It's official...
We CLOSED on the home and I can finally post the final pictures of our new Milan. Though, I'm not closing this blog yet because I plan to continue to blog about our experiences post-closing... specifically critiques on how Ryan Homes handles issues that will arise. I've been told they kind of suck at post-closing support. I hope for our sake that that is over-exaggerated, but we'll see.
The Closing
We closed on the house on April 6, 2016 at about 11:03am EST. The entire process to close took only about an hour and away we went with the keys.
We did have some paperwork that was incorrect, though. They had put in that we wanted the expanded title insurance option and closing costs protection, when we actually just wanted the standard title insurance. This was a difference of about $500. A minor difference in the closing costs, but still, our cashier's check was in the amount shown due on our last Good Faith Estimate, so that's all we had. Fortunately, the process to get the paperwork corrected only took about 15 minutes and the closing costs actually came out to LESS than what we had expected, so we were entitled to a refund of about $45 (yay, us).
After that, it was smooth sailing. I wasted no time in going to the house to go in as the first time with it actually being "ours."
Photos
Apologies, but time was short to get things moved so didn't have time to take many "just walked in the door to a new house" photos. Also, the lighting was bad too. I'll get some new ones up soon once everything is setup in the house. Also, at this point we didn't have landscaping, so no photos of that, but I'll write up a separate post once I find the pictures of that.
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| The keys are mine now!! |
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| That's Santa Cecilia granite they're sitting on |
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| Outside... no landscaping yet, but that will come |
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| Kitchen with Cherry Bordeaux cabinets, Santa Cecilia granite, and Cherry Oak 2" wood flooring |
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| I freaking love this sink... I've always wanted an under mounted sink with a goose neck faucet, and now I have it!!! |
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| The included appliances (sans dishwasher).... not the greatest but at least stainless steel |
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| Showing how our wood floor mesh with the carpet which is "Northern Cliffs" |
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| Morning room... one of my favorite rooms in the whole hosue |
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| Family room w/ gas fire place and that's "Tropical Brown" granite around the fire place. Also notice the HDMI/Data pre-wiring. That was a must for me. |
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| Formal dining room... we paid extra for the trim package that gave us chair railing in here... love it. |
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| Foyer shown here with 1 1/4" Cherry Oak hardwood. That's a coat closet and then the study on the left there. Love the french doors that came with the study. |
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| Front door. So far, we're the only house on the street that has a front door like this with the large window. |
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| Doors to the study |
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| The study |
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| Stairs to the second floor... that's Dark Cherry railing w/ white balusters. |
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| Next to stairs, thermostat and alarm panel |
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| Going up? |
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| Upstairs looking down... love this railing. |
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| Second floor bath... should've done the double vanity in here.. oh well. |
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| Don't really like how close they put the toilet to the tub... looks weird. |
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| Second floor loft |
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| Master bath double vanity |
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| Master bath vanity sink and lights |
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| Master bath shower... this is what comes with the First upgrade package |
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| Soaking tub again with the #1 upgrade package |
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| Mud room |
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| From the mud room, left is basement, right is garage |
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| Love this basement door |
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| Basement stairwell |
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| Basement rec room (with the extra window shown that they put in for us) |
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| Basement rec room... unfinished bath on left, and unfinished media room on right |
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| The signature Ryan Homes light pole |
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| Outside with the exterior lights on |
I love your blog Dustin! We are from Dayton and are hoping to build in Winding Creek in Springboro! Thank you for sharing your experience.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I hope the blog helps you and others. If you decide to build and blog your experience, please let me know, I'd like to follow!
DeleteI live in Winding Creek. If you do build here, ask for Brandon Strouse or Dave Motter to be your project manager.
DeleteCongrats! Everything looks great - I love your elevation! How did you get the glass paned basement door???? So jealous of that! Good luck settling in.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much. We loved the elevation too - they called it the "cottage" elevation lol. The glass-pane door was a option for us. It was a $200 upgrade I believe which sounded fairly reasonable to us. It really does make our whole mud room look better too!
DeleteYay! I've been wondering how your closing and settling in has gone. Thanks for sharing. Your home is beautiful! I like that basement door. We don't have that. Looking forward to more updates.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! Everything looks nice!
ReplyDeleteLooks awesome! It's funny how similar our houses are!! Hope things have gone well for you post close. We had some leaking in the basement and found out they didn't seal the some of the piping coming into the house correctly. Other than that, we've had very minor issues!! And I agree with you on the second floor bathroom - I wished we had done the double vanity in there too, but the extra space will be helpful temporarily as we are potty training our son!
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear you seem to be doing well in your new home! I'd say most of our issues have been minor. The biggest thing was they had to re grade our back yard for better drainage. Other than that really just a few nail pops. Hope the potty training is goimg well. We recently went through that too!
DeleteHi Dustin! We are currently building a Milan and your post has been really helpful. Quick question, what color is your interior paint? Is it the Off White Sherwin Williams that comes standard with the home? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHello and thank you for following my blog - I'm so glad it has been helpful to you! To answer your question, our interior paint is indeed the off-white from Sherman Williams that came standard. I believe they call it "egg shell white" but not 100% sure. I will comment that it is very basic stuff and marks and scuffs easily. That said, the amount of money RH wants to upgrade the paint it not worth it! The cost for doing it yourself is a lot lower! Not to mention, if you do upgrade with Ryan, they don't do it by room - the whole house is painted the same color regardless. Good luck with your build!
DeleteDustin thank so much for your blog. My name is Dean and we are going to be building a Milan in Pittsburgh and I have used a lot of the info in your blog to help us make decisions. We aren't doing a morning room but I did steal the idea of relocating the bath in the basement to make better use of the storage area and we just got it approved. How do you like your design change now that you've been living in it for a while?
ReplyDeleteHi Dean thanks for following and I'm very glad this blog has been helpful to you and congratulations on building your new home. To answer your question, relocating the basement bathroom has ended up being the best thing we asked for out of everything, as we asked for a lot. The reason is all about layout. The unfinished half of our basement (what RH calls the "storage" area) is completely open to do whatever we want with, without having that bathroom awkwardly placed in the middle of it. Right now, we're using it as a work space, but we plan on finishing the unfinished part eventually into a bar/pool table area. The point is, we have the option to use the space how we want, whereas, if the bathroom was there, we'd have to spend a heck of a lot of money to move it first which means we'd probably never use that storage area for anything really. And, to be honest, we don't even notice the lost space in the "finished" part where we moved the bathroom to because it flows so nicely. Good luck on your build and feel free to ask me any further questions if need be.
DeleteDustin,
DeleteWe just had our flooring meeting today and are in a little bit of sticker shock over the upgraded carpet. We are considering doing the level one upgrade to and 8 lb pad and the 10 yr warranty carpet like you did. How is yousr holding up? We are wondering if it is worth the upgrade or if we should get the cheaper carpet and upgrade later.
Hey Dean,
DeleteIn my opinion the upcharge for the 8lb pad and level 1 carpet upgrades is worth it. After 14 months in our home, our carpet and padding has held up great - no wear and tear evident at all - even in the high traffic areas. We really just upgraded the carpet because we didn't like any of the base carpet colors. Plus you get the better warranty. But to the touch, the level on upgraded carpet really feels exactly like the base carpets. The most important thing is the padding because that will wear out first. Thinner padding = having to replace it sooner. So it was important to us to get something a little better than the paper-thin base option. Not to mention it feels a lot better on your feet - you can really tell the difference.