Buy a House in 2016

 We were clear having had sold our Ryan Home the Rome that we would purchase a new home to suit our fancy.  Well, we signed the purchase agreement on September 20, 2015, with the expectation that we would be moving into our new home at the beginning of the year.  A FRESH START, A FRESH YEAR!  As things would have it, we will be moving into our new home the YEAR 2016; however, little later in the year.

We are in a semi-stand still which we are managing to be patient, because partly we are the ones who chose this route.  First, we did not know Toll Brothers took 6-8 months to build your home, whereas, Ryan Homes could build your home within 72 to 90 days.  During our first round with Ryan Homes it took 72 days to build our townhouse and when we built our Rome in Fairwood, it took 120 days because of the weather and the additional customizations we requested for our home.

Secondly, this is a Toll Brother issue--the introduction of a new model that was never built in the community.  Prince George's County took nearly 4 months to approve the first permit/home, two months to approve the second permit (someone knew somebody that knew somebody) and our permit has taken over 5 months (along with inclement weather) and still waiting.

Third, we had plenty of time to study the home since we did not have a model to look at in the area.  None.  We were buying sight unseen.  During our research, we discovered a few structural upgrades to our home. We requested them and the suggestion was to wait for the original permit to return and submit a revision.  The permit was finally approved this week; however, we are still waiting for them to receive it permit to submit the revision.  Once the revision has been made to the permit and it is in hand of our PM, they will be able to stake our lot and schedule a date to break ground   We can't wait.  Our prayer is that we can break ground in May with the expectation of a settlement date in late September or October.  This means we officially accomplished our goal to buy a house and move into our new home in 2016.
YES!

Quick Updates and a Date!

We finally selected all of our customs, options and upgrades for our home.  We started our process in September; however, we are just coming to the point of finalizing our selections at the Design Studio, the Toll Brothers custom department and Audio Buys.  We were told we could not have a pre-start meeting until all of these items were satistfied with our sales office along with the plans and building permits.  The plans/permits were submitted on December 2, 2015.  We were told this is a new model for our community and the county is slow to approve the model.  The first Langley II took four months.  The second Langley II took approximately two months.  We are hopeful that we would have received our permit in January because of the prior Langley approvals in our community.  However, we were faced with the holidays and the BLIZZARD which slowed the process down too.  This means we are still waiting for our permits.

In the meantime, we have a firmed pre construction date!!  🎉🎉🎉
Initially, we were scheduled for February 15 at 10:30 am. We were hit with more snow and our appointment was canceled due to inclement weather. So disappointing. We have been pushed back, but we do have a new date!!

February 29, 2016    The day after our 16th Anniversary 💑

After building both of our Ryan Homes (a townhouse and single family home) along with a purchasing a condo last year and guttering out the entire unit, we feel quite confident that there are a lot of interior design choices we can do at a later time to make the home our home because most builders have limited choices and are quite expensive.  We decided to go with 50 percent standard options and 50 percent upgrades.  For instance, we opted out of letting Toll Brothers finish our basement and used that incentive towards purchase of our home.  It's going to feel really weird not having the basement done, but I would not have it any other way.  I have great design ideas for the basement and too excited about it. I will post our selections soon. I need to remember how to set up those sub headings. Lol

Laundry Room- Where is yours and Why?

One of my desires for our new home and all other past homes was to have my own dedicated luxury laundry room. I want it to include a folding table, hanging space for wet clothes, ironing board, a television to watch HGTV while folding and ironing.  There are some clothes that I like to wash a particular way and they require being hung.  This picture above captures only part of my vision.  Well, there is a little glitch in this desire.  Since I am traditional when it comes to laundry, I want the laundry room to be housed in the basement which would include a combo space for my granddaughter to work on her crafts/scrapbooking. 

The challenge:  my husband's desire and my desire.
My husband's desire is to see the laundry room upstairs on the upper level with the bedrooms which is definitely a no brainer in terms of practically.  Everyone can be responsible for taking their clothing to the laundry room without having to travel to the basement. Well, I tend to be tradition when it comes to the laundry location which is in the basement.  My vision is to create a luxury laundry room with the cute fixings that offers functionality and practicality.

I love this eclectic look.  It warms my heart!  There is plenty of space to fold and sit to do arts and crafts and anything my heart desires.

