We Did It!

My husband, Scott, and I have been looking at houses for some time now. We have been renting a townhouse for about 2 years for $1000/month and frankly we have just been unhappy! We need land, painted walls, a fence, a place that is truly our own. We happened upon a listing for a "Home To Be Built" in this beautiful neighborhood with, wait for it.... river access! Ahhh, we were instantly in love! We went to drive around and stopped into the Ryan Homes model and were amazed that this option was even in our price range. We looked around and decided that we needed to make an appointment as soon as possible. The sales rep got us some materials to take home and we made an appointment for the next day.

We were so excited when we got home! We began studying the floor plans, researching Ryan Homes, talking about what was best for us as a family, and honestly, seriously talking about what we could afford. In my typical fashion I took to the internet and started bookmarking blogs of people who were building with Ryan Homes. I had about 17 tabs open on our iPad and I couldn't stop. At like 11:30 (our bedtime is like 9 o'clock people), Scott reminded me that the blogs would sill be there in the morning and we went to bed. Now did you think we could sleep?!

In the morning we headed back to the model and sat down with Rob. Scott and I knew that the Dunkirk was the right model for us. It has 4 bedrooms (which was necessary for our family of four with plans to add in the future), laundry is upstairs (if it's closer to the bedroom I'll be more likely to do laundry.. right??), it's in our price range and there are two HUGE walk-in closets in the master. IN LOVE! Rob showed us the different elevations and I was absolutely swooning over Elevation L. My response was, "Okay, if we're talkin' dream house, this is it!" So that's exactly what we did. We went through most of the upgrades, decided what we did or didn't want and then added it all up. Surprisingly, our final price, although way over the price range we were actually looking in, was still affordable monthly for us. So that was it. Since then we haven't looked back.

Dunkirk Elevation L

We made another appointment to sign all the important papers and took our realtor with us this time. We wanted someone there to solely represnt us, someone that had our best interests in mind. she helped us to narrow down which upgrades were a good idea and which ones could probably wait till a later time or be done ourselves. We were able to pick out our lot at this time and knew exactly which one we wanted. Our lot is in a cul-de-sac, is 0.66 acres and has a tree line between our backyard and the lots behind ours. It will be much nicer looking into trees as opposed to someones windows. After all the paperwork was signed we went downstairs in the model and chose just our cabinets. We originally picked Maple Espresso for the kitchen and master bath and Cherry Bordeaux for the upstairs hall bathroom. At 9:30pm this was an extremely quick decision and we have second guessed it every day since then. First lesson learned in the home building process (Day 1), take initiative and don't make rushed decisions. You are paying a lot of money for this house, and especially for some of these upgrades. Make sure it's what you want! After looking at our options again we have decided to upgrade another level to either the Linen Painted Maple (my choice) or the Hazelnut Glaze Painted Maple (Scott's choice). We have always loved a white kitchen.

We left the model that night with all kinds of new reading material and a joy that I imagine will last a really long time.  Hopefully you'll follow our journey and see this thing through with us. We can't wait to share our dream home with you!