LaurenThePartier...Question for you

[blondie23]

Hi Lauren--

I''m not sure if you remember but I am also buying a Ryland Home and it should be done by the end of November. I know you mentioned that you had Ryland paint the inside of your home and I was wondering if you remember what color you had them paint it and did you do the same color of paint in all rooms or did you do different colors for the bedrooms....we''re having our house painted in Santa Fe and wondered if that was the same as yours because I relly like the way yours came out.

Thanks!

 

[blondie23]

Also, I love your couch and chairs...where did you get them?? Our look very similar but are a light khaki and are from Crate and Barrel.

 

[LaurenThePartier]

Date: 11/4/2007 2:03:57 PM
Author: blondie23
Also, I love your couch and chairs...where did you get them?? Our look very similar but are a light khaki and are from Crate and Barrel.

Hey there, Blondie! Congrats on your home being almost ready! I forgot, did you build in Allen, or Carrollton? My sister just finished their Oakton out in Allen, and they love it! It's so quiet out there, and because they back up to a creek, there are some . . . interesting . . . animals out there.

The colour we picked with Ryland was called Crisp Khaki - we had them paint our house the base colour of Summertime, and then had the Living/Ktchen/dining and Master Bedroom painted Crisp Khaki, the office painted Moss Green (I think?) and the loft that we planned to turn into a media room Cocoa Brown. The rest of the house, including our garage, powder room, secondary bedrooms and the second bathroom, and the upstairs hallway, are all Summertime. My sister did the Santa Fe khaki, as it went with their Saddle coloured cabinets and dark, hickory-esque floors better than Crisp Khaki did.

What options did you end up getting? Granite, Silestone? What level of cabinets? All of that stuff is still fresh since my sister's been doing it this year.

Our couch is the Prado from Crate & Barrel, but the chairs are from JC Penney last winter. Chris Madden has an amaznig collection out this year with JCP, and we've been looking for a settee for my husband's office. My sister works for JCP, so we've gotten killer discounts on our office furniture and other items.

I can't wait to see pics when your house is done!

 

[blondie23]

We built at the Ridgeview Villas in Plano. I''m having so many issues deciding what I want to do with paint. I think I want to add some accent walls in the Cocoa Brown but I still can''t decide.

In terms of options:

Cabinets: Kincaid Saddle Level D/E??? can''t remember
Countertops: Granite Santa Cecelia Classic
Floors: On the first floor in the living/entry/family wood floors with a dark finish called english leather, the kitchen and dining are a light brown taupe tile, the upstairs has level E carpet in a beige color and all bathrooms have Rainforest Blue tile (which is also the backsplash in the kitchen)


what else...

we had Ryland add blinds on all windows, the paint is Santa Fe (hope this will look ok because I couldn''t decide between this and the khaki). I upgraded the kitchen to SS appliances with the separate gas cook top, we added iron spindles up the stairs

In hindsight there are things I would have changed but now I can''t, for example:

1. I would have put the hardwood floors on the entire first floor (an extra $5000 and we just couldn''t afford it)
2. I would have added crown molding but couldn''t afford it
3. I would have added more deep drawer cabinets in the kitchen

I''m thinking of painting our bedrooms a silver sage color for Restoration Hardware since that is where all my bedding and window treatments are from but I still can''t decide.

This whole house thing stresses me out haha

 

[LaurenThePartier]

Date: 11/4/2007 8:20:30 PM
Author: blondie23
We built at the Ridgeview Villas in Plano. I''m having so many issues deciding what I want to do with paint. I think I want to add some accent walls in the Cocoa Brown but I still can''t decide.

