Just Great! Crashed my Car! Thank God Nobody Hurt!

Well on Tuesday, February 18th I slide on Ice and crashed my car into the back of an 18" Wheeler Flatbed Truck who needless to say took off when the light turned green!! Just great right!  Thank God nobody was hurt!!  The damages are $4000.  Thank God again for accident forgiveness and that everything is fully covered.  I have a rental for about a month which is also covered!   So yeah, how was your week lol :)

Ps. Still waiting for NVR but Claiming a Mortgage Approval this week!

Our Guardian Protection Pre-Wire Meeting and Selections

Your pre-wire meeting consist of meeting with Guardian and it will cover Alarm Systems, and placement and selection of Internet, Cable, Sound Systems, Telephone Jacks, etc. anything electrical pretty much. If you do not know what comes free with your home - check with your SR as every community and state is different.  Your Guardian rep will know this information as well.

When you get to this step, make sure you take time BEFORE your meeting to thoroughly go over your floor plan and start making some basic decisions on where you want furniture placement.  For example - you will need to know what wall your want your TVs to go on, where you want your telephone plugs, cable outlets, internet plugs, and if you work from home where you want your outlets for phone/internet and desk.  Doing this at the last minute in front of your Guardian rep is definitely not recommended as it leaves room for mistakes that possibly can't be fixed later.  So do some PRE-PLANNING and save yourself a headache later.

Here are our Selections:

Guardian Standard Alarm Package - We just went w/the basic package as we are current Guardian customers and called the 800 number and our rep told us we can add on later and they will give us a discount for additional door or window sensors.  But MAKE SURE you at least put the Standard Basic Alarm Package in place that way its all pre-wired and ready to add onto.

6 Single Wall Plate Outlets (free)
1 Telephone Jack (free)
5 Cable Outlets (free)
2 Single Wall Plate Outlet (Cable) $95 each

3 High Speed Digital Flat Panel Prewire (free)
3 Same Stud Bay High Speed HDMI $330 Each (This is to Wall Mount our TVs up High)

We are adding our Guardian cost to our down payment as we don't want it to be in the mortgage.

IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER:

• If you want to Wall Mount your TVs you would definitely add Wall Mount Pre-Wire - they do not hang your TV - but all the wires are put up high so you can easily do so. This is rather messy or complicated to add later.
• Internet Jacks - Remember you will have a Wireless box in your basement from your internet service provider that hooks into your homes pre-wire.  So its not necessary to add Internet Plugs in every room.  We just added them where we wanted a direct connection.
• If you want to hook up a blue ray player etc., make sure you get the proper HDMI pre-wires. 
• Basically if you tell your Guardian rep what you want to do in each room - a good rep can advice you on what type of Pre-Wire to add.

Flooring Selections for our Rome - Mission Accomplished - Stuck to Standards

Our Flooring Selections - Ignore Floor to Right

I was so proud of myself!!  We did not Upgrade a Single thing! My bill was $0.  Again, goal is to keep cost down.  Our kids are grown and we have no pets.  So we will use the flooring until it needs replaced 5+ years down the road.  We may get our Hardwood sooner though.  But overall I'm very happy with our selections and even though we did not upgrade anything - I think what we picked is absolutely gorgeous.  Goal is to keep things out of our mortgage so mission accomplished!  :)

Foyer - Initiator 66204
Kitchen and Morning Room - Initiator 66204
Powder Room - Initiator 66204
Laundry Room - Initiator 66204
Hall Bath Upstairs - Initiator 66204
Master Bathroom - Initiator 66204

Living Room - Baseline 00106 White Fox
Dining Room - Baseline 00106 White Fox

Family Room - Baseline 00753 Cobble Hill (It was real hard not to upgrade this room...uggh LOL!)
1st Floor Study -  Baseline 00753 Cobble Hill
Upstairs - Baseline 00753 Cobble Hill

Standard - 6 Lb Padding
Railing Stain:  Chestnut

Selections for our Rome Model

This was a really fun process!  I'm very proud of all the money we saved by building conservatively this time around!  We only added structural upgrades that would be hard to do later.  Below are our Selections for our Rome.

Elevation:   Elevation C with All Siding

Color:  Siding Color is Sandy Tan with Dark Berry Shutters and Marooned Door.  Brick at base of home is Savannah Gray w/Buff Mortar.  Exterior White Trim Around House and Garage

Basement:  Non Finished Basement - Only Added 3 Piece Plumbing Rough-in for when we finish later. We used our $12,500 NVR Incentive towards our Morning Room instead of finished gameroom :)

Morning Room - Added Morning Room with standard sliding glass door - we can always replace it with a fancier door later.

Cabinet Choices:

Andover Maple Spice - Kitchen and Master Bathroom

Standard Oak - Upstairs Hall Bathroom - we will be ripping this out and replacing it with a full size vanity and saving it for the finished basement later :)

Appliances - We stuck with all standard black appliances.  Ryan charges way too much to upgrade to stainless steel and you basically lose your free credit for appliances because they don't take that into consideration with the upgrade cost.  We will take their free appliances and sell them and use the money for stainless steel appliances or keep them and use them and replace them later.

