Know Your Numbers

For anyone going through this process of a new home, it is an exciting time for sure. We have one recommendation and that is that you need to keep track of the changing numbers from the initial meeting from all the options you may choose, to flooring, guardian, any custom work you are contemplating... Also, ask detail about the appliance packages and any differences between the standard package and upgrade since the standard most likely includes a slide-in stove and if you want a cooktop then you could be out of luck..know your numbers because you can get lost in all the changes and additions, and always push to have the sales rep to give you the net sales price not just the gross.. Truth be told,  the more you know your net number the better you are in tracking to the right number you really need to know.  

Exterior Selections

Ravenna Elevation M Cottage Style 

Above are from the model home. We chose different colors. Our Selections in a reverse plan as above will be: 

Siding: Sandy Tan

Shaker siding (at peak above garage & at 1 bedroom): Pebble Clay

Stone: Mountain Fieldstone

Shutters: Black

Metal Roof: Dark Bronze

Door: Fiery Brown (looks like a dark red) 

Trim: White

Not the best raw images of our selections (Pebble Clay shaker color wasn't available at our community for pictures) 

Another Cry for Help...Stoned!!!

***UPDATE***

After writing my initial post about stone selection, we drove to another RH neighborhood about 25 min away to look for Fieldstone Shade Mountain & Cut Cobblestone in Autumn. Unfortunately, the Cut Cobble wasn't available in the community as a choice so we are hoping our SR can get us a picture of this on a real house when we make our selections tomorrow. 

However, we were pleasantly surprised with the Fieldstone Shade Mountain. We found it on many homes within this particular community. For some reason, no one has used it yet in our community. I have a feeling it's because the sample in the model shows it to being an all grey fieldstone. Not a lot of variety in color. BUT...this is WAY off the sample then seeing it in person. We think it will look great with our Sandy Tan siding & Pebble Clay shaker siding & black shutters.  Still waiting to see if we can get the Bucks County stone in my vision house, from fellow blogger, Melissa, but if not, then we will agree with Fieldstone Shade Mountain. Below are some images of this stone if others are trying to search for it. It's actually quite nice!! Looks are totally deceiving from those 12x12 samples! 

Fieldstone Shade Mtn (left) & Cut Cobble Autumn (right)

Bucks County stone on the bottom house

Two houses with Fieldstone Shade Mountain (do these look like the same stone as above left??! We really thought it would be much more grey tones.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We are ***almost*** sure of our siding and shaker siding for the house. BUT... We can't really find a stone we really like OR we can't find what it will actually look like on a house! I've been looking at people's blogs and really like the Bucks County stone but it isn't offered in our community. Our choices are:

1) Fieldstone Shade Mountain
2) Cut Cobble Lehighton
3) Cut Cobble Autumn
4) Ridgestone Chardonnay
5) Shadow Ledgestone Buckingham

We are trying to steer away from the stones that seem to have a lot of reds or greens in them (#2, 4,& 5 seem to have these just from looking at the samples). 

If anyone reading this can post a picture of Fieldstone Shade Mountain or Cut Cobble Autumn I'd greatly appreciate it. Here are the Ply Gem images but I really want to see them on actual houses & can't find any on-line.

FIELDSTONE SHADE MOUNTAIN

CUT COBBLE AUTUMN

We are trying to determine which stone will compliment our exterior colors best. As of now, after griping about no selection for darker green or slate blue exterior siding, we are now leaning towards a traditional style house with Sandy Tan siding & Pebble Clay shaker siding, black shutters, white trim, and a dark red door... oh, we will also have a metal roof with the Ravenna M Elevation (likely black or the black/bronze). I suppose we are a little nervous going with Irish Thistle or Spanish Olive as exterior choices for fear in years to come that these colors will look dated & we'll need to replace it. We are pretty secure on our decision now but, of course, things could change in the coming days. ;-) 

Below are the colors together that we like as I mentioned. It's a different elevation but you get the concept of the traditional colors we are thinking about to tie it all together & unfortunately the stone is not available...So anyone please help find real-life examples of the stones I am seeking!! :-)))

Finally Putting Our Stamp on the Lot!! :)))

It's official!! Felt like Christmas morning today for us!! 

Our Guardian Meeting

Had our meeting with Guardian tonight. Tried to keep it short & sweet...the guy was trying hard to sell my husband on the security system. Not gonna happen. We currently have one & never use it & if we chose to, we will transfer from our current system. 

Here's what we got in a nut shell. The price, as of tonight, $820. But this will likely change tomorrow as we need to finalize things. We got NO bells or whistles...I was hoping hubby would come home & surprise me with a speaker system but he's MUCH better at knowing our limits than I am. Haha! :-)

* Standard outlet package : 2 cable; 2 phone (but we swapped out 1 phone for an additional cable outlet) 

* 4 Ethernet outlets (one for each bedroom) that way we aren't using as much wireless capacity. I think we may remove 2 of these. 

* Over-the-fireplace cable/Ethernet/HDMI/cat5 (cable is behind the wall installation). 

Our next step (ASAP) is to really find out how much our cable company will charge us to relocate the cable box to another room (ie closet) so we see no wires/box. Guardian wanted to charge $1000 for re-routing the cable to the pantry closet & to have the IR to RF to IR remote control kit. 

Did others use Guardian to do the relo or your cable provider? Any tips? 

Also, has anyone had any luck paying Guardian out of pocket rather than rolling this into your mortgage? How did you get approval? We'd rather pay out of pocket. 

** On a side note, we couldn't get a cable outlet placed outside. We eventually want to have an entertainment outdoor space. Just an FYI to those looking to do this. Guardian will not do this for you. 

Me again... Stone facade question...

Me again Bloggers....

As I was browsing the internet looking for our exterior color pallet and stone choices, I came across RH that had their stone facade wrapped around the side and rear of their homes. But then as I searched more, I also saw some RH that did not have this. 

So...my question for today is, is the facade wrap-around standard for the house or not? And if not, how is this an option for other communities and did any of you have a choice to add it if it was a custom add-on? 

I'm crossing my fingers it's standard to have it wrapped-around because we have a walk-out basement lot and I despise having to look at the awful cement at the base of the house!! 

WRAP-AROUND FACADE (Tell me this isn't gorgeous!):

WITHOUT WRAP-AROUND FACADE (blah......)

Anyone Know of a Tool to Review Exterior Colors?

So I stumbled across a blog from someone who built their Ryan Home back in 2012. It was mentioned in their blog that they used a picture of their elevation & a tool to look at the exterior choices. 

Anyone know where I can find this tool???!! Is it an on-line app? Please help. We are supposed to decide on our exterior choices within the next week. Thank you!