In terms of options:

Cabinets: Kincaid Saddle Level D/E??? can''t remember
Countertops: Granite Santa Cecelia Classic
Floors: On the first floor in the living/entry/family wood floors with a dark finish called english leather, the kitchen and dining are a light brown taupe tile, the upstairs has level E carpet in a beige color and all bathrooms have Rainforest Blue tile (which is also the backsplash in the kitchen)


what else...

we had Ryland add blinds on all windows, the paint is Santa Fe (hope this will look ok because I couldn''t decide between this and the khaki). I upgraded the kitchen to SS appliances with the separate gas cook top, we added iron spindles up the stairs

In hindsight there are things I would have changed but now I can''t, for example:

1. I would have put the hardwood floors on the entire first floor (an extra $5000 and we just couldn''t afford it)
2. I would have added crown molding but couldn''t afford it
3. I would have added more deep drawer cabinets in the kitchen

I''m thinking of painting our bedrooms a silver sage color for Restoration Hardware since that is where all my bedding and window treatments are from but I still can''t decide.

This whole house thing stresses me out haha

That''s right, I forgot you were going up to Ridgeview. I''m almost wishing we had built up there, sometimes - especially now that my sister is in Allen off Stacy and 121.

Oh, girl! I''m 100% with you on the pot drawers. We only did 1, and my sister and her b/f ended up doing 4, 2 on either side of the built in oven. I''m so jealous - I wish I would have done more, but we went with level A cabinets in Rouge on Maple, so we could match it to our floors.

Your options sound really similar to my sister''s actually - they did the A level cabinets in Saddle with a molding, and I can''t remember the granite colour, but it looks like chocolate chip cookie dough. They also have the English Saddle floors, and their kitchen cabinets look lovely with it and the Santa Fe!

They went with an awesome 1x2 backsplash of tumbled marble, and I love it, but my husband and I wanted to eventually do stainless steel subway tiles, so we went with basic tumbled marble "look" ceramic 4x4s.

In our house, we ended up doing the whole entire downstairs in wood, but we went with A level Rouge on Maple so we could do it affordably. It was one of those things that was incredibly important to us, as was double stage crown in the great room, with single stage pretty much everywhere else. We had negotiated a killer deal, and not only gotten $5k in closing costs, but $20k toward options, so we did things like upgrading to SS and a gas range/built-in oven, pre-wiring CAT5 all over the place, Central Vacuum, and added an extra bank of kitchen cabinets which gave us soooo much more cabinet and counter space. We have the level E carpet in beige - I think it''s level E, but it looks like it has little pindots in it, and was the same carpet that was in the design center. We also did the blinds, and I''m so thankful we did it. Eventually we''ll get plantation shutters, but for the time being, at least we have matching blinds everywhere.

We skimped on the wrought iron railing, because the Hickory has so little of it to begin with, and they wanted I think $3k for about 10 ft. of railing? I later found a site with some very interesting railing for about $5 a spindle, so we just went with the white spindles for now.

Overall, your house sounds amazingly beautiful, and that you spent your money in the right places! Can''t wait to see pics!

 

[blondie23]

Thanks Lauren!!

I''ve been doing some research about crown molding and I keep getting very different quotes. I really want to add it but don''t want to spend a fortune to do so.

Now that I look back I should have gone with a lower level of wood flooring (ours is level D) so we could do the entire first floor. Who knows, maybe in the future I''ll put it in but that means tearing up all the tile floors which can be pricey. It sounds like our carpet is the same! We only had $15K in options but also had $9500 in closing costs and we got our earnest money and option money credited back to us (because they are 5 months delayed with our home). I wish I had that money earlier because then I could have the wood floors, but we didn''t get it until after we went to the design center. I wonder if we can hire the people who put our floors in originally....hmmm. We only did the surround sound in the great room which should be ok I think. All of our tile is level 3 but we also considered doing the tumbled stone.

I''m very indecisive so everytime I go to the house to check it out I think, "Maybe I should have done X instead of Y" and my FI is always telling me it will be beautiful. Also, this probably won''t be our forever house so hopefully on my next one I''ll get all wood floors...

Since there are so many areas in Dallas being built right now, coupled with the terrible housing market, I hope that in about 5-7 years we won''t have problem selling.

 

[LaurenThePartier]

Wow, FIVE months delayed???? Ack! That sounds like a nightmare!

Sounds like the flipped you guys the same deal, just with money in different columns.

