meeting with our sales rep yesterday afternoon, and I was in agony the entire time.

BF and I sat in the choices room for a good 30 minutes with the floor sample, the cabinets and the countertops, going round and round in circles about colors and laminate v. Corian.

And around, and around and around.

What we finally decided was to upgrade the cabinet from Maple Cognac to Wyoming Cherry Spice.  Neither of us was really thrilled with the way the Maple looked with the cherry floors.  Or any of the floors, actually.  It was an 800 dollar upgrade, which, in the long run I think will be worth it because it will reduce my anxiety that I might not like how it looks.

In the end, we also decided not to upgrade the countertops.  I'd really, really, really like a solid surface countertop, but just can't see spending over $3000 to do it.  3 grand will buy us almost of of the materials we need to build a deck - or a tiny countertops.  I guess its a no-brainer, but...

So, the laminate color we choose was Brazilian Brown.  It was between that and the Jamoca (?) color, which I know a lot of you have picked out.  Anyone have Brazilian Brown?  It looked slightly lighter, and less busy.  But again, how can you tell from a 3" sample?

And finally, <drum roll> we picked the vinyl color.  If we had any stone or brick on the house, this would have been WAY less of an issue for me.  But, the look of the entire house rests on (again) a tiny little piece of vinyl sample.  We choose Delray Sand, with dark green shutters.  The Delray sand looked really yellow in fluorescent light, and more tan in the natural light (obscured by thunderclouds).  I'm still unsure.  In the past couple days, I have been really liking white houses with black shutters.  Boring, traditional and safe.  I think I like it because it looks like my grandma's house.  But BF thinks that the white will get dingy.  And I would like a little color.  I don't know, we'll see.  I don't have any pictures - it was pointless because it looked so different in different lights!

If you are interested, the colors available rom the new vinyl company is here:  http://www.variform.com/VariformCommon.nsf/ColorSiding?OpenForm&Refer=HO.  I think the ones that are available to us are in the Vortex Collection (not all of those colors were in the samples I got at the model house).

And, finally, I met our neighbor at Lot 5 while agonizing over the countertops at the model home.  He is also building a Ravenna, and was showing it off to one of his friends.  Definitely a nice social guy, but much younger than us.   He is getting granite countertops, and a finished basement.  Grrrr.  I had house envy for the first time - even though I don't even WANT those things!

Looking forward to seeing everyone's choices with the new vinyl selections...

Meeting with Guardian

Continuing my theme of a busy week...

We met with Guardian yesterday.  The guy was very nice, and very helpful.  I wasn't expecting that, particularly since he had called earlier in the day, desperate to change the appointment because of some crises that was happening.  I had already taken time off from work and re-arranged my schedule, so it just wasn't an option to change.

BF and I spent some time earlier in the week agonizing over the stereo system.  We don't want to wall mount the tv, and we already have a really nice stereo, and really nice speakers.  But I don't want to see the speakers hanging off the wall.  I also really don't want to look at speakers in the wall.  Its a home, not a Best Buy.  It seems that we limit the set-up of the room by putting speakers in the wall now.  I don't know where things are eventually going to go, and would like to have the flexibility to move things around at will, without worrying about whether the rear speakers are actually pumping out sound to my left.

Besides, I actually really don't like surround sound.  When I'm watching a movie, and I hear a loud bang or thunder coming from behind me, it usually scares me.  And then when I hear voices from behind me, I always think its the neighbors being loud and obnoxious.  Then realize its the tiny little speaker behind my ear.  (can you tell I'm really not a movie person?)

So, we decided we didn't want any in-wall speakers or set up.  We will find a way to make the existing sound system work.  The Guardian rep was actually very helpful with this and told us that because we don't have a finished basement, wiring the family room would be very easy.  True.  He made that decision very easy.

We also don't want an alarm system.  I've never had one, and never want to be that untrusting of my fellow humans.  And, I don't want the hassle of turning it on and off, and dealing with false alarms.  And I don't want any extra monthly expenses.  Even if it was free, I think I would skip it.

So that left us with just the cable jacks.  And unlike what a lot of people have done, we are not going to pay for the 6-pack of data outlets.  The house comes with a certain number of phone/cable jacks.  We deleted the land-line, so we won't be wired for a real phone, which I haven't used in 4 years.  And we used the rest for cable jacks in 3 bedrooms and the family room.  Verizon Fios is available, so we will get everything we need out of the cable jacks.

Total additional cost for wire upgrades = $0.

I really appreciate the Guardian reps information, patience and problem solving.  He clearly realized that we wanted to reduce costs, and helped us find a way to do it, instead of pushing electronics on us that we didn't want or need.  I was quite pleased.

Now maybe I can use some of the money we were once thinking about using for in-wall speaker pre-wire for a countertop upgrade... Did anyone choose Corian instead of granite?

Flooring Question for my Blogging friends

We've been debating dark floor vs. lighter floor.  We chose the Manchester cherry at the first flooring appointment - since then, we've heard some negative reviews about dark floors in general.  Like, they show every spec of dirt, dust and cat hair.  I have tan bamboo floors now, and I think they show everything, but apparently I haven't seen anything yet.  I was hoping that in a bigger house, the dirt would have more room to spread out, so it would be less noticeable.  That might just be wishful thinking!

Anyone have any advice or experience with dark wood floors?