Gas Dryer Hookup - Added for our gas dryer

Owners Suite Bathroom - We added the Shower with Garden Tub with no ceramic towel, and double bowl vanity.  We can always add Ceramic Towel later now that the structures are in place.  Although ceramic towel looks gorgeous!  After my last home, I'm personally not a fan of scrubbing grout for hours on end with a toothbrush and bleach! No thank you!

Interior Specifications:  Pine Stair w/Oak Handrail with White Balusters.  I would have loved the black iron rod balusters but they were WAY OVERPRICED!  We can add those ourselves later!

Electrical Specifications:  Dedicated Circuit in the Garage for our Freezer

Lighting Upgrades:

Kitchen - We added the 6 Package Recessed Lights in the Kitchen.

Standard Light Prewire - 4 Bedrooms, Morning Room, Family Room, Study and Loft. 

We just did standard light prewires as we learned no need to upgrade to Ceiling Fan Rough-in and pay the extra $125 because all that does is put a heavier bracket and adds extra wires and a switch to the wall to turn the fan off and on.  First, we checked with Lowes and you can buy those heavier brackets for like $13.  Second, who wants to get up to flick a fan off and on - that's what the remote is for LOL!

Note:  Every model is different. Some models due to roof and attic position may not make it so accessible to get to your bracket so check on your model before deciding.

Exterior Package - Standard Landscaping Package included.

In the Mortgage Approval Phase! Sheesh O Weese!

Update 2/21/14:  I'm still waiting!  This is like the longest wait EVER!!!  So annoying!  If they tell you it'll only be a few days - change that to a few weeks!  It has now been 4 long dragged out grueling weeks!  I'm hoping to hear something today or next week for sure.

I am in the mortgage approval stage and boy is it stressful!!  But I must say my Loan Officer is going above and beyond to get this thing done.  I think we should get an approval next week.  It's been a long drawn out process coming up on about 4 weeks.  I'm self employed so they want my first and second born!  It's grueling!  I have been so stressed out!  I will just be glad when its all over with and approval in hand.

Ryan Homes Option for Garage Floor Drain - To Add or Not to Add

Ryan Homes gives you the option to add a Floor Drain in your Garage.  Some community SRs will make you feel like you absolutely must add this and you will be a fool not to.  Others will tell you they built their home or have sold homes where people typically do not add it and that they've never had an issue.  So this of course made me very confused since I was told 2 different things by the SRs LOL!  Who do you believe? Ugh!   So after doing a little research, I decided to remove the $595 option.  I hope I don't regret this. Cringe lol.
If you do not get a floor drain, Ryan Homes will slightly sloop your garage floor (not even a noticeable difference) so if you ever do get water pouring from your cars, it will simply run outside of the garage door.  I just can't see this happening or ever even being an issue as I've never seen water pouring off our cars and if it does it normally dries and evaporates LOL.

Here is why we're NOT getting a Floor Drain in the Garage:

• We don't wash our cars in the garage (I had never heard of such a thing, but I guess in the winter alot of people do this LOL)
• Very Rarely do we pull our cars in the Garage and they are dripping wet with snow and water.  We don't get much snow and rain and if we do, I'm surely not driving in it! LOL!
• We've always had floor drains and never have seen that much water pouring off our cars where it even remotely reached the floor drain. So they kind of seem pointless!
• I've read some reviews where people that do have floor drains have issues with them getting clogged with dirt etc.  Again, I can't see us having that much drainage from our cars. Never seen that happen in the past.
• Worse case scenario - which I doubt will ever happen - we can always add one later
• I'm not paying for an option in our mortgage that cost $595 plus interest plus 30 years that I can see having very little value

Anyone ponder over this?  Please share your comments before my 14 Days are up for changes LOL.

Ryan Homes Incentives - Know Your Options!

Ryan Homes typically has a monthly incentive for the community.  It may varies from state to state how they allocate the incentive.  Most  states have the incentive for the entire community and all models, while others put the incentive on certain models and even certain home sites (lots).  Our city has the incentive for the entire community and any model. 

Typically Incentives are better towards year end because they are trying to meet their sales quotas for the year ;)  So if you are not pressed to buy right away and your community has many lots available - you may want to wait until year end to buy your home.  Typically the best deals on incentives start around October or so and run until the end of December.   It really just depends on supply and demand and where they are at with their sales quotas for any particular community.  But you can almost always count on some type of incentive to be running at any given time!  We lucked out and the December incentive was extended into January.  WooHoo!  The incentive is a Free Finished Basement!  HUGE!  So we decided not to wait until February and move forward now! 

However, we already had decided that our finished basement was something that we did not want in our mortgage and that we could always get finished later down the road.  So when I met with the SR, I asked her could we use the credit toward our Morning Room and of course she said YES!  So we saved about $13,000 off the Morning Room!  And I'm a very happy camper ;)

So just know your options when being presented with your incentives!  If they have an incentive and you need to use that money elsewhere like on other options, just know to ask!