Closing / Final thoughts

We close Friday and everything inside is wrapped up.  I'd show pictures but we're going to keep most the final details under wrap.  The outside still needs painted, driveway, and some touch-ups but because of the weather it's not ideal.  We also received our quote for the addition to our driveway from the same contractor doing the main driveway and it was fair and we're going with them, much easier too.

Some advice, the mortgage process can be a pain with any lender so be prepared to jump through some hoops, more so if you own a business like myself.

The ceilings in Ryan Homes in our community are "Antique White", which as some bloggers have noted is not preferable if you have any colors outside of the beige family (even with it I'm not a fan).  We're having our entire first floor ceilings painted a real shade of white and fortunately our quote was OK for that.  We had some painting being done anyways in the front two rooms (office / dining room). This color was also in the model and shouldn't of been a surprise but I think most people expect a white ceiling, antique white isn't really close to it.

If you're able and you know what you're doing I'd also recommend visiting your house every few days.  I happen to have done punchout for Ryan in college so somewhat knew what I was getting into when building with them but they have changed a decent bit since 10 years ago.  We didn't have major gripes but small problems/changes could have been more annoying if we hadn't caught them.  To be fair, our PMs  were great and they probably would have caught them but our community is nearly sold out and a backlog of homes are being built so I'm sure they have a lot on their hands.  We also had a ton of change orders from the steps to rain-shower but almost all of them were done... (I'm building a closet this weekend though because of a requirement for a 2 windows instead of one in one room though!)

Otherwise we've been very happy with the process and would do it again.  (I'll edit and add a picture of exterior when painted and landscaping is put in late Spring).

Paint done

Paint is done, I stopped by the house at 8pm and painters were just cleaning up.  Very happy with the results now that grey is in.

Winding down / carpet in

This morning I sent over the last authorization for a few tax documents but everything seems to be moving along fine on the finance side.  I've been locked in for a while and was glad I did with the rate hike a few weeks later.  The carpet went in the upstairs and downstairs, this is the carpet color for the main/2nd stories.  It shows less white in person and tends to grab whatever color is nearest it.  The downstairs has more variation to it because that's the kids main play area.  All of it is covered in plastic and thus why I took this picture of some scrap.

Cabinets finished / stair stain

Cabinets are complete and the first coat of stain has been put on the railings / stairs. I say 1st coat because I'm going to ask for another coat if possible because it should be slightly darker...

 

Trim painted / rain shower (plumbing done)

Tired of seeing trim yet?  The entire house had the trim painted, makes a big difference. Trim in the kitchen is being finished over the weekend and carpet will be in on Monday.  Finally grey paint will go up then.

Rainshower and the rest of the plumbing was installed today.  This is non-standard of course.

Padding and painters starting

They decided to drop (pad) the overhang here by 6 inches.  They had put in rigid foam and insulated but decided to add another 6 inches that was better insulated.  This was because water lines run here for the upstairs bathrooms.  This is one of the first Sewickley Models so there are some things to work out but only a few.  Another thing was we couldn't have a sliding door below but that actually didn't matter because we wanted a single door anyways.

Painters started covering all surfaces that were not going to get painted.  S will be excited to see tan color gone and "agreeable grey" up soon.

Painter starting to cover stair railing.

Trim was caulked, another picture of upgrade package.

Siding / Dining trim finished

It's Sunday but the siding has started on our house.  Looks like they took a break when I stopped by.

Z snuck in last night!