Oops...almost 2 months later!

So, I have been neglecting my blog a little, okay, a lot. Wow, how the house has changed in those 7ish weeks! This is what it looks like now:

I absolutely LOVE our house. For those of you who have been following my blog, we initially selected the Fox Chapel, but were unable to build it on our lot, long story short, we had to select another house type and chose the Savoy. I never thought I would say this, but I like it so much better!

We close in exactly two weeks and are moving in the day after. I have the movers, our new furniture delivery, and Verizon all lined up for the day after. And I plan on having our families over for Easter dinner on Sunday. They think I am crazy; I think I am just determined and so excited to entertain in our new house!

Here are some more house pictures, I wasn't able to get upstairs today, because there were people there working. I'm going to try to get those shots tomorrow.

The kitchen! It is probably one of the smaller ones in all of the models, but I love it. We did the 9' ceilings, 42" cabinets (we chose our cabinets months ago, so we were grandfathered and able to go with Ryan's former cabinet supplier).


We also got the upgraded package that came with the appliance garage (yes!) and decorative trim. My husband pushed for the stainless steel appliances, they weren't important to me, and have also informed him he will be cleaning all of the little fingerprints and smears off of them!

We are both pretty tall, but I will need to get a step-stool to get at those upper shelves.


My favorite part about the kitchen is the gourmet island. It is not the same one that comes with the Savoy, we were able to get a larger and, in my opinion, much more grander island. Like just about everyone else, we went with the Butterum counter top. The door to the basement just clears the island with about a cm to spare, so it barely passed code. Our sales rep has been AWESOME in getting us exactly what we wanted in the house.


View of the kitchen from the morning room:


There are some other features of the kitchen I love, and once it is cleaned up a bit, I will get some more photos!

Here is the study:

The dining room:


Stairway and foyer (that is our bathroom on the left and hall closet on the right):


The chandelier in the foyer:


Looking towards the kitchen and morning room from the foyer:



The morning room:



The family room (and yes, the stove in the middle of the floor was an upgrade ;)


I don't know how long I am going to be able to hold out with not painting. Yes, I know we are supposed to wait a year, but I don't know if I can last that long with those white walls. Maybe once the furniture is in and we decorate, I will feel better.

That is it for now. I promise I will post more pics in the next few days of the upstairs, basement, and outside. Goodnight!!

Our "Fortress"

It has been a hectic week for us, and I haven't had time to post any pictures! We finally had our meeting with Guardian and to do all of our electrical plans. We didn't go overboard and got what we wanted and needed!

Our house is looking more like a fortress these days, the foundation is almost done, and hopefully the lumber will be delivered soon. We are finally getting out of our cold snap - they are predicting high 50s here by the end of the week - so hopefully they can get a lot finished. We are anxious to lock in our interest rate - it is already higher than we were anticipating, since they started almost 2 weeks after they said they would, and the process has been kind of slow so far. We were supposed to close early-mid April, now it is late April, and I am going to guess it will be pushed back to early May. Okay, I am done complaining - we are just anxious to move in!!

Here are some pictures! This is the front of the house.

The garage

Here is a pic of the whole front of the house, it's kind of hard to see the house, but it is there!

This is the side/back of the house

A view of the house from the back yard - it looks so tiny!!

Some pictures

Today was a dreary day, but thankfully, we did not get the snow or ice they were calling for. I went by the site today after work, and they had done more work! I saw some cement blocks in the corners (I am assuming they are the "footers" - I need to spend some time researching all of these new words), and what looked like PVC pipe in various spots. Here are some pictures. The site was very muddy! There is one other lot in our development (only about 20 houses) that is sold, and they haven't started it yet. I'm excited to meet our new neighbors and hope they start their house soon!


This is what the lot looked like yesterday - I know, not a whole lot of difference, but it is to me!



Here are some more pictures I took in the fall, some with the road, some without. Our road was added on in the final phase of the development. Here is the view as you go down the cul-de-sac.

A view down the street from our house.

Views from the left and right of the house. There will only be houses on one side of the street, so we are basically surrounded on three sides by woods.


Our flooring selections. We are getting ceramic tile in the foyer, kitchen, morning room, and all of our bathrooms, with carpet in all of the other rooms. The ceramic tiles in the front are for the master bath - I think the ceramic tile will go halfway up the walls or something. It has been so long since we picked all of this - way back in October - I am starting to forget exactly what we picked! We were getting laminate flooring in our laundry room before we changed house types; we will not have any laminate floors now. I really love our cabinets - Cherry Cherry. Our counter tops are Butter Rum. We are going to do granite later on - everyone told us we could do it much cheaper than Ryan was charging. It is not a huge deal to me, but something my hubby really wants.

We have begun!