Flooring Meeting - Creative Flooring

Tonight, we had our flooring meeting.  I was expecting it to take a couple hours, since somewhere in the blogger world, I read that it takes a couple hours.

This, though, did not take nearly that long.

We were the last appointment of the day, and the sales guy was definitely rushed.  I felt like I couldn't really ask many questions, and I actually had a lot.  Like, "do we HAVE to stick to the Ryan selections, or can we go custom?"  I'd really like to explore a more environmentally friendly flooring option, like bamboo, but I didn't feel like I could ask about it because the dude was in such a rush.  Oh, and it was a bazillion degrees out, and the flooring place's air conditioner had blown.  So, he was hot, irritated AND in a rush.  Not the time to ask about custom options.

They had one mistake on the order form - we are putting vinyl in the downstairs "office" to turn it into a cat-mudroom.  They had it listed as standard carpet.  No biggie, but I wonder how things get lost in translation so easily.

The cat-mudroom is the only area in the downstairs that will have anything but hardwood.  So, the biggest decision was really, what wood color are we getting?

We didn't ask about any upgrades, or the wider planks, and now I wish we had.  I'm sure it would have been too expensive, but it would have been nice to price it out.

So, we picked the base level hardwood.  At the model house, we had liked the "gunstock" color, but the showroom had a bigger sample of it, and we didn't like it as much.  We ended up going for cherry.  I'm a bit skeptical of the cherry, but I'm sure any color will look nice (that's what I'm going to repeat to myself over and over and over, at any rate).  Our cabinets (until we change our minds) are the maple cognac (?) ones.  So, here is what it will look like:

The floor looks a little less red in the picture, and its a wider plank than we would have, but you get the idea.  The hardest thing for me was figuring out how the wood would look with the cabinets.  That's a LOT of wood in one place.

Once we had the hardwood picked out, it went really fast.  BF deferred to me on most things (not worth the discussion?) but we did debate the carpet quite a bit.  I like a light carpet.  He likes a darker one.  I think we compromised:

The color looks different in the picture, but you get the idea.  Its beige.  One of the 200 different colors of beige they had for us to choose from (just like the siding!).  In case you are super curious, here is the back of the carpet sample:

Its a Shaw.  Color is "custard".  Upgrade C.  Some sort of warranty; don't remember what.  Note the significant difference in footwear between me modeling the carpet, and the carpet model.  :)  I think this means the carpet will last a long, long time....

Now back to vinyl.  There were only 5 or 6 types of basic vinyl to choose from, so that was quite easy.  We choose one with a large tile look for the cat-mudroom, and one with a smaller tile look for the upstairs bathroom and laundry.

And finally, the bath.  They had 9 variations on upgrade C to choose from.  I don't even know how we arrived at that particular level of upgrade, but so be it.  That's what we got, and here's what we choose:

I have no idea what its called.  I definitely like it, but wonder already how I'm going to clean those little tiles.  You can't tell from the picture, but they vary in their depth.  Its probably a soap scum nightmare waiting to happen.  But its pretty, at any rate.

BF is thinking that he likes the darker cabinets now, so we may have to go back to the model and re-think.  I want him to LOVE the kitchen cabinets, so that he will want to spend lots of time in the kitchen he picked out, cooking up gourmet meals for his woman.  :)

Its starting to get more and more real....

NVR Mortgage App and some other stuff

We had to go back to the model house to sign more paperwork this week.  We didn't finish signing the disclosure forms on the first round, because there was some questions that our sales rep couldn't answer so we knew we had to go back.  Turns out, she also forgot to have us initial several other pages of stuff.  Sort of annoying, but no big deal.

The visit back to the model allowed us to ask more questions and take a closer look at some options.  We added the recessed lighting in the kitchen.  I'm still ambivalent about it, but BF really wanted it.  We did a quick calculation in our heads and decided that it would likely cost more than 500 bucks to do it ourselves later.  

I also looked at the siding colors again.  No revelations there.  Still thinking and wondering.  We did, however, go back to the lot and take a look at the houses around it.  The other side of the street was developed in 90's; the one next to it was developed by a custom builder several years ago that then went belly up (hence Ryan Homes taking over).  Lots of tan, light yellow and taupe.  Guess we will fit in just fine.  :)

The biggest thing that happened this week was that we sent the mortgage application in.  BF had already sent Mark, the broker, all of our account info so he could fill in the blanks.   The application was fedex'ed to us after he filled in the blanks.

I felt a little weird about filling out the application without being able to ask questions on the fly to the broker.  We are really smart, but I don't understand things like origination fees and how they get their discount rates.  The last time I filled out a mortgage app, I sat at the dude's desk and we went over it line by line.  I didn't particularly like doing it at my kitchen table.

Because we were filling it out on our own, I took a really close look at everything and re-did calculations that he had done.  I also found out that he had screwed up our account info.  Some accounts that were mine were listed on BF's page, as was my mortgage.  It honestly, was just a sloppy job.  So between that and some calculation problems, we called the guy.

He called us back at 8pm, and went over all of our questions.  We fixed the errors, initialed them, and sent it back in.  He explained the discount points  (I'm still hazy on that) and some other things.  My advice to you:  ASK ABOUT EVERYTHING and whether there is a cheaper option.  Title insurance is one - they set you up with a premium package - you can get that cost reduced by 20% or more, depending on which state you are in.  I think there is still some room to bargain a bit, so don't be afraid to ask some tough questions.

Next step:  Flooring appointment on Tuesday!