Here we go...

Hi! My husband Troy and I just had our loan approved for the Venice elevation C!  We are extremely excited to begin our Ryan Homes journey!  We are currently living in Philadelphia in a two bedroom row home on a somewhat busy street.  We are anxious to get out of the city and begin a life in Quakertown, PA. 

We have decided on Venice elevation C because we fell in love with the size and layout of the home.  We have been reading tons of blogs (most of them are from a few years ago), and have gotten so many ideas and warnings about the building process.  I can't wait for construction to start!  It's looking like our preconstruction meeting will be in mid-October..

I'm hoping there are other families in the same situation as we are, and we can discuss options, issues, and the journey together. 

Here is what we have chosen so far.. (warning you now- I take pictures of EVERYTHING!)

Our house will be the reverse layout of this model.  We are going to have a porch! 

We chose Graphite Grey for the siding, a blue door, and we will be doing a knee high stone wall in the front.  :)

Kitchen & master bathroom cabinets -  Maple Espresso

Kitchen countertops - New Caledonia

Kitchen backsplash tiles- Heathland  White Rock

Kitchen backsplash- there will be a strip of these between the other backsplash tiles.  It doesn't look as orange in person

Flooring for entire first floor-  Rural Living - Deep Java

Upstairs hallway bathroom - Maple Honey cabinets..  we stuck with basic white tiles for this bathroom and we can add color with the shower curtain and accessories :)

We also upgraded the padding under the rugs (after hearing so many people on these blogs wishing they upgraded the padding)..  We decided to upgrade two levels of padding in the basement because that is where we spend most of our time, and we upgraded one level for upstairs.

The left is our basement rug, and the right is upstairs.  I love the basement rug!  If it wasn't so expensive we would have chosen that for upstairs too.  We stuck with a lower carpet for upstairs, and maybe in a few years we can change it.

This is the tiling for the upstairs laundry room

We upgraded to level E for this one!  We didn't like any of the other choices so we kept upgrading and we found this!  I loveeeee it!  The tile name is Tigers Eye.

Master Bathroom: 
We decided to upgrade the master bathroom to have a stand alone shower and separate soaking tub just like our model had.. I think that was one of our best decisions.. :)  We will have the dark maple espresso cabinets with a white countertop and double sink. 

Master Bedroom: 
We didn't add anything special for this room.  I thought it was perfect just the way it was.  Including the walk in closet :)

Kitchen/Morning Room: 
We chose to have the morning room added onto the kitchen.  I think that will be my favorite room in the house..  And that means we get the extended island in the kitchen too :)
So if your looking into the morning room from the kitchen there are three windows on the wall straight ahead, to the left will be double doors (only one will open due to security reasons), and on the right wall we chose not to have a window there.  We really didn't see a need for it because there area already three in that room and two glass doors.  Also- we could use that wall for a serving station eventually.  One thing to anyone else getting the extended island and morning room- make sure you get an outlet on the island.  You'll regret it if you don't. 

Family Room: 
We chose not to have a fireplace or window on the one wall.  We didn't want a real fireplace, and didn't want a window on that wall so that we had a place to hang our TV.  We are going to get an entertainment center with an electric fireplace instead. 

Basement: 
We decided to have the basement finished.  Also, because we will have the morning room, our unfinished section of the basement will be huge!  Hoping that will eventually be my craft room. 
No bathroom in the basement either, it was too expensive and we will have a closet there instead.  That way if we ever decide to add a bathroom in there, the walls are already framed out. 

Garage: 
We added a service door in the garage that will be near the mud room. 

Here are some other add-ons we chose:

-  Lighting for the backyard (by the upstairs window which makes it easier to change light bulbs)

-  Stainless steel appliances except for the fridge which we will purchase on our own.  One thing we thought was weird with the fridges that are included- they have the kitchen set up so you can have a fridge with the ice maker/water on the door but they don't offer any fridges that have an ice maker!  Weird, right?

-  Security system basics plus the glass break feature for the downstairs window because I am paranoid.

-  Cable hookups in the family room so we can mount a flat screen on the wall.  They also allowed us to switch out one of the phone hookups (which we wont use anyway) for an additional cable line so we could put a TV in the master bedroom and basement. 

-  Washer and Dryer - we chose to have the washer and dryer (electric) included.  We just didn't want to chance ordering them ourselves even though it probably would have been a little cheaper, and the company trying to carry them up the stairs that turn without damaging any of the walls.  Not worth the hassle and risk to us..  I am going to ask them to install the shelf that they install above the machines a little lower though.  Not sure if any of you noticed- in any of the model homes we went in, they are placed pretty high.. 

I can't think of anything else right now..  But I'm sure as soon as I click save I will think of something...