It's Been A While

The last time we posted was just shy of a year ago… Oooh how time flys, especially when your having fun. I was just hanging out at the house today and something said you should go on the old blog and post an update….

Where to start, where to start???? SOooo much has taken place over the last year home ownership is fun and a lot of work. Not to mention MONEY MONEY MONEY!!! LOL, but I wouldn't change anything at all even if I could. 

I guess I'll start from the outside and head in, I'll let the pictures do most of the talking… this fall we got the landscaping done by H&M Landscaping. They did a great job. As you can see in the first picture our door is a beautiful shade of red. We decided to repaint our door ourselves after we moved in. The shade of red that Ryan Homes painted the door was somewhat boring to us ( as you can see in the second photo ). So we went to Sherwin Williams and did some research and settled on this beautiful color that enhanced the contrast of the from entry way, making the whole front of the house pop in the process. We also decided to go with  a brass and green door knocker. My wife and a neighbor decided that they both just had to have screen/storm doors installed so I hopped on it and got ours installed though I haven't yet taken a photo of it. 

Front Enty Area all Landscaped and Pretty

 Pre Landscaping w/ wine colored door

 Pretty Green Carpet of Grass

I love my driveway!!!

More to come later on the landscaping soon as well as the house and future projects…. thanks for checking out our blog. See you all soon I promise. LOL

Blessed!

Hello everyone! We are so happy we closed and moved (slowly) into the house. The kids were excited but my husband and son were worn out from all the lifting. Moving in on Easter wow...next time ( if we move again) we will hire a moving company LOL! There are still things at the old house that need to come over but they can fit in our truck. And no refrigerator until Wednesday. Ugh! Does anyone have the LG Door-in-door fridge? That's what we are getting. We got a sweet deal that is still going on at Home Depot. The more you spend the more you get off. We bought our fridge and practically got our freezer for free. We got a 14.7 deep chest freezer from GE (good ratings) for $69 when it was all said and done yay! And since they still have that offer I hope they have the Samsung front load washer and dryer I want. That would be sweet! Sorry this is long just wanted to give you all an update. No pics yet bc we don't have wifi yet :o( I am typing this post from my phone LOL! We are all blessed!

Guess what....

WE GET OUR KEYS IN 1/2 HR!!!!  YAY!!!!!
NVR started moving fast to get us closed before the first of the month! So here I am telling you all before we walk out the door to sign.  Sorry its been a while since I've blogged, but I will be back to tell you how it went.
Once again GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME!

God is good all the time!

    I will repeat the title of this post again by saying GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME! I say this because unfortunately we were unable to close on our scheduled date because of extreme circumstances not of our own cause. We had a major setback that could have cost us our home that we put so much effort and love into (but GOD is good) and we will close early April.

    We were very disappointed but extremely grateful that prayers are answered and blessings came.  Even when we posted the pictures from the previous post we were still uncertain of the outcome of our home. But now we can say with great joy that we will be in our house.

     We do not know the actual day we will be closing because we are waiting to see if an extension was granted and if (hopefully) our lock rate will still be the same.  So once again we have the waiting phase. I did the walkthrough with our PM and everything looks great. My husband was working (thank God) and so I went with my mother-in-law and viewed the house. Once again "I love it" LOL!  The funny thing is I took our camera but was unable to take pictures because I really don't know how to use it LOL! My husband always fiddles with it and basically learned it and kept telling me that I should use it and practice with all the different settings...well...I didn't. The settings were off and I didn't know how to fix it and then I thought I made it worse. Crazy! I finally was able to somewhat fix it but then it was on some delayed timer from when I pressed down the button it took about 10 secs of countdown before it actually snapped! I was done! So I didn't want to go back around the house snapping and holding my arm out until it took the picture. Here are the pics I took.

My stove and microwave from the side. Kinda dark though...settings ugh...

A better picture from the side. I love my gas stove. I haven't cooked on one in a long time. Can't wait to use it!

View of the kitchen into the great room. Paperwork on the island saying a radon test is being conducted.

Kitchen again. The wood color changes depending upon the lighting in the room. I love that!

My fireplace. This was a must. We have a huge wood burning fireplace in our current home which I love so had to have this.

View of the floor and carpet

Kitchen view. My mother-in-law is standing where the refrigerator will go.

View going upstairs. Will apply Liquid Gold on my banisters to make them shine!

My morning room!

These are the doors to the office. I will be replacing them with glass paneled french doors.

    So these are all the pics that I was able to take at the time with my camera. I hope to be able to get back in the house with my husband so he can see or he will have a reveal day :o( he is too anxious LOL! Our inspector came in and was conducting a radon test so our PM couldn't open the windows to show me how they operated. (But windows are simple I see how they latch and open, no biggie) He left the radon detector downstairs and it should have been taken out yesterday so we will have to wait for the results. 

