Baby Stepping towards the future

So the bathroom remodel on our current house should be complete Friday. I know I am way late on posting pics so rather than seeing a day by day progression you will get them all in one swoop. Honestly I would have uploaded them if I could do it from my iPad but for whatever reason blogger won't upload pics from here so I need to get on my laptop...1st world problems. This weekend our realtor and really a friend as well Emily will be putting the lock box on the house and next week the house should hit the market.

Ahhh life in the rental

At least that's what I'm calling it. I am talking about our current home and no it's not a rental. We have lived here for two years and it's a great house and is our first house but we outgrew it very quickly. I am emotionally invested in the dirt pile in our new neighborhood so I jokingly refer to our house as the rental. Right now our bathrooms are torn up we have a contractor redoing them and they are doing a great job but we have to drive to my parents house to shower in the mornings. This was a project we decided on prior to deciding to build with Ryan so we just decided to continue with the job just on a scaled back basis to help resale. We also have various other projects going on to get the house ready for market and packing so it is work work work around here. I will get some pictures of the bathroom remodel up soon and hopefully soon we will be hearing from NVR. We were told the other day it is almost out of underwriting.

The Ebb and Flow

We are smack in the middle of one of the wait periods in "hurry up and wait." For a while things were fast and furious. Now.....nothing. All decisions have been made, we are waiting for official approval from NVR, not that we expect any issues, and we are a couple days from the bathroom renovation beginning on the current home before putting it on the market. I pass the time reading and re-reading everyone's blogs looking for any info I may have missed. Prior to our decision to build this new house which kind of happened on a whim I used to scour Cruise Critic and Royal Caribbean's website looking for our next cruise. Perhaps I should go back to that to help pass the time. I'm done ranting.....for now.

We have an address....

After just being known as Lot 199 for the last two weeks we are now officially 1551 Sefton Dr.

Our Home: The Complete Rundown

After two weeks of deliberation we have decided on the following
Venice Elevation E (alternate full brick front with shake gables)
Morning Room
Finished Lower Level
42" Rushmore Maple Butterscotch Cabinets
Labrador Granite Laminate Countertops
American Elite Plank Laminate Flooring "Farm Fence" from foyer to family room(non-standard),powder room,morning room,kitchen,mudroom
Level C California Berber Simple Touch carpet "Capri" in Study, Family Room, Stairwells, Upstairs, Finished Lower Level
10lb carpet pad throughout
Black Cherry stained handrail
Andover White double vanity in master bath
Andover White vanity in hall bath
Recessed lights in kitchen, lower level, and family room
Gas fireplace with slate surround
2 piece rough in for 1/2 bath in lower level
Gas range with overhead microwave
5 Ceiling Fan rough-ins
200 Amp Service Panel
Dedicated circuit for deep freeze
Laundry tub in unfinished storage
2 additional outlets for workshop space in unfinished storage
Gas line off morning room to run gas grill and outdoor gas fire pit (non-standard option)
Bronze door hardware
Central Vacuum
Lyriq 4 room audio system with outdoor speaker
Guardian Smart Connections data and cable hardwire
Sherwin Williams interior paint package

Final Decision Day

Well today marks the end of our 14 day change period. We met Heidi out at Parks of Whitewater for our exterior color selections. I of course thought it was going to be a stressful experience but fortunately much like everything else it was painless and relatively easy. We are doing the Venice elevation E which is brand new and to this point there aren't any color renderings or construction photos to pull ideas from. The elevation we are doing has a full brick front with shake on the gables and siding for the sides and back.

Again there are no good photos to post so here is the black and white 

 

Below are our choices for the exterior:

Brick: Farmington
Siding: Stone Mountain Clay
Shake: Canyon
Front Door: Fine Wine
Trim: White

Guardian...(yeah we dropped some flow here)

So going into this meeting we knew that we would be spending some money, it was just a matter of how much. Leah's dream has always been a home with a central vacuum so once we realized that a central vac would be presented to us in this meeting we were fish in a barrel. It was going to happen. And, well it did. Let me backtrack just a second the Guardian rep was Brett and contrary to what many others had experienced with their respective reps there was absolutely zero pressure placed on us to buy anything so any money that we spent was entirely on our own merit. He did very well only concentrating on the things that were important to us. I will say this for those who feel they are getting the high pressure environment, remember that you are on a time frame and their job is to help you stay on that time. It either makes sense to you to purchase their products or it doesn't I don't see reason to make three and four trips back. Just have an idea of what your current cost situation is before the meeting and you will know whether or not you can make this work. Then again we aren't "sleep on it" people. If we see something we like and it makes financial sense we don't force ourselves to delay what we want. We also chose to do the Smart Connections. That is after Brett and Leah explained to me how it works. I mentioned that I may have to turn in my man card because hardwiring and a/v stuff just doesn't do it for me. The Smart Connections were a spontaneous decision but once again it made sense and fit the budget. The last thing we purchased was the Lyriq four room in home audio. With this package you get 4 pairs of speakers to place throughout the home as well as four volume controls with a master and local audio input. We are going to do a pair in the 2nd floor hallway, on the main floor between the kitchen and family room, another pair in the finished lower level, and lastly an outdoor speaker which will be nice with the eventual outdoor entertaining space. This will be very nice to have whether we are cleaning the house, entertaining, or to have Christmas music playing for the kids as they drift off to sleep on Christmas eve as well as throughout the holiday season. As much as I would like to give you prices I have found that they do vary from market to market. There are some prices that were consistent with what I found and others were much different. There should be some intrigue for those of you who haven't had your guardian meeting. Sunday we meet with Heidi and nail down final color selections and any final changes we need/want to make. I will then give the final rundown of options. After that we make final prep to put the current house on the market. Then all eyes are on Emily to help us sell.