Our Updated Floor Plan

Our Olsen

This is our floor plan with the structural changes we made.  The X's mark where recessed lighting, lights, & fans are going. "Kind of" 

Non Standards - Yes or DENIED!

Here is our list of Non Standards that we requested.

1. Front Entry - there appears to be a small wall on the right side of the front hallway.  Not sure what/why etc.  Will ask at Pre-con and update later 
2. Remove middle window in the Family Room - YES 
3. Cut the corner of the family room carpet and replace with wood.  With it left the say it was all traffic would trample one corner of the carpet to get to the kitchen - YES, that will be and additional $275
4. Ryan Homes sink is a 60/40 split.  We want a single bowl sink - DENIED.  We will revisit this with our PM and see what happens
5. Cabinet to be fitted for garbage cans - DENIED. Pretty stupid being denied since a lot of models I've been through have this option in them.  I'll buy the kit from Lowes and see if PM will install for us.  If not, we will do this on our own.
6. Alternate Layout for the microwave.  I hate having it right about the stove top.  I feel like it crowds my head space.  I would much rather have a range hood. - DENIED.
7. Can I have a range hood and no microwave - DENIED.
8. I had my heart set on cream cabinets and a chocolate brown island.  I requested to have Rushmore Maple Espresso on the Island (same profile as the cream cabinets + another blogger asked for the same thing and got it) I was - DENIED
9. Glass fronts on some of the cabinets - DENIED
10. Remove wall between the 2 master closets - YES
11. Don't install wire shelving in the kids closets - YES
12. Make shower in the Master bath a Roman Shower - YES, that will be an additional $495
13. Tile surround for kids tub/showers - DENIED

As you can see we were DENIED on what I thought were pretty easy requests.  Super dissapointed!

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.

Rite Rug apt - Flooring choices BUST!

We had our apt with Rite Rug, the flooring company you work with (in Ohio) for your options.  We drove 30 min to Rite Rug and were greeted by the sales person. She immediatley told be that her assistant had scheduled an apt directly after ours giving us only 45 min to pick the tile and flooring for our entire house!

I started looking at wood flooring first since I knew I wanted this in most of the first floor.  I was shocked at the poor selection!  We had priced out wood floors in our previous home before we decided to move and had really shopped around. We feel like we know EVERYTHING about wood flooring.  That being said we were expecting to pay $7,000 - $8,000 for the Front entry, living room, dining room, kitchen, morning room, family entry, & powder room aproximatley 1200 sq ft.  I picked out the only wood that was remotely close to what I wanted and was quoted a price tag of $16,000!  What the what?   Are these floors made of gold or something.  Needless to say I was deflated at that point.  I decided to move on to tile and revisit the wood later.  Tile was not much better.  They didn't have ANYTHING I wanted!  Wow, another dissapointment.  At this point the other apt showed up and we left without having picked anything.

Feeling really discouraged now.

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.

Choosing a Model

We purchased our first Ryan Home 3 years ago.  We were house hunting in the winter and there was Nothing to buy.  I came across the builder and during my house hunt and really liked the size of home we could get for the price.  We built a Rome and have been very happy in the home.  Due to job changes we are moving and again could not find anything to buy.  We are again building with Ryan and I'm excited because I know what to expect now!

Ryan Homes has a new model out called the Landon.  It is a beautiful model with an amazing kitchen island!  We loved this one but felt it was a bit too small for us. We have 4 kids 3 of which are boys who need extra space to be well Boys!  The Landon is missing a living room.  We felt like we needed that extra space so you had somewhere to go for a private conversation, our piano, etc.

One model we liked and had our Sales Rep price out was the Courtland.  It had the laundry room upstairs (a must), and the extra space we were looking for.  There were a few things about the Courtland model that I just couldn't get past.  The optional island is just weird.  I don't like the shape and don't feel it's very functional.  After seeing the island in the Landon, this one just didn't stack up.  The study is in the front of the home and the work I do from home isn't pretty (I have an online Hair Bow boutique and ribbon is usally everywhere :)  I didn't want it to be the first thing you see when you walk into my home.  My final issue with this model is the powder room.  It is the tiniest thing I've ever seen.  I'm not sure a larger adult could shut the door...Just sayin!  It was like Ryan Homes said "Crap, we forgot the powder room...let's just stick it here!"  With all this I took to Ryan's website to look at other models that our neighborhood wasn't offering.  Our SR said we could pretty much build anything!  That is when I discovered the Olsen.

The Olsen model is only available in Ohio (not sure why?).  It is just like the Landon but with the extra space we were looking for.  It has a living room and larger study.  It is very similar to the Rome in layout and flow.  We love it!

The Olsen is a 4 bd 3 ba with 3250 sq ft. 3 car garage

This is Elevation A included with the base price.

We chose Elevation L