Love at first turn of a key

Closing went extremely well yesterday. Took a whopping 42 minutes!

The hubby is at the old house helping the movers and I am at the new one waiting for my awesome fridge to get delivered. We got a GREAT deal on a 4 door 29 cu ft Samsung at Sears Outlet. It's sticker price was $2,999.99 marked down to $1,499.99 because it has a small dent in the top (which I could care less since my fridges went from clean and sleek to a kindergarten Picasso gallery! Love it).

The electrical (and water)is still being paid by Ryan Homes till Monday so this place is nice and frigid right now! Lol. Unfortunately it's raining...figures. Hopefully not too much stuff gets wet.

Pictures comming soon.... Right now it's just me and a roll of paper towels here!

Happy building. And congrats on closing Seekir!!!

4 more hours...

YIKES!!!     :-)

So excited....would probably be more excited if I didn't procrastinate on packing!  LOL  

Je déteste l'emballage!!

But ....it is for a great reason  ;-)

Introducing Orlando's next rollercoaster ride...NVR!!

OK...so.....  (my husband always gets scared when I start sentences like that. :)

We are set to close tomorrow (Thursday)

So we get a call from our LO at NVR yesterday saying "Oh we didn't get some legal documents back in time so we need to push closing back one day"  Dear hubby says "We can't do that...we have appliances being delivered Thursday and our movers come at 8am!  If you let me know sooner it wouldn't be a problem but I can't change it now."  ...mind you we also both took time off from work.  Oh course my Irish temper sees red!  DH (who is obviously much more calm and collected than I am) tells me "he said he would see what he can do and give us a call back.  About 15 minutes later we hear back from him and my DH's face lights up like a kid at CHristmas and starts thanking the LO.  Now...im perplexed.  Turns out the only way they could work it so we could close on Thursday (like intended) was to lower our interest rate a quarter point!! 

....

Ummmm.....

YES PLEASE!!!  

LOL  so thats the tale of the newest thrill ride to hit central Florida this week!  Man those people are going to give me a stroke!!  :-)

We also had our final walk today that went great!  Few cosmetic items but nothing major ...other than the fact they wont do anything about my ugly banister :(  NOT happy at all about that expensive upgrade!

Number 4...a true neighborhood!

May sound a bit strange but yes...Im VERY excited about my neighborhood!  I haven't had a true neighborhood since I was little so Im happy to finally be giving one to my children.  I love driving through and seeing all the kids playing, people waving and now all the Halloween decorations.  Its such a great feeling!!  Where we live now is NOT kid-friendly at all, so it will be nice for them to have a place where they can have friends.  

Number 5...My cabinets and french doors (and prices for MZ...)

The 2 things im excited about in the house are my frech doors on the study/bedroom hybrid and my beautiful cherry cabinets! 

Ive always wanted cherry cabinets so I am super excited about them...and making the 42" makes a HUGE difference!  I also LOVE LOVE LOVE my french doors!  I have ALWAYS wanted them too for some odd reason.  I love old victorian homes and they just remind me of class and elegance.

Now...

I know MZ was blogging about her difficulties with non-standard and standard request in one of your posts.  I got to tell you....I had a DAMN time trying to get Ryan to do ANYTHING that wasn't already written in thier paperwork.  Everything I asked wasn't even anmything completely abnormal or anything that other bloggers hadn't asked for and GOTTEN!  So I feel you o the frustration with that.  Our SR basicly flat-out said no to most everything I asked for (spa shower install, seat in shower, potfiller...etc) without even checking with anyone.  It drove me bonkers!!!  Im still not happy with the whole process but whats done is done and I know next time to built custom and not go through big box builders of any kind.

I wanted to share how much my 2 NSO's cost us...

Now these are my cabinets.  This cabinet cost us $475 to raise it 6 inches!  I was also going to add glass doors through Ryan but that would have been anothe $700.  So they will be added after we close for 1/2 that price.

BUT ...I think it makes it look amazing.  This is a bad picture, in person it looks great. 

Once we add the granite (and get rid of the crappy counter that are on it now) and get the glass doors, it will look a lot like this.

