Building Ryan Home Florence 2014: Decisions on Ryan Homes

We started house searching in western PA in late February. After visiting houses on market for a couple of weeks, we decided to consider new constructions in mid March. We checked three new construction companies: Heartland, Ryan, Miranda and visited houses on market built by those three companies. Heartland has the best quality among three. But the price is high for us and no building location is within our preferred distance. Miranda has the cheapest price but poor quality. We decided to choose Ryan because of the price and quality based on the online reviews and blogs. We visited several Ryan's model houses within our preferred commuting distance, talked to Sales Representatives of those model houses, and chose our favorite community. We felt so helpful by reading those online resources during our decision process and decided to post our experience with Ryan Homes construction.

We selected Florence model Elevation B and signed Purchase Agreement with Ryan in late March. All houses built in our community have the following default options: morning room, brick front, and concrete driveway. Our house has garage on the left because of lot location. Our first decision on options/selections is carpet free because of our previous experience of carpet floor (hard to clean even with Rug Doctor) and my allergy. We choose hardwood for whole 2nd floor, family room and dinning room in 1st floor; ceramic tiles in morning room, kitchen, powder room, all bathrooms, laundry room, and entry foyer. We choose vinyl for basement (similar color and style as our hardwood floor). Though there are more color choices for non-hardwood cabinets, there are only four colors available for hardwood cabinets. Aware some non-hardwood cabinet corners showing worn out signs in model houses, we choose hardwood cabinets with an neutral color close to our favorite: Wyoming Square Cherry Spice Timberlake. Our decision on basement option is from our experience visiting florence model house during a warm day. We felt that the air in the basement is so comfortable and fresher than 1st floor and thought basement is a nice place when it is hot during summer. We decided to have the finished basement with a full bathroom and a closet. We added 4th bedroom in the loft because the size of bedroom 2 and bedroom 3 is small.

Florence - Elevation B

Garage Door: Resort Facade
-(2)Remote Control

Basement:
        - Window Egress Basement (included, code requirement)
- Finished basement
        - Full Bathroom
        - Closet under stair basement

Morning Room:
-Extra windows morning room
- Sliding glass door morning room: included

Kitchen:
       -Kitchen island
       -Kitchen Wyoming Square Cherry Spice Timberlake
       -HDWR KIT CAB ~HDWR Vanity ~HDWR OWNR BTH
       -Cabinet Hardware Finish Satin Nickel (included)
       -Cabinet Crown Moulding kitchen
       -42'' wall cabinets kitchen
       -Granite Countertop kitchen upgrade #1 (Santa Cecila)
       -Range Gas Hook-up:
       -Feature IV FRSTING- No Microwave ~ Vented Range
       -Kitchen Tile Backsplash
- A rough-in for the ice maker on the refrigerator.

Family Room
        -Fireplace Granite

Formal Dinning Room
        - Adding a chandelier

Owners Suite
         -Add an extra window
         -Upgrade owner bathroom to tub+glass shower
         -Double bowl owner's bathroom
         -Wyoming Square Cherry spice Timberake cabinet

Secondary Bathroom
          -Wyoming Square Cherry spice Timberake cabinet

Third bedroom
         -Add an extra window

LOFT
- Upgrade as 4th bedroom (an extra window included)

Flooring Specifications
-Ceramic in foyer
     -Ceramic in laundry room
     -Ceramic in kitchen
-Ceramic in morning room
     -Ceramic in powder room
-Ceramic in owner's bathroom & Surr Bath
-Ceramic in 2nd bathroom
     -Ceramic in 3rd bathroom basement
-Hardwood floor in dinning/living room
     -Hardwood floor family room
-Hardwood floor all 2nd floor
-Vinyl in basement

Interior Specifications
       -Oak Stair with Oak Handrail, Baseplate/white balusters (Chestnut color)

Electrical Specifications
       -Recessed light (4x) in master bedroom
       -Overhead Light Joy/Bravo (3x) each one in other 3 bedrooms
       -Recessed Lights Kitchen
       -Recessed light (4x) family room
       -Ceiling Fan Rough in morning room
       -One Dedicated Circuit near inside Garage Door
       -One extra Exterior Garage Door light

Plumbing Specifications
      -Faucet Fixtures bathroom upgrade #1 (NICKEL Color)

Exterior Specifications
-Two Outlets exterior (front and back)
       -Two faucets exterior (front and back)
       -Siding Color: Island Pearl
       -Brick Color: Craggy Mountain/ Butt Martar
       -Shutter Color: BlackWatch Green
-Front Door Color: Marooned

Discounts/Incentives
-Brick Front Standard (included in our community)
-Resort Facade Garage Door (included in our community)
-Concrete Driveway (included in our community)

Picture of our choices: