Selections

Yesterday we met at the model and selected our colors and such.  See below for a few items.

 For the siding color we went with Twilight Shadow.  It is a dark gray color that will stand out with the white trim/gutters.  Both of our neighbors have selected the Canyon (brown) color, so we know we'll be sandwiched between them.  The shutters are a light brown and the door is the "Marooned" red color.

Our kitchen cabinets are the Maple Espresso color.  With 9' ceilings, the 42" cabinets are standard in our community, but we upgraded to the second tier for this color.  Our entire house will be in satin nickel finish (including the knobs/hardware on the cabinets in the kitchen).
We're on the fence about the countertop color we selected.  It is the upgraded laminate (Formica 180fx) in Travertine Silver.  We're going to check out a couple other pairings before we move forward.
Finally is the flooring.  We upgraded to the level "B" resilient flooring for the improved feel of the product.  In 2-5 years time we plan to replace with high-end hardwoods, but these floors are fine for our needs and we wanted to make sure we focused on the structural upgrades we wanted first (morning room, sitting area, etc).  This resilient in the picture will cover all areas downstairs except for the great room and the study.
We're planning to use the "dining room" area next to the foyer as a library (bookshelves, etc) and not a dining space - but we are not doing the library upgrade that adds walls/doors.  We want it to remain open.  We asked to have the dining room not in carpet and instead continue the laminate flooring through that space - we're waiting to hear back on a price for the "non-standard" upgrade.

Our upstairs bathroom (not the master) will be the wheat colored cabinets and this Mushroom tile (upgrade level B).  We originally had upgraded resilient in that space, but wanted the feel of tile instead for our guests.

The Master bath is again the wheat colored cabinets (why aren't white cabinets an option? - we will likely end up painting them white later).  We selected the Parkway Gray tile for both the floors and the master shower walls with the listello border in the picture above (Upgrade level C flooring).

Next week is the electrical appointment and next weekend will likely see our final change order.  We are on track to break ground on 5/5/2015 with a tentative delivery of August 2015.

Floor Plans and Elevation

We chose elevation A as we did not want to spend a large amount of additional cash on that portion.  We have not finalized our color selections but will be doing so shortly.  Our house is being built on a plot which requires a "reverse" build, which is my preference with this plan regardless.

We're taking the unfinished basement and roughing in the 3pc bath.  We also added the egress window.

On the first floor, we added the morning room (with two additional windows) - this extends the kitchen island as well.  The garage on this plan is fantastic and we chose to add the rear garage door.

The second floor we added the sitting area which is a no-brainer addition to this plan.  We upgraded the master bath to the nicer shower setup too.

More to come after we get further in the process.  I used some screenshots off of the interactive floorplans on the Ryan Homes website to create these sketches.  I doctored them up in Photoshop to show only what we chose to do.

Initial Items

This blog will be an open resource to share in the process of building our new home.

Since the Bateman floor plan is very new, there are very limited resources available online.  In fact, I was only able to find one other blog:
http://buildabateman.blogspot.com/

We have already met the sales representative a number of times, signed a purchase agreement, and met with the mortgage representative.

In other posts I will share the floor plan and options we have decided on.

We're excited to get started and I hope that once we break ground and start taking photos that those photos will be a resource to anyone else considering the Bateman plan.