Rite Rug Revisited

After our initial apt. failure at Rite Rug I couldn't sleep.  I felt sick about how much money we were spending on the house and questioning everything.  I considered getting everything builder grade and doing upgraded flooring later.  But then I thought about my beautiful cabinets and granite and the thought of putting linoleum in just didn't make sense.  Then there was the issue of the cabinets being the wrong height if we put wood in later.  See I want to extend the cabinets into the morning room and the new cabinets would be on wood and existing would be on linoleum.  They would be about 3/4 inch off.  Then we toyed with having our cabinets raised and having a light install done on the linoleum so its easier to rip out.  None of these options sat well with me.  We are spending a lot of money on the cabinets and granite and I want the kitchen to be really nice.  We talked with our Ryan SR a lot about this and she simply said there is nothing that can be done.  What I wanted her to say is "Hey, we realize the flooring is overpriced...we will throw in the living and dining room for free"  HA! in my dreams...right?

**If I could pick any flooring I wanted I would choose a chocolate brown hand scraped maple floor. **

The wood floor we chose at Rite Rug we found online for $6.00 - $7.00 a sq ft and labor is an additional $2.99 / sq ft.  With a little math Rite Rug was charging $9 a sq ft for wood and 2.99 / sq ft for install.  We feel sick being overcharged like this.  But feel kind of trapped as well.  We don't want to mess up our cabinets or risk a debacle with the flooring later.

Our SR at Ryan set up another apt for us at Rite Rug with a different SR and told us we could "shop the store"  to find what we were looking for.  I accepted this news with a leary attitude.  And of course I was right.  Shop the store meant you can only shop Armstrong wood & Shaw carpet.  Not anything you want.  I was hopefull but kind of expecting this.

After accepting that we would be spending way more than necessary to get the wood floors we wanted we proceeded with the appointment.  This time the SR at rite rug was way more helpful.  She pulled options and really discussed things with us.  This is what we ended up with.

photo from heavenlyhighgrove.blogspot.com

 Armstrong Brown Bear hand scraped 5" wide oak.  A beautiful floor (just too exspensive in my book) in the front entry, kitchen, morning room, powder room, & family entry.  ** We are planning to continue this wood flooring into the living room and dining room later and will purchase it from a less exspensive retailer.

So our temporary flooring in the living/dining rooms is Baseline Carpet White Fox

Study - Baseline Thornwood.  This too will be replacesd shortly after we move in.

Family Room Carpet - Level C upgrade with 8lb pad.  This is Shaw Simple Times Great Plains.  We chose this carpet in our first Ryan home and were happy with it.  It hides stains well and is comfortable underfoot.

Stairs & Second Level Carpet - Shaw Simple Times Quartz.  We are using gray tones in the kids rooms and this color goes well with grays and beiges.  It's kind of a greige color.

Stair railing is being stained to match the wood flooring

Master Bath - since all our money has been spent on the wood floors we went with the standard options and will upgrade later.  I don't feel too bad about this since they didn't have anything I liked anyway.

Initiator vinyl floor & 6X6 white tile on shower & tub.  We chose standard andover maple vanities since we don't like the Ryan homes vanites.  They are plain and the storage stinks.  We will replace these later on.

photo courtesy of heavenlyhighgrove.blogspot.com

Bath #1, Bath #2, and Laundry Room also have the Initiator vinyl.  Andover maple cabinets in all bathrooms.  We plan to paint or Rustoleum transform these to make them accpetable until we can replace them.

Our Options & Upgrades

The process of choosing upgrades for the house can be really stressful.  Do not feel bad about choosing stuff and then changing or reconfiguring.  It is what the SR is there for and this is a big investment so you want to get it right.  Since we had experience with this process I think we took the SR by surprise!

My big gripe about this process is that every single upgrade possibility isn't listed. There is a list but it doesn't include everything you could change.  I had to constantly ask the SR what can I add in this room, what about moulding, are there upgrades to the stairs, etc.  We felt this is information she should have been telling us instead of the otherway around.

Here are the upgrades & options we chose.

Olsen Model Elevation L.  It has stone, shake, & siding.  We couldn't get the colors we wanted for our home because Ryan Homes thought this part of Ohio was not "ready" for the new colors.  This was a real disapointment because we are READY for the new colors!  We ended up choosing Pebble Creek Siding, Sandy Tan Shake, White Trim, Bucks County Ledgestone Stone, Brown Shudders, Outerspace Door.  Cottage style front door & garage doors came standard.

We upgraded to whole house Oil Rubbed Bronze hardware & chose level 3 molding package which gives you larger baseboards, larger door casings, crown molding, chair rail, etc.  We upgraded the stair balisters to iron.

Basement 

• Unfinished (just couldn't fit it in the budget)
• 3 piece bathroom rough in

First Floor

• Added the morning room
• 4ft extension on study
• recessed lighting in the Family room
• Partial Stone Fireplace.  We originally had a full stone fireplace but it was feeling a bit too rustic for my taste.  Then I discovered they offer a partial stone...so pretty.

• level 4 appliance package

• Level 2 cabinets Rushmore with a Hazlenut Glaze

• Level 2 Granite New Venetian Gold
• Goose neck faucet

• Gas cooktop (electric is standard)
• Ceiling Fan in Family Room
• Light in Living Room
• Light in Study
• Extra outlet in Study
• Added an outlet in the Pantry
• Under cabinet lighting
• Cabinet Moulding

Second Floor

• Added Bonus Room
• Upgraded Master Bathroom
• Ceiling Fans in all the bedrooms & bonus room
• Changed the Master shower to a Roman Shower(his & hers shower heads)
• Jetted Tub
• Removed the wall between the 2 master closets making 1 large closet.  We have seperate closets now (which I love) so we will see if we like this set up. 
• Laundry sink

Garage

• Added an outlet
• Added an extra Hose Bib
• Service Door (gives you a light on the side of the house too)
• Floor Drain

We did not get the Hutch in the morning room although I really wanted it I just couldn't justify the $5,000 price tag. Plus this is something I can add later on.

We did remove one window from the family room.  They have 3 windows across the back of the house in the family room kind of spaced out and I think it looks weird.  We removed the center window so now the couch will go in between the 2 windows.

We requested for them to not install the wire shelving closet system in the kids closets.  I HATE wire shelving!  If I could remove it from the entire house I would but I just can't afford to redo every closet nor do I have the time.  I will install custom closet systems in the kids closets and then do the master closet later.

We would have liked to Jack & Jill the bathroom upstairs but would have to give up the vaulted entry way.  Since the boys will be sharing those bedrooms & bathroom we figured they didn't need walk in closets.  This was a $6,000 upgrade.

With the added upgrades the sq footage of our home is now 3,800 sq ft. not including the basement.