How did you get your earnest money credited back to you? They just applied ours to our closing costs, and also paid a point on our loan (I won''t get into that but Ryland mortgage was terrible with internal communication) and I had written into our contract that if we were unhappy for ANY reason, we could walk with our total earnest deposit with no problems. I had to threaten them with us actually walking, and because they didn''t want to lose both the end of month sale, or the end of year sale, the CIO of Ryland paid our point.

Also, about second guessing - I''ve done it a million times over the past year, but to be honest, the little things that I wish we had done don''t really matter in the grand scheme of things once you get in there! Crown molding is a little detail that just won''t get you very much in return when you sell, but the wood floors will!

We''re like you, and will probably be selling in 7 years or so, but we''re the last new homes built in Plano, so neither of us should have any trouble when it comes time to sell.

 

[blondie23]

Yeah the initial buying/building process was a nightmare. To make a reallllllllllllllly long story short we bought the house in February of last year and only had 2 weeks to pick our options because the permits were about to come back and it would then be an inventory home and we wouldn''t get to upgrade it after that point (or so we were told). House was supposed to be FINSIHED in early June and everytime it didn''t start we were told, "any day now"...they gave us no reason as to why it was delayed (bad weather, bad housing market, etc) so we threatened to walk away. I finally got a hold of someone at ryland corporate pretty high up and told him this was unacceptable and so then they tried to play games with "well, we''ll take 10K off the price of the home"...which doesn''t do anything and only saves us like $20 a month over 30 years. i said no, i want all our closing costs paid, our earnest money and option money back, and I want you to pay for my apartment rent for those 5 months...after a month of yelling they said ok. They finally started building in August and we should hopefully close at the end of November.

It''s funny how when you have the choie to choose what goes in your house you can be so indecisive, but I always think that if I went into my house completely finished and I had no choice on what went inside, I would love it and still buy it..ya know?

I have a few other questions, after you moved in and found issues/problems with things, did you have any problems with getting ryland to fix them?

How''s the service been now that you are in the home?

 

[LaurenThePartier]

That does sound like a nightmare, but thankfully you had all of your incidental costs covered. They actually bumped our closing up a week because we wanted to move in before Christmas, which put our closing date on December 22nd. They did this early on, in August, and the house went up incredibly quickly. Luckily, we had nice weather during our build process.

Ryland service has been wonderful - the guys who put in our fence after our neighbours house was done chewed right through our sprinkler system, and we''ve had them out 3 or 4 times to have the system fixed correctly, and to have the grass replaced. We had a weird severe slope in our backyard, so we asked them to level that out.

Ummm, get this - in our living room, right when the house was done, one of our big windows cracked, so they replaced it. My husband and I were laying in our living room watching TV one night, I looked up, and realized they had replaced the window that was supposed to be 4x3 panes of glass, with 3x3 panes of glass. We noticed this SIX months after living there!

We have to have our 12 month warranty meeting soon, and I have a huge list of things they need to fix, including that mismatched window. Hopefully it won''t be a huge hassle.

While we''ve been having this conversation, my husband and I have been scouring the web for low priced Stainless Steel or copper subway tile. I think we''re going to be redoing our backsplash soon! Yay!

 

[blondie23]

That is great that the service has been wonderful. There are things that we need fixed so hopefully they''ll get that done before the final walk-thru.

I love the idea of the SS subway tiles!! I bet that will be beautiful! makes me jealous haha. Remodeling is scary and expensive haha. Please post pictures or a link to them if you have time.

I''m so glad I found you on here! It''s nice having someone to share my experience with! Thank you!

 

[LaurenThePartier]

Date: 11/5/2007 12:20:54 PM
Author: blondie23
That is great that the service has been wonderful. There are things that we need fixed so hopefully they''ll get that done before the final walk-thru.

I love the idea of the SS subway tiles!! I bet that will be beautiful! makes me jealous haha. Remodeling is scary and expensive haha. Please post pictures or a link to them if you have time.

I''m so glad I found you on here! It''s nice having someone to share my experience with! Thank you!

I''m glad I posted the pics of my house originally - otherwise I''d have never known there was someone else going through the same process, and experiencing some of the same dilemmas!

