Carpets Installed

The carpeted area of the Ryan Home Florence model, is everywhere not the kitchen, bathrooms, laundry room, foyer and morning room (when applicable).  You are given the choice of one of five carpet selections to fill all the carpet areas and there is nothing darker than light tan.  The default options do not give much selection, and is a must upgrade in our opinion.  Read more here about the experience picking out our carpet and other flooring if you haven't already to know the trials we went through.

Our selection for the house was a Level B carpet which features base stain guard in it and a 10 year warranty versus the 5 year one on the base model.  Additionally there is a few more color options, including the one we selected "Fresh Coffee."  You are able to pick out different colors in different rooms when you upgrade, where as in the base model you need to pay for color changes if you selected different colors in different rooms.

When we entered the house we found that there was carpeting, but it was covered by plastic.  This protects the carpet as the crews continue to work on the other items throughout the house.

Family Room Carpet Installed but Covered

In some rooms the corner or some area of the carpet were exposed, so I was able to get a few different pictures.  The family room was one area were the carpets were exposed so we we able to see, and it looks great.  We are much happier with this selection over the base option which looked to have a pink undertone. The fact that we have animals it makes sense to have the stain guard in the carpet.

Carpet - Family Room

You will notice the dark brown color of the carpet is slightly lighter in natural sunlight versus the energy efficient light bulbs available in the lighting fixtures.  In the loft there is the two windows on the front of the house and thus the room has great natural light. 

The Loft with Carpet

The carpet and laminate floors come together at a number of places throughout the house and its important to see the two next to each other.  In an effort to simulate this while we picked I sat the samples directly next to each other.  Now that we see the real thing it looks even better.  The first area the laminate meets between the living room and the foyer.  If you remember the foyer was one of the laminates we decided to leave a the default.  The base laminate looks better than expected

Carpet and Base Laminate Meet Up

The other areas they meet up is between the family room and kitchen and this stretch represents the longest run between two rooms.  The carpet looks great next to the memories tile in the kitchen.

Carpet Next to Kitchen Laminate

I didn't take any pictures of the hallway bathroom next to the carpet, but I did get a look at the carpet in the master bedroom next to the tile in the master bathroom and it came out great. 

Carpet Next to Master Bathroom Tile

If the budget was there we would have upgraded the padding underneath as well.  Additionally we choose the neutral color and not something like blue, so that we had the maximum options when it came time to paint and decorate.

Carpeting Round Two

It would have been tough for us to be happy with the carpet we had previously chose.  So we decided to look for a darker color one level up, it's going tos cost us some but there is so much carpeting in there if we didn't like us we would be forced to pull it up and replace just after closing.

Our sales representative reached out to the flooring company, a few days back and asked for pictures of the darker brown options from the level B collection.  When we hadn't heard back yesterday I decided to call over directly to the flooring company.  Once I connected with her, she was very helpful, and immediately sent over a picture of the original darkest base carpetting we had selected previously, and the two darker options in the level B.

My wife and I looked at the picture and were pretty settled on the darkest color.  To finalize it, I decided to take a drive up, which was a little out of the way, about 45 minutes, my wife couldn't make it since she had to work, but I brought up my good digital camera to get better pictures.

Upon arriving, the flooring consultant was with another group, but quickly helped me out by providing the samples. The color comparision is very clear to see from this picture i took.  the top is the darkest base option available, which seem will easily show any minor stains, and seems to have a pinkish tone to it.  The bottom is a dark brown in the level B, color is called coffee.

 

Our sellection, with a 10 year warranty up from 5 years that came with the base model, and also it has stainmaster, to help repel stains which will be good since we have a animals.

The one extra picture i took was the new carpet up against the flooring we selected to see how it will look next to each other.

We are getting close to the pre-construction meeting with the sales representive and our project manager.

Our Floor Plan Selections

Based on request I am posting our floor plan and elevation selections.  We went with elevation A, we had considered doing a partial stone front, but chose some other upgrades instead.  Here is a picture from the brochure, to give you an idea.

Florence Elevation A

Our color scheme will be Irish Thistle siding, it's a green / grey color, with Berry shutters, and black fox door.  

