Colors Meeting

Today was a long day.  We met with the sales manager at Wayne Homes today to pick out everything in our house.  For some reason Bryan and I had it in our head that this would not be a long process, but we were there for 5 hours.  We left the big kids home (thankfully), but the baby was with us and he was a champ!  I think we are really happy with our choices.  I am really excited about what we chose for our master bathroom.  I really think it is going to look amazing when it is all done.

Master Bathroom cabinets, flooring & tile for shower

Cabinets, counter and flooring for the kids bathroom.  I have this for the powder room too, but contemplating going with a pedastal sink..

The kitchen was probably the biggest challenge for me.  I have always said that when I do a kitchen I would have cherry cabinets.  Lately I have been drawn to white.  I know, with 6 kids anything white sounds insane.  I found out Bryan was thinking along the same lines.  After doing a lot of research I found that most people who have white kitchens love them.  So we went with the white, the actual color is Chiffon.

Siding, shutters and roof.

I have to say the only thing that disappointed me about the meeting was the paint colors.  All of the literature that you get states that the Signature series homes come with full house painting and a "wide variety of paint colors."  I assumed that wide variety would mean a large selection and that we could pick what we wanted in each room.  What that translates to is they have 8 colors to choose from, 4 are white, 3 are tan and one is gray(which looked very green to us).  You can pick one color for the trim and one color for the walls. They use Sherwin Williams paints, we chose Alabaster for the trim and I think Canvas Tan for the walls.  We will obviously be visiting a paint store soon to pick different colors and will need to repaint everything.  

Overall I am really happy with our meeting.  We picked out a lot of really nice things and we even added some nice upgrades like a double bowl sink for the kids bathroom and hardwood floors for our dining room.

Flooring choices.

Picking our House

  

When we first started this process we had found a house plan that we loved online.  We tried taking it to a couple builders, but most of the "custom build on your lot" builders we went to meant build one of their homes and they will let you change things about it.  They did not even want to look at what we had.  When we walked into Wayne Homes (without an appointment) they were extremely welcoming and took a look at the plans that we had drawn up.  Melissa took them and let us know that she would get back to us in a few days to let us know if they could make them work.  She did and they could, however, it was really out of our price range and not in line with houses in our neighborhood.  We quickly realized that we would have to go with one of their houses.   After a lot of deliberation and even briefly trying one more builder we decided on Wayne Homes and their Williamsburg plan.

Wayne Homes Williamsburg

We have our colors meeting soon and our lot inspection meeting at the beginning of next month so Bryan has been busy making sure that we have everything cleared.  He removed more trees and has been busy cutting up the wood into manageble pieces.   

We are sad at some of the trees that we had to remove, but on the upside we now have lots of firewood for our future fireplace and fire pit! 

We went over to the property the other night so I could see all the work Bryan and the kids have been doing.  While walking I found this in the middle of the yard. There were about 4 petunias just growing on their own.  It was a nice little surprise and I am excited that next summer I will be planting lots of flowers.  

Demolition

About a month after we purchased the property Bryan got to work removing several large pine trees in the front of the existing structure and then demolishing the house.  He and the kids had lots of fun knocking over the house and moving dirt around with our rented "toys".  It was a lot of work, and I am lucky that Bryan did all of it with the help of some neighborhood boys who were eager to have the chance to knock over some walls and ride in an excavator and a skid steer.

Watching Daddy getting ready to knock over chimney

Bryan and the kids

What a difference a week makes

Land Purchase

Last year a condemned house in our neighborhood went up for sale in our neighborhood.  The house sat on a nice piece of property and Bryan and I lamented how we missed out on the sale almost every time we walked past it.  We watched as the new owners gutted out the house in the attempt to renovate it.  They moved quickly at first and then the work just stopped.  All summer long we watched as the house just sat there day after day.

One day in September we realized that we were going to have to move soon.  With the addition of our 6th child we were no longer fitting into our house.  We looked at available houses online, not finding anything we really liked and sad that we would have to leave the neighborhood that we loved. That same day we walked over to a party in our neighborhood, past the property with the condemned house.  I told Bryan we should look into who owned it to see if they were still going to fix it up, since it would be great if we had made the move when we talked about it and bought it ourselves.

Two days later on his way home Bryan decided that he would drive past the property to see if anyone happened to be working, after nothing for weeks, the owners were in fact there.  He asked them if they had considered maybe selling it instead of continuing trying to rebuild the house.  They were open for the discussion and in just a few months we had an agreement and purchased the property ourselves.

What we purchased.