This is taken from my (originaly) formal living room.  We then opted for it to be a bedroom because that's how we could turn the powder room into a full bath, but the door on the bedroom would just be a plain wood door and made the entry way feel very boxed in.  So I kept it as a bedroom (just adds a closet) and put the study French Doors on it instead.  This cost us another $700.

And out of all the requests I had, these are the only two they would do.

Countdown number 6: Yard

I haven't had a back yard since I was 12.  I can't wait to get a swingset for the kids and let them actually play outside in our yard rather than have to play in the street.  I love that our road is somewhat quiet to traffice and where our house is is way in the back of the Loop.  I actually went to school for plant science (landscaping, floral design, turf management..etc) so it will be fun actully having a yard and SUN to plant plants.  Where I live now is totally surrounded by trees and other buildings so we get very little light in our house. 

One week countdown.

So i figured id finally do my countdown to what Im excited about with the new house...Im only about 3 weeks behind  ;)

7)  Garage...and just the "newness" of it all

Im so thankful to finally have a garage.  Our townhouse we have now has a carport and its basicly rotting away because its wood, was built in '77 and we live in Florida.  I hate taking the kids out of the car when they are napping and having to run through rain and try to open the door.  ...then getting in and they are wide awake. 

Our new house also doesn't have much storage inside as our townhouse does (oddly), so this will come in very handy.  As long as we can keep it neat and organized.  Nothing worse than a big clutter mess of a garage for everyone to see when you open it.  :)

I also love that its BRAND NEW!  I grew up in an old house and my first apt. was about 200 years old and falling apart.  My condo was built back in '77 so even though we updated it a lot...its still old...and not a charming old...just plain old.  LOL

My "sad" looking townhouse.  I say sad because the windows  (his eyes) make him look sad.  Also my daughter picked out that cute lawn ornament and low and behold one of my NEIGHBORS stole it!  seriously...

Ya....a little different...   :)  (still waiting on sod)

Banister issue....solved :)

Spoke to our PM today...hes great!  When we started to ask about my twin banister...he stopped us mid sentence and said "Yeah...I have no clue what the were thinking.  Its not supposed to be like that.  It will be fixed"   YAAAAAY!!!! 

Also I was confused why we have landscaping and no sod...turns out the place they get the sod from is flooded.  :(  So it may be next week when we get it.  Cutting it close.  But its ok.

Also our windows in the garage aren't finished yet.  He is waiting for the inserts to come in.  YAY!!!

We asked about the "Boob-elier".  Hoping they still had the box but I guess they don't.  He did get a good laugh out of its name though.  My husband wants to get the Leg Lamp from the Christmas Story movie to put in the foyer to complete the collection.  ;-)

Overall...very good phone call.

Recent pictures

Went by the house today.  Hadn't seen the lighting fixtures (ever) or the sink and stuff so I wanted to check it all out.  Unfortunetly most of them will need to go.  But again....trying to stay positive.  Guess this is what you get when you don't look at a model before actually building.  I reccomend to anyone thinking of building to view the model FIRST!  I have SO many regrets with this house.  But again...at least it fits our family.  Luckly all the stuff I don't like is all cosmetic, and there is SO much that I want to change and no money to do it.  But,  I LOVE the "bones" of the house and think we made great structual choices.  There nothing about the structure I want to change  :)

 

Dinette



 

Crown in Tray ceiling.  Love it

This railing....confuses us.  Why 2?



Entryway with diagonal tile







Not sure about the granite with the tile  :(  I changed it last minute and wish I hadn't



This sink is a sad joke.  I don't even thing a cup would fit in it withough splashing water everywhere let alone a family of 4!  I do like the faucet though.

LOVE my cabinets!  Love the molding

This has been dubbed "The Boob-aliere"  Its way too big for our entry and looks like a cows udder.  The picture actually does it justice!  LOL  It will go.  Such a shame.

YAY we have an address!!







11 days left!!

Less than 2 weeks till we move in....WOW kinda surreal....and scary!  We have packed barely anything! (such procrastinators).

