Our selections and upgrades (so far...)

So I feel like a little kid before Christmas with a list all ready to go for Santa but in this case it is my wish list to give to our sales rep and we have to pay for it all :( I really wish Santa could fit a deluxe master bath in his sleigh... *sigh*

So here is the run down of what we have decided on so far minus the flooring selection since we have to do that after we sign which to me seems backwards but I guess that's how they get you! If everyone saw the price after all the flooring prices and wiring upgrades they're have thought twice!

Elevation:  L cottage style with a window box!!! #adorable below is a photo from another blogger's site (which I got LOTS of information from so thank you very much! http://ryanhomesvenicemodel.blogspot.com/2012_09_01_archive.html) the colors we choose are very similar, the brick is slightly more ashy though but I absolutely love the warmth of the colors but there are also so modern and classic craftsman at the same time!  I can't wait to plant flowers in my window box!

Dining room: only $100 for the chandelier to make it a formal dinning space, which we will use it as a dinning room, I have a very large family and lots of friends so entertaining and dinning spaces are a must!  I'm so excited to finally host a holiday at our home for once!

Flooring:  we are doing builder basic on the main level and installing hardwoods from lumber liquidators immediately after we get the keys, it's so much cheaper and we will get what we want.  We want an engineered wide plank dark hardwood, I plan on going to the showroom to take some samples home to plan out the interior color schemes.  The second floor we plan to upgrade to level 3 with the 8lb padding.  Theater bath will get level 3 tile and the guest bath just the basic laminate, we will do the tile ourselves to make it more custom its am easy weekend project for me to do.

Here is a sample of the kind of hardwood we want to lay down, it's dark but not too dark, we need to have some contrast between the espresso cabinets and the flooring, also, the darker you go the more it shows!  I don't want to be swiffering 5 times a day!  I personally like the second one, I think the first has a bit too much red in it for my taste, and the second one is only $2.89/sqft at Lumber Liquidators!  And it has great reviews!  I love the handscrapped look, and future scratches/dents will just blend right in!

Kitchen:  Timberlake Scottsdale Espresso 42" cabinets with basic counter tops, we will put quartz in hopefully as a Christmas gift next year!  Recessed lighting and deluxe II stainless steel appliance package with the convention oven.  It's only $200 more than the IV feature package and my mom hates her oven, she has the level IV she built a Ryan a little over a year ago and that oven doesn't cook well, my brother has it too and the thanksgiving turkey was bloody and we didn't eat until 8pm! We were suppose to eat at 4:30pm... So needless to say its worth the extra money!

Here are the cabinets!  If they offered this color in the solid hardwood, we would have went for it, but I didn't like any of the finish colors of the Wyoming :(

Living room: nothing extra no extra windows or fireplace :( just couldn't justify the extra money when we still have to upgrade the flooring I don;t really mind though, maybe we can get a smaller decorative gel fuel fireplace in the future, I like modern design so I would be happy with something like that.

Morning room:  this was the incentive in our plan, it was free!!!! That's 15k and that's really what sold us!  I love having a nice sunny place to have informal meals or have friend over for a game night, I really want to get a big table made from reclaimed wood for the space, I may even build it myself!  Well, with some help :)  I have a friend whose husband has built some tables in the past, so maybe he can help!

Garage:  floor drain (please do this!!! Our SR wont even sell a house to someone without this) and we are adding an extra outlet or two, it only comes with 1!  They are $75 bucks a pop and well worth it!  Especially when I start bringing home furniture to refinish, I will need lots of outlets for all the tools!

Basement:  unfinished with 3pc rough in and direct circuit (my husband wants to be able to jam out down there on the guitar!).  Egress window is included in our price, we so not have a walkout which we actually didn't want, we lived on a cliff before and will never do it again, too many foundation worries!  And it's not worth the price for us.  Out lot actually has a huge flat area on top of the hill, it goes back about 100 ft so we can put a set of stairs into the hillside going up and have a nice area for a party deck or fire pit!  I will post some pics of the lot when we go up there on Saturday to sign the sales agreement!

Stairs:  oak banister which we want stained super dark to match the cabinets, I hope they have dark stains!

Lighting:  rough ins for lights in every room and a ceiling Rough in for the morning room but will want a chandelier we hate the look of ceiling fans it just seems typical Pittsburgh 90s style.  But then again I'm always cold so I never have a need for them!

Master bath:  we got the "sexy bath" as our SR describes it although its far from sexy with the included tile its small and plain and glossy it's honestly so bad I'd rather have the included bath than the tile that comes with it so needless to say we will be upgrading to the level 3 tile with glass tile accents which I will post later when we meet with rusmur floors.  I have also requested a non-standard request to see how much getting the floor of the shower tiled, I don't like the look of the shower pan.  I want the floor to be tiled with the glass accent tiles, which honestly shouldn't cost that much, materials wise, if I have learned anything from HGTV but then again, when building a home, anything non standard seems to cost 10 times more than it should, but this is something that needs to be done now and would be a disaster if I tried doing it later!

I will be posting pictures of our color choices this weekend as well so stay tuned!