The suspense is over !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mortgage approved!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well after complaining yesterday about how long it takes and all of the waiting we received a phone call from Luke at NVR.   Luke had great news that the mortgage was approved and Ryan could begin the building process. What a relief that was on my mind.  As I said yesterday we have a meeting with Arleen on Friday so I am hoping she can give me a tentative date on when we will break ground.  I still need to sell my current home so if anyone knows of someone looking for a house in the city here is the link to check it out.  You live in one side and let your tenant pay your mortgage.

http://www.northwood.com/property/property.asp?PRM_MLSNumber=947912&PRM_MlsName=Westpenn&VAR_AgentCode=219794&VAR_OfficeCode=15176

Hurry up and wait!!!!

The suspense is killing me

Well they make you hurry and put money down to hold the land, then you have to have all of these meetings within two weeks and then have your finalization meeting. You fill out a pile of mortgage papers to just sit and wait for weeks for an answer.  I can't figure out what the big hurry was all about to pick what you wanted. We are having another meeting this Friday with Arleen to go over our flooring choices again because the Rusmur salesperson had a few things wrong.  On the bright side though I sold some property I owned up north which will go towards our down payment and hopefully speed things along. 

Finalization meeting

We are finalizing!!!!!

At our finalization meeting with Arleen we made some more changes to the house.  We added a 4 foot extension to the owners bedroom which also upgraded the master bath.  With this extension it included a double bowl sink and upgraded ceramic tile to the shower and bathroom floor.  We also added 2 windows to the dinette, cabinet crown molding in the kitchen and a laundry tub in the basement.  As I thought we were finished we decided to put a powder room in the finished basement and floodlights in the rear of the house. After this meeting we are no longer able to make any changes this basically locks us in to our choices. Unless something else changes I will not have anything else to report until we break ground. 

Future homesite

Rusmur floor meeting

Picking our new flooring!

This meeting lasted over two hours but it was a lot of fun seeing all of the different flooring combinations we had to choose from.  Diane from Rusmur was really great taking her time to make sure all of our choices were exactly what we wanted.  We started by picking a laminate floor for the great room, foyer and hall the color was Chelsea Park Bronzed Jatoba. Next we picked the flooring for the kitchen and dining area. Picking out carpeting for the bedrooms was a little more difficult we wanted something that would last so we upgraded the carpeting. Then it was on to the bathrooms were we put in a light tan flooring. 

Owners Bathroom shower tile

Guardian selections

Meeting with Guardian

We next had a meeting with Jeff from Guardian.  This meeting went extremely well I couldn't believe how accommodating  Jeff was.  We went through  the placement for the wiring for televisions,network and telephone connections that we wanted in the house.  When we completed this I told Jeff that I had a Bose surround system and would he be able to wire the speakers in the great room for me.  Even though Guardian sells new Bose systems he said he didn't have a problem doing this for me.  He worked up a price  of $530 which is not bad for what you get!  It is really going to be great not having any exposed wiring running through the house for the speakers. 

Cabinets and counter tops

Picking our kitchen and bathroom cabinets

The next process we encountered was to pick our cabinet and counter tops.  We met with Arlene and she helped us through the process which was not as difficult as I thought it would   be.  Gerie and I had the same taste so this was an easy decision.

Kitchen cabinet in Fairfield Maple Spice and counter top in Butter rum

Our exterior choices

Picking our exterior colors

The next step in our adventure was to pick our elevation and color scheme.  All of the choice we had were very nice which made our decision hard.  After going back and forth we finally settled on Graphite grey as our siding color with dark navy shutters and an outerspace door (what a name for a color) trimmed in white with old Columbia brick.

Viewing the model

Finding a Pisa Torre to tour

We wanted to view the house we were going to build but there were no models in the area.  After searching online we found a regular Pisa model in Richmond Virginia.  We realized it was near to my wife's sister so we decided to make the six hour drive.  Although this was a big help it wasn't the actual floor plan of the new Pisa Torre.  There are major differences between the two which made it hard for us to visualize.  Below are some pics we took of the model.

In the model this was a study but we are making it a spare bedroom

Hallway linen closet

 Bedroom hallway

Guest Bathroom

Greatroom

Greatroom

Kitchen with gourmet island

large walk-in closet

Owners bathroom

Kitchen

Dining area

Kitchen sink

Entry way

And the fun begins!!!!!!

Finding the right location


On January 31 we made the big leap!  After 33 years in the same location and trudging up and down two flight of stairs we decided to build a ranch. Our story will be told through this blog.  My daughter and son in law were building in Fayette Farms and we fell in love with the area. We had a few meetings with Arlene our sales rep and next thing you know we were putting money down on our lot.