    I am so happy for everyone who closed on time and got your keys. I haven't been posting on your blogs but I will be. :o) Your homes are beautiful!

    I have learned that a lot of people (definitely devils in disguise) will love to steal your joy and blessings but God is able and above all! We are truly blessed and loved from the many family members and friends (including my amazing SR and even our amazing loan officers) who offered words of encouragement and prayers! God never let the devil defeat what his blessing was for us! God may not come when you want Him but He is always on time! Truly blessed and grateful! I hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed day! All smiles in the Hill household!

   

    

It's been awhile, but WE'RE BACK!

Hey everyone sorry it's been awhile but we have been busy, busy, busy!  Lots of new pics to show you of the progress of our home.  A lot has been accomplished in the last 3 weeks.

 January 28th

So this is the basement in the drywall phase.

You can see the stairs coming from upstairs into the basement.

This is a view walking upstairs from the basement.  And to the left you can see the textured ceiling.

Morning room, drywall phase.

January 28th & 29th

This is the tile in the laundry/mud room.

This is the master bathroom tile.

Yay for our hardwood floors going in!

January 30th

We now have railings!!!!

Another view of the railings.

Nice view looking down from upstairs.

                                                  

Cabinets for our master bath.

Kids/Guest bath with granite and tile.

The doors are up!

February 6th

The house is prepping for the stone.

 February 8th

My kitchen! Yay! You really can't see the granite but it is beautiful with the cabinetry. That is my PM measuring for our refrigerator space. 

My kitchen :o)

Here is the fireplace. Love it!  The french doors to the left lead into the office.  They will be replaced with the glassed paneled ones.

The dining room with the chandelier.

The master tub.  Keeping the ceramic tile simple, basic white and pretty trim. 

My shower.  It is kinda small but workable! No taking showers together LOL! But my husband says he will make it work.  SMH LOL!

Stone coming along nicely :o)

 February 9th

Side view of the house showing the stone with siding and bay window.

Finished product of the stone exterior.  It is beautiful, the pics do not do it justice! LOVE IT!

So here are all the pics of the progress of our home. The house is surely coming along! Oh and by the way for those people here in NE OH we also went to the Home & Garden Show! There were a lot of good ideas. Definitely going with some of those companies!

Steadily Chugging Forward

Things are moving along nicely, they have completed the siding and are now back on the interior. Due to the extreme cold that we are having right now, they are holding off on installing the stone veneer until middle or late next week. Our new PM contacted us last night in response to a request from me for a progress update. So he gave us a run down of the next week or so, as I said before due to the cold they are holding off on the stone and are focusing on the interior. Yesterday the dry-wallers finished the mudding ( I guess thats what you'd call it ), the filling of all the seams and covering of all the screws used to secure the drywall to the studs. Today he has a crew in the house doing all of the sanding and finishing of the wall surfaces in preparation for the paint crew to come in and apply the prime coat throughout the house. Which he has scheduled for tomorrow. He caught me off guard with that, it seems that for the second time during our construction we will have crews onsite working on a Saturday. He plans to have crews in Monday through Wednesday installing all of the hard surfaces which we happened upon, being stored in the garage of the home on our latest visit the day before yesterday. The hard surfaces are the flooring, hardwood & tile. I am uncertain if the carpet is included in this phase. They will also be installing the cabinetry. I am assuming that at that point he's planning to bring in the stone crew to put in the stone on the front of the house. As alway we have lots of pictures for you guys. But I need to talk about the prime coat that I mentioned earlier. We decided to go with a prime coat because ryan homes only offers one color option for interior paints, we liked the color that they were offering but decided against it because we want to customize our home. Yes it would have been nice to move into a home thats already painted, but we felt that paint is one of the cheapest and most dramatic ways to customize our new home, so we're going to choose a custom color and have it painted ourselves.

Autumn Beige in the Sun

Autumn Beige in the Shade

:-) Siding.... HAH, WE HAVE SIDING!!!

Autumn Beige..... Ah, Autumn Beige, so little love so much distaste. I thought hate might be a little strong, not by much just a bit. My poor wife, she was soooo worried. Through her exploration of numerous blogs she became so very concerned with the "pink" nature of autumn beige. Me on the other hand... I could give a shit less, "could give a shit" might be a little aggressive... aww hell I don't put much stock into what the next man or woman thinks. I liked it when I picked it and that wasn't going to change till I decided for myself that I hated it, and I am glad to say I am not disappointed.