As for the tiles, our floors and cabinets are sort of reddish, and we have a reddish/black granite called Cafe Nero, so we''re trying to decide if we want the copper finish, or the satin finish SS tiles.

http://www.ajitiles.com/store/index.php?cPath=29&osCsid=7979bfed4e875deec638713e12b59a21

 

[blondie23]

Beautiful! I personally like the copper finish because it stands out and really makes a statement but the satin finish may be more neutral...hmmmm

here is my tile:

http://www.fastfloors.com/lp_14793,0,83051/Lea-Ceramiche-Tile-Stone/_/Rainforest-13-x-13-Blue/product.htm

we''re thinking of also adding this tile to the walls in the half bath...hmmm

 

[LaurenThePartier]

Date: 11/5/2007 12:40:47 PM
Author: blondie23
Beautiful! I personally like the copper finish because it stands out and really makes a statement but the satin finish may be more neutral...hmmmm

here is my tile:

http://www.fastfloors.com/lp_14793,0,83051/Lea-Ceramiche-Tile-Stone/_/Rainforest-13-x-13-Blue/product.htm

we''re thinking of also adding this tile to the walls in the half bath...hmmm

Oh, that''s pretty!!! I love the idea of adding that to your half bath.

Yours looks similar to ours. We went with a tile that looks somewhat like this, but with more red in it. http://www.fastfloors.com/lp_14793,0,83053/Lea-Ceramiche-Tile-Stone/_/Rainforest-13-x-13-Earth/product.htm#NAV

But we have basic beige Level II tile in our second bathroom and laundry room.

Do you have nickel or rubbed bronze fixtures/faucets?

 

[blondie23]

Awesome! Actually our backsplash in our kitchen is the same tile as yours, Rainforest Earth!!! Looks like we ahve similar taste!

 

[blondie23]

we went with the basic nickle...we didn''t want to spend the extra $$ for an upgrade. We figured we could always do that later.

 

[LaurenThePartier]

Date: 11/5/2007 3:35:12 PM
Author: blondie23
we went with the basic nickle...we didn''t want to spend the extra $$ for an upgrade. We figured we could always do that later.

We did, too. Nickel with the 50/50 sink, and chrome in the secondary bedroom. Strangely, I kind of like the chrome, but not enough to have it in the whole house.

 

[blondie23]

Ok one more random question for the day and I promise I will stop bugging you haha

did you have to use a grout sealer and a grantie sealer...i''ve heard you should do this to protect from staining...thoughts?

 

[LaurenThePartier]

Date: 11/5/2007 5:37:48 PM
Author: blondie23
Ok one more random question for the day and I promise I will stop bugging you haha

did you have to use a grout sealer and a grantie sealer...i''ve heard you should do this to protect from staining...thoughts?

Yes, we did. We just picked it up at Home Depot. If you have time before you move into the house and after you close, I would do it then. It intrudes quite a bit when you close and move the same day.

 

[blondie23]

Thanks!

Yeah we were planning on sealing first and then moving in our furniture. We have our apartment until the end of december so we have a little bit of time to move in.

 

[LaurenThePartier]

Date: 11/5/2007 6:42:15 PM
Author: blondie23
Thanks!

Yeah we were planning on sealing first and then moving in our furniture. We have our apartment until the end of december so we have a little bit of time to move in.

Great! You should have no problems!

Who knows, once you move in, I''ll probably run into you at the SuperTarget at Custer and 121 without ever knowing it!

 

[blondie23]

haha i was thinking the SAME thing!! I bet we''ve probably run into each other a time or two.

 

[LaurenThePartier]

Date: 11/6/2007 12:32:13 PM
Author: blondie23
haha i was thinking the SAME thing!! I bet we''ve probably run into each other a time or two.

Haha, we should "engineer" a meeting once you''re all moved in.

My ability to post here is so sporadic with my work schedule, that I fear I may miss your closing at the end of the month. If I''m not in your thread, please email me at lauren_the_partier at yahoo dot com with pics once it''s all done.