We had our meeting with Rite Rug to choose all of our interior finishes in mid-February.  It was relatively quick and painless. We've been searching for houses for nearly a year, so we have a really good idea of what we like and what we don't as far as finishes go - and builder basic options are not what we like.  I know it's how builders make money, but Ryan pretty much forces you to upgrade your finishes if you have any desire for your brand new house being in-style when it's finished.  Some of the base finishes were so outdated that it kind of made me mad, but we knew this would be the case when we made the decision to build and had budgeted for it.  I still hate we are going to move into a new house planning to replace some things. 

Anyway...here are our selections.

KITCHEN

• Cabinets - Rushmore Painted Linen (level 2)
• Island - Rushmore Painted Stone (level 2)
• Granite - Azul Platino (level 2)
• Floors - Bruce 3 1/4" Dundee Plank Mocha hardwood (level B)
• Faucet - brushed nickel
• Appliances - stainless steel (double oven, gas range, microwave)
• Cabinet hardware - brushed nickel

Main Cabinets





Island Cabinets

MASTER BATH:
We went a little crazy in here and upgraded all the way to level 4 tile.  We were pretty unimpressed by the tile selections overall. Why is there no subway tile option?!  They are so cheap! In the end, we made the best of the options available, because re-tiling a shower wall and tub surround is way too time consuming and expensive to do after we move in.

• Floor tile - Daltile 12x12 Florentine Carrara
• Tub surround and shower wall/bench tile - Daltile Florentine Carrara 10x14 in a brick pattern
• Vanity cabinet - Sonoma Maple Espresso (Level 2) (I want to change this to Sonoma Painted Linen if they will let me)
• Vanity Top - Arctic Ice Quartz (level 2)
• Listello - I am not sure, some kind of marble tiles
• Fixtures - chrome (standard, no need to upgrade because I think the chrome is going to look great with all the white tile)

UPSTAIRS HALL BATH:
We left a lot of the options standard in here because we plan to just upgrade it ourselves.  There are a lot of mosaic-type tiles we like for the floor that are inexpensive and we know we can lay them ourselves. I also imagine we'll replace the vanity too at some point.

• Vanity cabinet - Sonoma Maple Espresso (level 2)
• Vanity top - white cultured marble (standard)
• Floor - some Armstrong linoleum (standard) (we plan to tile this bathroom ourselves)
• Shower wall tile - 6x6 white tiles (standard)
• Fixtures - chrome (standard)

CARPET
I read enough blogs to know we needed to seriously consider upgrading both the carpet and the pad.  We will have carpet in the whole upstairs as well as on the stairs.  We debated on hardwood stairs but decided against it to make things easier on an unsteady toddlers and little puppy feet.

• Carpet - Shaw Owen's Ridge HGN33, color: Cool Taupe (level 3 I think)
• Carpet Pad - 8lb?  (level 2)



Everything together

MISC. FINISHES/SELECTIONS

• Main first floor flooring: Bruce 3 1/4" Dundee Plank Mocha hardwood (level B)
• Study will be carpeted (same upgraded carpet/pad as upstairs)
• Mudroom & laundry room will be standard linoleum, we will tile when we move in
• Raised hearth & wall stone for fireplace - ProStone Oak Island
• Light fixtures & knobs - brushed nickel (standard)

EXTERIOR COLORS
There was a whole lot of drama regarding our exterior color scheme.  Basically no one could give us a clear answer on what materials of our house would be painted which colors.  Our elevation is unique in the fact that it has shake, stone, board & batten AND siding.  Shake and Board & Batten are considered "accents" so no one knew how to tell us what would be painted the "main" color vs. accent color.  Our understanding from the beginning was that the shake is the accent, and the board and batten would be the same color as the siding ("main") color.  And that's what the signed contract stated.  However, a couple weeks later Ryan tried to tell us that all of the accent materials would be one color, and the siding would be a different color - making the whole front of our house a drastically different color than the sides and back. After lots of back and forth with the sales and construction side of Ryan Homes, we think we have it figured out. They seem to be back on board with honoring their contract. It was infuriating and almost made us want to call the whole thing off because we got nervous about going into business with a company that would do something as crazy as argue against a contract they drafted and made us sign. In the end we think it's all worked out, but won't know for sure until we meet with our Project Manager at the pre-construction meeting. All we know right now is that the ratified contract is correct.  Although we have learned that apparently doesn't mean much to Ryan!

• Stone - ProStone Oak Island
• Shake - Hardie Plank Khaki Brown (accent color)
• Siding/Board & Batten - Hardie Plank Evening Blue (main color)
• Front Door - Black Fox
• Trim/Garage/Columns - White

And those are all revised colors because they let us choose the same scheme as our neighbors the first time around.  I just hope we love the outside because it's been a major headache to get it all picked out. :)


I don't love the Khaki Brown, but really wanted the Evening Blue and Khaki Brown is the required accent

The Ryan Homes model we are building is called the James Joyce.  As a base model, it is about 2400 square feet, but we have added some additional options that bring our square footage to around 2700 square feet.  Below is the first floor plan with our selected options (morning room, 4' family room extension, study, fireplace, gourmet kitchen).  What I love most about the floor plan is the morning room and study.  These will serve as great play areas for our toddler that can transition into more adult/teen spaces as he gets older and future kids are added to the family.  We opted to have the formal living room converted into a study so we'd have the French doors - making this a small "man (or teen) cave" to watch TV or play video games.  I'm honestly not a huge fan of the open concept kitchen/family room, but hope that since the kitchen is offset from the family room there won't be too many noise problems. Love the huge island and double ovens though!

Now for the upstairs. We debated a LOT about sticking with 4 bedrooms upstairs or going with 3 bedrooms and a bonus room over the garage.  In the end we stuck with 4 bedrooms.  We have a bonus room in our current house, and it's just a huge room that is awkward and gets cluttered really quick. The only reason we even go into that room is because it's the only play space in the house.  Before we had our son, it just collected a lot of junk and we never used it, even though there has always been a nice couch and TV up there.  Besides, without a huge bonus room in the new house, we will still have a small play space/office/guest room/whatever upstairs.  And again, those two extra rooms downstairs (study & morning room) give us a lot of flexibility on extra common space.

We chose Elevation M, that gives us a half porch with tapered columns for a Craftsman style look.  Below are some images of other James Joyce Elevation M houses in the neighborhood:

We've decided to build a James Joyce home with Ryan Homes in the Vermillion neighborhood in Huntersville, NC.  I'm hoping to document the process here on this blog.  We signed a contract with Ryan Homes on January 31st 2016 and so far we have done a lot of waiting around.  They opened the phase where our house is going to be built a little early, so we've been waiting for a few things like the road to be paved and permitting to happen before construction can start.  Once they get the go-ahead to start, we will still have a few houses ahead of ours so we don't expect much to happen in the next few weeks.

We got lucky and visited the model home right as new lots were being made available for purchase.  We have a 0.5 acre lot that backs up to a large wooded area.  The home sites in the neighborhood are not wide, so we will be close to our neighbors, but have a lot of space in the backyard for our toddler and dogs to run and play!

I was so happy to drive by the house and see the road was finally paved on March 4th.  Hopefully things will start to pick up speed because we sold our house much quicker than anticipated (3 days!), and we close on March 28th.