Pre-Settlement Walkthrough

FINALLY!   I have been excited for this day though I will say it is a bit anti-climatic since we visit the house weekly now.   We took family members through the house on Saturday so the only real difference was that it had been cleaned again.  Our PM did say we get at least one last cleaning that will be what he calls the "white glove" cleaning prior to settlement which is only 5 days away.

As I was not able to make the pre-drywall meeting, this was the first time I have talked to the PM in person since the pre-construction meeting.  I have watched a lot of HGTV since then.  A lot.  I have an addiction, a serious one.  So, I told the PM about my problem and he walked through the house knowing I've seen too many episodes of Property Brothers.  He pointed out areas and explained why it happened on Flip or Flop, but it wouldn't happen in this house.   Fantastic customer service, really.

Instead of the cabinets I feared, we have the standard rack above the washer and dryer.  We decided to ask if the height was ok given the pedestals we bought, and the PM agreed we should raise the rack.   I'm not convinced that we will need that space, but I would rather have the rack there than not, we could always remove it.

Also, our sales rep told us to add a ceiling fan rough-in for our covered patio in the back.  We noticed it wasn't added so we brought that to our PM's attention.  He took us out there and asked the most important question...exactly how big of a fan did we intend to put there?  There may be room for a beanie hat there, but nothing more!   So we moved that rough-in inside to the living room.  We may never use it, but at least there is a possibility to use it there!

So while I don't love to repeat things that happened on other blogs, I also recognize that when multiple sources say the same things it reinforces it to others too.   The experience we have had with Ryan Homes is nothing like I read on other blogs during my research.  Before we signed, I was a little hesitant given what I read but I noticed what Potomac Shores Living noticed;  all of the blogs that had the most negative reviews came from another region of the country.   That sold me.  I do have a friend who did decide against Ryan Homes because of the reviews that are out there, and I told her to go back and see the locations and realize that not all regions were created equal.  I'm going to refer anyone who wants a more in-depth discussion to Potomac Shores Living, but I have been very impressed so far with working with them.

Following on that, I will say we came prepared with a lot of items we wanted fixed, and they got them prior to our meeting.  So many I was shocked, and impressed with how detail oriented they are. They clearly have a lot of pride this community!

Ok, now it's time for pictures!

Our Kitchen! We are very pleased with how this came out.

This is an older picture of our fireplace...in the excitement I forgot to take one today!

The wet bar!   We cannot wait to customize this!

Flooring and Tile!

This was the meeting I was the most excited about, finalizing our flooring choices and tile.  Because of concerns of using up too much vacation time early on during this process, we decided to combine the flooring and wiring appointments to the same day.  I will post about our wiring appointment later, this post just focuses on the flooring meeting.

We drove out to T.A.C. flooring in Manassas, which had a great and fun showroom.   I would have loved to pick out choices for houses all day!  We got through the meeting in seemingly record time, which almost felt a little unsettling!   Right before the meeting we viewed a house model with a master bathroom that had white cabinets and we decided to change our original choice to the white cabinets that match kitchen and laundry room.  Houzz.com also helped us visualize a few things, so I recommend an account there for anyone who needs ideas.

We first started in the kitchen, and we went in there knowing the hardwood color, type and that we wanted it throughout the first floor.  So that was very easy!    We chose the Brown Bear white oak flooring to coordinate with the Rushmore Square Painted Linen cabinets and New Caledonia Granite.

Our kitchen choices!

Next we chose the master bath.    I handed the heavy lifting over to the hubby for this, because while we agreed on the look we wanted, he had a much better eye for it and could take the tile samples and really see how it would work.  I'm very excited with how it will come out!   

We also chose our kitchen backsplash.  We don't have a granite portion vertically on the walls, we will only have tile, which is nice.  I have become obsessed with the glass tiling that is cut in the shape of bricks, so that is what we chose.

This color is a tad darker than our choice, but the same size of tile.  This wall was still under construction, which is why you see the red portions!

This glass came in a ton of colors.  We chose Top Hat, the 4th from the left.   

It was hard for me to trust the process, I have such a hard time visualizing things from samples!  I am very excited to see how this comes out though!

Sorry my picture taking skills were a bit off that morning!  I forgot my real camera!

It may be a bit difficult to see, but we chose a nice dark grey tile for the floors and white tile for the walls with a glass accent to travel from the tub side through to the shower.    Our bathroom granite we chose was the Santa Cecilia Light which we both thought was beautiful and tried to use it where we could!

For the other bathrooms, we chose darker cabinets, the Wyoming Square Cherry Java with Burlywood granite.  We did the minor upgrade to tile there, picking a lighter tile with different accent glass in each shower to change it up.  Our buyer's agent said that the standard tile was actually fine, the minor upgrade we made was not that much so we don't regret our choice there at all.  It was too hard to get pictures of all of our bathroom choices, so you will just have to wait and see!

All the other bathrooms

We kept the standard carpet for the second floor and the basement, but upgraded the padding to the 8 lb. pad.   Since we plan on entertaining family and friends, we picked a darker color for the basement so it would hold up to stains better.   

Second floor carpet on the left, basement carpet on the right.

That was pretty much it.  I did realize at this meeting, that with the speed of all of our decisions, there were a ton of questions I probably didn't ask previously.  I have no idea what our pulls or knobs will look like for example.  I do think (or hope!) that I asked all of the questions that I really needed to know, and things like pulls and knobs can be replaced very easily so I'm not super concerned about minor details.