On the first floor, we decided to add the morning room, it was a must for us we saw it in the model home and it adds a lot of space to the open floor plan.  It will serve as our dinning room.  We also choose the extended counter, sitting down a little lower than the rest of the counter good little breakfast area, or a place for food when hosting a party.

On the second floor we decided on sticking with the loft as we didn't have a need for a forth bedroom, and it also made the master closet larger.  The master closet was a major point for us in our search for a new home, as we currently have limited closet space in our current home.

in the master bath, we decided on a large walk in shower with a linen closet over a garden tub, small stand up shower and no closet.  We didn't think we would have a whole lot of need for the tub, and liked having the closet in the room rather than only the hallway linen closet.

We decided to do the finished basement, but not the additional powder or bath room.  We recieved a incentive on the basement by using Ryan's affiliated mortgage company NVR, so it was a no brainer add on.  The morning room above also came with additional storage space below in the basement, a huge plus!

Flooring Follow Up

Quick Update - After speaking to our Sales Representative, she discussed our scenario with her management and Ryan Homes is making it right.  They are going to make up the difference between what we had been originally informed and what we came to find out later.

Very Excited that they took care of things and did it so quickly.  We are very happy and ready to get things moving so we can move into our new house!  

Next up is a meeting with the company responsible for the wiring, we are set with two rough in setups for ceiling fans but think we need one more for a nice hanging light in the morning room, and some electirc hookups outsidde the house, as it will be nice to have some power avialable out where our deck will ultimately be installed.

Fun with Flooring

We started the day with a 45 minute drive to the advanced flooring and design location finally a nice day so we were excited as we made our journey, to pick out our flooring.  The location was not easy to find.  GPS got us close but we were in an industrial park with limited signs.  We got lucky and driving down along one of the buildings we saw this small 1'x2' sign for "Design Studio."  

We made the appointment on time, so it worked out ok in that regard.  Upon entering it was a fairly sizable location, but seemed smaller than what I expected.  We were greeted shortly after entering by a friendly lady, who proceeded to take us to the corner of the building, and let us know that this section was the Ryan Homes portion the rest was for other companies.

The layout was a rectangle at one end in front of some windows was a large high table, with laptop out on it, and a few tall chairs.  Along the walls on the left was hangers with carpet samples, and the right was hardwood for samples.  On the back wall across from the table was some tile options on flip panels and some wood spindle samples next to that.  In a recessed section in the front right was some more tile samples.

As the lady from the flooring company started to flip through papers she mentioned our counter had not been selected and should have already been.  She informed us our Sales Representative would have to take care of that as it was not part of what they did for Ryan Homes.  She did have the samples so we were at least able to use then as a guide when looking at swatches of the other items throughout the home.

We felt that we had a head start on things as we had seen some flooring and tile upgrade ideas in a home our sales representative walked us through.  So we had already applied the upgrades to the level she said it was, and as such we expected going in to have no need for further upgrades.  There was a discrepancy between what our SR had indicated and what was listed at the flooring company.  We were upset but pressed on as we really liked the Memories flooring.  This will look great in our Kitchen and morning room.  The item on top will be our kitchen counters.

Second Bathroom and Powder Room Flooring (Another Memories Pattern)

The master bathroom was one of our major focus as we sacrificed the bathroom when we bought our first house, and it was time to have the one we really wanted.  We originally were taken to just a white tile on the back wall, which we were informed was the upgrade level we selected but that wasn't going to work so we asked what else was available.  Once again it was an upgrade we weren't expecting as we came in with the understanding that we had already upgraded to at least a color tile choice.  Pressing on once again we just loved the tile, but were getting more frustrated.
                                           
The carpet was a surprise we were shown only five carpet options none with stain guard and all a shade of tan, with most of them more cream than brown.  We were looking for something in a medium brown, but it was not an option in the base level.  The next level up was around $1400 additional which was now was outside our budgeted price range since we had do the unexoected upgrades to the other floors.  

We left a ittle shocked but plan to reach out to our SR and see whats up on how the information was different between when we talked and when we went to the flooring!