Flooring Install

The wood floors were installed this past week and from what I can see, they are gorgeous!  We chose the Armstrong hand scraped Brown Bear wood

We also chose to have the wood run from the entry right into the kitchen.  This meant removing a corner of carpeting and placing wood there instead.  Our PM and I agreed upon a good angle for this but the wood floor installers forgot to do it.  SO, they had to come back and fix it.  I haven't seen it yet so I'm hoping it looks good and is what I had envisioned.

 This is the marked corner where the wood is going in place of carpet

Drywall is Done

Drywall is Done

Reader beware, tons of pictures ahead!

 Tons of pot lights in the kitchen.

 Coffered Ceiling in the Dining room.

 Front Entry

 View from the front door.  Little man wanted to be in every photo. LOL

 View from the Pantry looking into kitchen/morning room

 View from the kitchen sink

 Door in the morning room that leads to the backyard

 View from the kitchen/family room to the front door.

 View of the kitchen from the Morning Room

 Archway into mudroom and view of the powder room

 DH is checking out the light switch by the garage door.  The mudroom closet is big, I'm so excited about that!

 Mudroom Closet

 Window in the mudroom

 View from mudroom into office.  There is a "vent" type thing above all the doors.  It has something to do with airflow and energy efficiency

 The office

 Family Room (with the center window removed)

 View from the stairs looking into the living/dining room

 From the dining room looking at the stairs, basement door (L) and small closet (R)

 Tray ceiling in the master

 Looking into the master bedroom and door into the upgraded bathroom

 Master bedroom closet door (we made the 2 into 1 big one)

 Looking into the bathroom from the bedroom

Small linen closet in the bathroom (on the right)

 Jetted tub I can't wait to use!

 I love the windows over the tub, so pretty

 view from the top of the stairs into the Laundry Room.  Hall closet on the left.

 View into bedroom 4

 Bedroom 4 has the largest closet

 Upstairs looking into the entry way

 Bedroom 3

 Bedroom 3 (there is an added window and extra sq ft with the elevation we chose)

 Closet in bedroom 2 and view into added bathroom

 added bathroom in bedroom 2

 bonus room

Sloped ceiling in the bonus room

 Bonus room

Bonus room door to bedroom 2's bathroom on the left.  Door to bonus room from the stairs on the right.

Blowing Smoke

So a while back when I asked if the side door to the garage could be moved back and was told yes, then NO (due to structural reasons), they are now going to move it.  We were upset about the HVAC taking up so much space in the bonus room (which we were not told about) that they decided to move the garage door to (make it up to us).  This is a nice gesture but goes to show you that you can't believe what they tell you!

We feel very powerless throughout this entire process.  We have been lied to and it just feels yucky.  I understand that they are not "custom home builders" but I don't consider any of our "non standard" requests crazy complicated or anything.
We did ask for the switch for the carriage lights to be put inside the house instead of inside the garage and were told it wasn't possible.  Possible yes, but they didn't want to do it.  How hard is it to extend the wiring a few inches...Seriously!  We made this request before electrical even began so it's not like we were asking them to move existing electrical.

Feeling bad about many things about Ryan Homes right now...

Sectional Shopping

I have spent the last month shopping for a sectional for the Family Room.  There are so many options and they can get pretty expensive.  I wanted something built well (I have 4 active kids), stain resistant, but stylish too.

Some that were really pretty with turned style legs and nail head trim were just too uncomfortable.

Some that came in a million different fabrics, great price, nice construction just weren't quite right.  I don't want to have to "Heave Ho" to try and get out of it.

We looked at High end which were super nice, well built, comfortable...but with a $5,000 - $6,000 price tag it was a bit hard to take the plunge.

Then while shopping with my DD and stumbled into Macy's and found this (it's their #1 selling sectional)

It's called the Radley Sectional and it's just what we need.  It doesn' have the fancy feet or nail head trim but it's well built and most importantly comfortable!  It has the highest quality cushions available and is a great size.  The ottoman flips open for added storage as well.  And the price, well let's just say it's way less than $6,000!

We ordered it with the Chaise on the other side and an extra armless chair making the long side of the sectional about 176 inches long

These are the Fabrics I like.  I'll probably go with the Java because it's dark and will wear well with kids.  The light tan is so pretty but I have nightmares of kids dive bombing in the sofa with spaghetti sauce faces...EEEK!  Dark it will have to be, that's just the phase of life we are in right now.

SO DISSAPOINTED!

When we picked the upgrades to our home we went over and over them with our SR.  We had asked for the side entry garage door to be moved towards the rear of the garage instead of the front (which is where it's placed normally for Ryan Homes).  She said, that shouldn't be a problem they move then all the time.  They get moved because having an entrance right next to the HUGE garage door is not practical.  Most people I know who have them towards the front don't use then and just end up putting stuff in front of them.  I could go on and on but I'll stop.

So I was suprised to see the side entry garage door toward the front and not in the back???  Apparantly the structure blah blah blah isn't made to have the garage door in the rear of the garage.  A bunch of made up excuses if you ask me...just say'n.  So I call the SR and ask if we can just remove it since it's not going to be moved and I could use the $900 somewhere else.  I recieved a short and snippy NO!  Nothing can be changed.

Well that's funny since you changed the location from the rear to the front.  So you can change stuff but we can't.

SO ANNOYED!

UPDATE!- Side door has been moved to the back.

My biggest gripe yet to date is the SINGLE SINK issue.  PM has tried but whoever is above him is not budging on the sink.  Because and I quote, "Your home is  new model and we don't want people walking through it to think that it comes with a single sink"...Um, excuse me!  It's not YOUR HOUSE!  This comment really upset me.  I apparently am going to get no where with RH so I'm going to talk to the granite guys and see if they can do a light install on the sink so changing it out will be easier.  I will give an update when I talk to them which should be in a week or so.

UPDATE! - Single sink has been approved!  Thanks to my PM and SR for working so hard for us...YEAH!!!

Roof goes on Electical and Pluming begins & Fun discoveries

This week the roof was installed and then the plumbing and electrical began as well.  It's reallly starting to look like a house.

 This darn HVAC tubing at 2 ft by 4 ft of our bunus room.  This was not on the plans or comunicated to us in any way...we were very shocked to see it there!

 On a more positive note the jetted tub in the master is HUGE!  I am so excited about this...my kids are calling dibs on the first bath.  We will just have to see about that. he he he

 Roman Shower in the Master with his and hers shower heads.  His at 83 inches and Hers at 75 inches.  I'm 5'3 and DH is 6'2

 The fireplace is a nice size.  It's bigger than the one in our last home (The Rome) and I was told that we are one of the first homes to get this larger model.  It looks great.  I am so looking forward to sitting on the hearth to warm my tootsies come this Winter.

This is the wall that the tv is going on.  PM is adding blocking to support DH huge tv!

 So the picture isn't the best but I discovered that I have ARCHES!!!  I had no idea?  They weren't on the plans or mentioned anywhere.    They are really pretty and make the entrance a bit more grand.  I'm excited about this feature.  There is also an arched entrance from the kitchen to the mudroom.