I'm hoping as we get closer ill be more excited.  I'm just a bit disappointed right now in a few things.  None of which can't be changed, but I know us and know that they will probably NOT get changed.
1) I hate the counters (we all know that) to the point I don't like walking through the kitchen. 
2)The 1 counter I did get in granite is the master bathroom.  While I LOVE the actual granite and my tile in there, I don't think that now that its installed,  it looks good together.
3)  We only had 2 options for stain on our banister.  We picked the darker to try to blend with our cabinets, but its doesn't.  It reminds me of the old brown wood paneling you would find in a house back in thee 70's.  AGAIN....very easy fix...I just know we wont get around to it.
4)  I was under the impression we would have molding around the outside of the windows, but we don't.  They just painted the stucco white around the front side windows.  The side and back windows have nothing and just look like holes in the walls.  This irks me because it makes the house look VERY "Florida house-in-a-box" ish.  I'm from New England so I never really adapted to the style of house down here.  I'm sure with time and money we can do some things here and there to make it look less than a glorified gray box.  (again probably wont...knowing us :-)

I sound terrible griping about such small stuff and I know I will totally be over all of it as soon as they hand us the keys...I'm hoping.  I also knew from the start this wasn't going to be my dream home (I'm actually not to crazy about the new construction type houses)...but more just a solution to our current living situation (WHICH by the way we got a renter and I know her and shes very trustworthy!  I AM very excited about that stress relief!)  Here's to hoping everything goes smoothly and I can get myself out of this ridiculous, petty, spoiled brat kind of funk!  I AM super excited to be moving in before Halloween and I ABSOLUTLY love my new neighbors!!

Pavers, Garage and Bathrooms...

I thought I had pictures of our tile, but its was on the phone I lost  :(  Onb a VERY good note...we noticed they tiled the entire floor BEFORE the installed the cabinets.  Thats great if we ever want to change the cabinets out or have a different setup.  I know alot of builders just tile around the cabinets, rather than under them.  We got the tile on the diagonal (45 degrees) and it looks beautiful!  Wish I had a picture.

Also we are waiting for the windows to be installed in the garage...thats why the door looks a bit odd.



Cabinets are in..YAY so are my counters BOO...

Its so funny how different the house looks now that its painted!  One of my friends joked that I had that "creepy haunted house down the road" house that children think up crazy stories about.  This was when it wasn't painted yet so the stucco made it look dark and creepy.  LOL

Anyway...my cabinets came in also YAY so excited about that!  The counters...not so much.  Actually I loathe them.  :(  Im so angry at myself for listening to my husband to take them off and "we'll do them ourselves"  Well they thought they would just change how much we owed at closing rather than altering the actual loan...nope doesnt work like that.  So we still owe the same at closing...just our loan is for less.  Which means $0.00 for replacing the ugly counters.  I was hoping they were at least attactive and had rounded edges but no...sharp square edges and looks like a plank of particle board with ugly laminate over it.   Im sorry I don't mean to sound like a spoiled brat (which is what my mom called me).  I am EXTREMELY excited about the house and SO thankfull that this is finally happening for my family.  But the kitchen was VERY important to me.  I've work in some of the best kitchens for over 15 years now.  Food and cooking is ,y passion and in my blood.  I don't expect people to understand at all that don't share my passion.  But to me, these inferior counters in my beautiful  home, on my gorgeous cherry cabinets, feel like a plumber that uses a fisher price tool bench.  Or an IT technician who has windows 98 on their computer,  ...I know I know a bit far fetched...but you get my distain for these counters and my anger at myself because its my own fault.  Sorry for venting once again.  Its just so disappointing to finally see them and I hope I can put on my big girl pants and get over it soon!

Now for a couple pics...



They dug up the curb today and put the stakes in for the new sidewalk YAY



Trim is done I think.  Pretty corbels added.

Booo....Hisssss      lol

Happy 40th Birthday Walt Disney World!

What a CRAZY day at work!

We had our 40th anniversary today!

Heres our gift they gave the cast members that are working in these locations.  Its a set of 5 pins to commemorate the first 5 places that were opened Oct 1, 1971!



Few new pictures

They started painting around the windows.  They will get trim closer to the end.  The columns will be white I believe

LOVE my bright, sunny entryway.  Much better than the "cave" we live in now.