Huh, whats that you ask? Have I seen it in full on unobstructed sunlight..., ahhh well sort of I guess. It was overcast with the occasional  break for a quick burst of sun. Aww who am I fooling no I haven't seen it in full on sun but I don't need to! I Love it!!! It has character, a tan that seems deep till you see it has a pinky, peachish hue to it that gives it depth and character.

Huh whats that you just said there fellah??? He must be gay!!! Now thats uncalled for don't ya think?! A man can't like pink? Hell the younglings are all sporting it or were not to long ago, I tend to not follow the latest trends to closely, I think this rapper started it a few years back.... But if you really have questions, test me. }:-)>

Ohh how I digress, seems that my surly alter ego Tbone, Worm or Hollywood Hill (he goes by a number of names), came to the surface damn it I thought I had him on lockdown. LOL , here are some pictures of the siding going up this was all done in about seven and a half hours.

We have Elevation C with the Stone Front.

Sorry everyone, over here trying to multitask and screwed around and did something to the post. Heck I don't know what I did, I must have deleted it. But luckily I was able to hit the back arrow and bring it back up and rebuild it.

8 comments:

1. 
   Rachel1/22/13, 8:45 AM

   I am one who always cautions people about Autumn Beige, not because I hate the color, but because the sample is not representative of what it looks like on a house in natural light. It was the color we originally selected because I loved the sample. However, as I drove around and looked at houses with it, it had the peach undertone which was not the look I was going for. I'm glad you're happy with your selection. After all, that's all that matters!

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   Burton Hill1/22/13, 11:47 AM
   I do agree with you that the sample is highly deceptive. I don't want to imply any sort of funny business on Ryan's part, it's just the nature of Autumn Beige. Under artificial lighting and such a small sample, it comes off as a grayish tan. But on the home the Autumn in that Beige wants to come out and play. I'm cool with it now and my wife saw it and said Oh it's not all that bad at all. So we're not going to make a ruckus, if at some point we desire another color I have no problem getting it replaced. Such is Life...
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2. 
   M1/22/13, 9:34 AM

   I'm glad you are embracing the pink/peach undertones of Autumn Beige. I've seen several bloggers hate it once they saw it on their house. I think one blogger even went half price with RH to have it replaced because they just couldn't live with it.

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3. 
   Andrew and Jennel1/22/13, 12:22 PM

   This comment has been removed by the author.

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4. 
   Andrew and Jennel1/22/13, 12:36 PM

   This comment has been removed by the author.

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5. 
   Andrew and Jennel1/22/13, 12:36 PM

   I agree Autumn Beige is very deceptive under certain lights. In fact it really looks beautiful in your pictures. We were going for a tan color for our house and had originally selected cobblestone wicker. Right before they put our siding up they changed suppliers and made us take the autumn beige which they said was comparable. Unfortunately it wasn't at all comparable to the original color we had selected so we weren't as thrilled with the pinky/peach hue. Its really not an awful color especially if you were expecting the undertones, but I think because it wasn't at all what we originally picked and because we weren't expecting it we were greatly disappointed. We did compromise with RH and pay a VERY minimal fee to have it replaced with what truly is a comparable color to what we originally selected. SO happy you are happy with the color and your house is coming along so beautifully!! Looking forward to seeing the progress as you get closer to closing day!!

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6. 
   Andrew and Jennel1/23/13, 10:51 AM

   Sorry...it posted my comment 3 times....silly computer :-(

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7. 
   RickandNadase1/23/13, 4:22 PM

   Here are my thoughts about Autumn Beige, first and foremost it is what it is, two, it works well if it is the color you are looking for for the exterior of your home. Third, it only becomes an eyesore when the color is not meeting the expectation of the small, small sample you get in the design center that you are expecting for your exterior colors. It is very misleading and has caused many frowns once it went UP! And yes, people opted out because they could not live with the color once it was installed on the house. I have looked at many houses and one in our cul-de-sac brought me pure joy when I saw it was Autumn Beige because the brick color she chose was the perfect compliment. This women is absolutely in love with the color pink and burgundy which meant she chose the exterior colors that resembles her preference. She has burgundy shutters/door and the Autumn Beige siding and not sure of brick color but it is beautiful. So if you like it--that's all that matters. Just remember you will be driving up to this home everyday and you want to have that feel good feeling as you drive up. Most will say, you don't live on the exterior but you do have a connection to the curb appeal to your home on a subconscious level whether you think so or not. `Lastly, if you really don't give a damn about the exterior and the interior is more important than it doesn't matter what you think or what any one else thinks. If it does matter, this is the opportunity to STATE the URGENCY to change it and they will oblige you if it is creating some discomfort on any level.
   
   BTW--What color brick did you choose?

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