Yeah - drove to the site today and saw a big pile of dirt - they dug the hole for the house!! The above pic is one I took today, this is the view as you drive down the cul-de-sac. The house will be on the left, where the mound of dirt is, and the driveway and garage on the right where the gravel is.



The pic above was taken a few weeks ago, when the sold sign went up. I love how pretty our neighborhood looks in the snow. And look at all of the deer tracks!



This pic was taken in the fall, before they put the road in. It is a similar view (but a little further away) than the first pic. I love that we are on a flat cul-de-sac and in such a private area!

I am so beyond excited that they have begun. Our sales rep called about 30 min after I got home to tell us they had started, little did he know I had already texted pictures of the hole to everyone I know and was working on my blog entry!

They are working on the footer and foundation this week - weather permitting. We are supposed to get a nasty snow/ice storm here. They will start framing next week and we should be under roof soon after that. I am loving all of the new construction vocabulary terms I am learning. I may have to add a few to my students' weekly spelling lists!

I will post more soon - going with my hubby to see the site now!!

My big "Decision"

Do I want family room furniture... or do I want to go to Dallas to cheer on the Steelers?!

And yes, I am serious. Steeler fans will understand.

Still waiting patiently...

No activity at our lot yesterday. We were assured that it would be started by Monday at the latest. We are starting to get frustrated (and jealous), especially when we see all of the progress being made on all of the other blogs! We started this process back in September!!

So while we wait, I am going to concentrate on packing up our current house. I stared to clean out our closets and pack all of the non-essential items over my Christmas break. Boy, have we accumulated a lot of "stuff" in the 8 1/2 years we have lived in this house!!

We are not listing our current house until we have moved into our new house. This makes me very nervous because it means we will have to carry two mortgages until this one sells, but it was just easier on us to do it this way. I don't know how people show houses when they are currently living in them! And we have a dog, so they wouldn't be able to show it while we are both at work. Is anyone else doing the same thing?

The closest decorated Savoy model is in Cleveland, so we are going to try to take a drive up there one weekend to see it when it doesn't look like we are going to get any snow. We wanted to go today, but didn't get an early enough start, and we can't possibly go tomorrow, because it is the AFC Championship game - Go Steelers!!!!

Waitng patiently...

Still waiting for them to break ground on our house! They were supposed to start yesterday, but are going to start tomorrow or Monday. We were also supposed to have our pre-construction meeting today, but we moved it to Monday because we are getting a big snowstorm here in the Burgh tonight! We are so anxious for them to get going!!

Here are some specs on the house:

Savoy
One of three houses on a cul-de-sac
Elevation 'E' (has a bump out in the foyer)
Brick front - dark red brick (can't remember the name now - Madrid maybe?)
9' ceilings in the first floor
White siding, black shutters, red door - very traditional colonial
Morning room with 4 windows along the back and 2 on the side (so excited for this room!)
Stainless appliances in the kitchen with a huge center gourmet island (not the one that usually comes with the Savoy - we were able to get the one from the Fox Chapel we loved) and tall 42" cabinets "Cherry Cherry" color, "Butterum" laminate countertops
2 ft. ext. in the Family Room - fireplace on the side, three windows along the back and one on either side of the fireplace
Bay window in the study
open foyer
4 bedrooms upstairs, luxury owners suite and bath with 2 walk-in closets (!) and cathedral ceiling
Finished walk-out basement with full bath (the space under the morning room isn't finished - yet)
2 car attached garage
Carpet and ceramic tile throughout the house - all 4 bathrooms are ceramic tile - we really wanted hardwood floors, but our dog has destroyed the ones we currently have :)

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but those are the basics!

Getting started...

I have been inspired by all of the blogs out there written by other people building with Ryan, so I thought I would give my own a try!

My husband and I are building a Savoy with Ryan Homes and are very excited to get started!
We are building in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, in an area just about as close as you can get to the city without actually living in the city! We are about 10 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh and most major shopping/entertainment centers - it's a great location!

We actually started this process back in September, but had a minor bump in the process. We were all set to go with groundbreaking for a Fox Chapel on a great lot on a cul-de-sac in late November/early December when we got a call right before Thanksgiving that the house we had chosen could not be built on the lot we had picked!

We were devastated and almost backed out because we did not like any of the other houses being offered in the plan. After some negotiating and looking at a lot of other house types, we were able to choose a house outside of the ones listed for the plan that would fit on our lot. The Savoy is very similar to the Fox Chapel in room size and layout on the first and second floors, but has a much larger basement because the garage is attached, and not integral. We really fell in love with the Fox Chapel and had been to see the model many times, but I think we will be just as happy with the Savoy!

We've been told our groundbreaking will be this week - hopefully there are no glitches this time!