My question is to everyone:  where did you house your laundry and why?  Some people have chosen the mud room area, some have chosen upstairs which I have heard rumbles the house when drying depending upon the type of dryer, some have chosen upstairs.  My challenge is his desire, my desire.  I discovered that the home could accommodate an alternate laundry location upstairs.  Why did I share this with my hubster.  lol lol  He now wants the laundry upstairs which would close off the two story foyer that gives you a grand entrance.  At first, he was stuck on the grand entrance. Once I share the good news with him, he is convinced that this is the best location. Well, I understand why he feels this way.  The laundry was housed in the basement and I tend to wash clothes on a regular basis because I hate seeing the pile of dirty clothes in the basket.  Well, my challenge was getting the clothes back upstairs. lol He said, Nadase, the clothes go down, but they never come up.  Oops...it's so true.  I on the other hand still want my laundry in the basement, because I want the larger space.  What are some of the pros and cons you have found with your laundry location (size, location, missing clothing etc).

Our Langley Two Floor Plan

Our Langley II Floor Plan

This is the floor plan for our Langley II model that we chose from the selection of Toll homes in our new community.  The floor plan meets our needs perfectly and I am excited we found a home that offers function, offers practicality and offers the wow factor to the home we desired for our lifestyle without breaking the bank.  It comes with both two story great room and foyer.  

Here are the following options we chose for our first floor. 
1.  The expanded family room addition
2. the Naples Sunroom Addition
3.  Private Retreat (we are on the fence) fingers crossed.  Amen!
4.  Three Car Side Load Garage
5. We have a butterfly stair case. One of things I have always wanted was a catwalk with a double staircase. 
 We are literally choosing this model, sight unseen, because they just added it to our community and there aren't any other models to view in the entire area.  To our surprise, we looked closely in the kitchen and noticed that we have another flight of stairs in the kitchen.  We can enter the garage, drop our shoes and head straight up to our bedrooms. This was a pleasant surprise to say the least because we now have three staircases.  Sweet!

6.  I am not a fan of the laundry room near the garage entrance. My hubster likes it on the second level but I am old school and would prefer that it stays in the basement. I plan to create a luxury laundry and craft studio for the grandbaby and I.  She loves crafts and I love scrapbooking.  We deserve our own space away from the hubster.  lol The hubster does not do the laundry, I DO!  However, he wants it upstairs.  If he wins the laundry room would close off the front entrance foyer.

Here are the second floor options which we did not choose because many came with the model which satisfied our must haves lists such as:
1.  A larger bathroom.  Our Rome bathroom was very small which I am still surprised about because the master bedroom is huge.
2. The Princess Suite for our granddaughter.  It has the walk-in closet and personal bathroom that I have always wanted for her.  She loves dressing up in my closet. :-) Plus, now that we have the pleasure of raising her since her mom passed; we wanted her to have a space in the home where she can grow into comfortably.  The Williamsburg elevation adds two feet to her room which is also a nice surprise.
2.  Three-sided fire place in the master bedroom.  It will be installed between against the wall between the wall between the two rooms.
3. The alternate laundry room would go into the area marked open to below at the front foyer entrance.  I don't mind this area being closed because it will still have an opening; however, my preference is to use the space for another room and keep the laundry in the basement. The hubster wants the laundry room housed in the alternate location for our model.
4. We opted to shift the dressing room area into the master bathroom between the double sinks for my vanity.  I also want the dressing room area enclosed to make that closet larger for the hubster. We are also knocking out the wall in the larger closet for my designer closet as I did in our Rome.
5.  Ultra Shower with Roman shower heads.  Can't wait! 
6.  Six-foot whirl pool tub with Jets
7.  Coffered Ceiling in the Master Bedroom

Mortgage Loan Approval

We are super excited!  We received out Mortgage Loan Commitment Approval Yesterday from the Underwriters.  Yay!

You know how it goes, you get the approval letter and send in multiple documents to support your loan.  I'll take it.  14 items are on our list that are easy peasy.  I remember once before being so nervous about the list.  Today, they just need supporting documents for their records.  As we also, know keep all documentation handy on our computer, iPad, phone etc in the form of email, thumb drive or the cute app that you can scan documents on in a moment notice even while driving.  We are prepared to send and send again, if necessary.

Elevation - On the Fence!

SAVANNAH
I really love the porch on this elevation with the columns.  It offers one feet additional space in the foyer entrance and the rest of the floor plan stays true to plan. 

WILLIAMSBURG
I really love this elevation because it offers the boxed bay in the dining room and expands it by an additional two feet.  I would love the extra square footage in my dining room.  It also expands the princess suite directly above it which my granddaughter would love to have a larger room plus it expands the foyer. 

At the end of the day, it is always about preference and sometimes some sacrifice. The Savannah is 10K more and offers the additional space outside of the home which I really love.   The Williamsburg offers more space on the inside and cost less which I really love too.

We must make a decision soon.  Which elevation would you choose?

MUST HAVE and MORE!

As I mentioned, we sold our Rome and decided to build another home; however, this time with Toll Brothers.  The model is called the "The Langley 2" which gives us our must-haves I listed below. We realized a few weeks into our home that we settled for less than what we wanted in a "forever home" because we found ourselves still roaming the neighborhoods for new construction.  There was so much more that we wanted/discovered after living in our current home.  We would love a huge 7000 square foot home; but it's just three of us and the up keep would be too much than I choose to deal with.  We were currently looking at three builders, NV Homes which is the luxury version of RH Homes, Caruso and Stanley Martin.  Can I tell you how much I love Stanley Martin Homes which provide homesites on 1 and 2 acre lots...SWEET!!  Well, again, we are not interested in keeping up that much property; nor paying the amount of  premium for a lot that size.   It was a tough decision because we spent nearly all of last year going back and forth on a NV Home that I fell in love with called the Remington II.  Actually, we were approved last year 2014 with a ratified/approved contract for the Remington II and waited to build.  The process of waiting for the lot to be available became a problem for us so we decided to hold off on our decision because of the many factors we had been working with since our daughter's passing.  We paused and rescinded our contract.  Any way, I love the Remington II and did not think there was another house that would give us what we wanted in terms of functionality and practicalilty. We wanted a beautiful home with some "wow factor" but something in the middle and the Remington II gave us the things on our must have list.  Back in August 2015, we literally walked out of the NV Home 3-hour purchase agreement meeting to peek at the Toll Brothers home which we never considered, because we thought it would be out of our price range. The community we chose to build our new home has three models, different builders (Ryan Homes, NV Homes and Toll Brothers). We looked at the models which I had seen many times before; however, they closed the old model park and rebuilt the same model homes for the next phase of building.  We decided since we were in the neighborhood we may as well peek at the new Toll Brothers model.  We knew it was going to look fabulous because the old model that they are still waiting to sell took my breath away.  We toured the Toll Brothers model and three days later, we canceled the contract with NV Homes on the house I loved and put in a purchase agreement on the Toll Brothers home that I have come to love even more than the Remington II....oops...did I just say that, yep!  lol  It was comparable in cost because it was the home site of the month that offered  huge incentives and the biggest incentive was no premium lot fee. They had just opened up the new section and wanted to sell the last three lots quickly from last phase and this was our ticket.  SCORE!

Here are the things we MUST-HAVE in our new home/community that our current home did not offer:
1.  Manned Gated Community with 24 Security
2.  An Elevation with more character
3.  Three Car Side Load Garage
4.  LOT with larger backyard for expansion (our previous lot had minimal feet in the backyard, most of the yard space was on the side that we could not expand on)
5.  Large Luxury Landry Room in the basement
6.  Large Mud Room (our mud room drove me crazy coming through the garage without seating)
7.  Large Spa Bathroom with Roman shower (they offer the seamless frame shower..DWtimes2...yaaay)
8.  Large Walk in Closet in the Mud Room (I absolutely love, love this feature)
9.  Separate Storage Space in the Basement
10.  Larger Morning Room (we chose the octagon morning room called the Naples, nice twist)
11.  Princess Suite for our granddaughter to include her own bathroom and walk-in closet
12. Two story foyer
13. Two story great/family room

Extra Perks:
1. Golf Course On-Site and nearby Equestrian Center
2. Master Bedroom comes with a Sitting Area (we are adding a three sided fireplace in this location)
3. Tray Ceilings and crown molding are standard features
4. Desk area in the kitchen (yaaay...always wanted a designated space in the kitchen)
5.  Restaurant On-Site
6.  Larger Community Room (our past community room was very, very small and still do not understand why they built such a small space for over thousands of homes in the community) The space was so small that I had to throw my 50 birthday party in our home which accommodated all of our guess comfortably)

Our biggest compromise to date:  (Whewwww.....
We are not going to finish the basement this time around.