The Latest on Ryan and Timberlake Cabinets

Before I purchase anything, I research. A lot. That trend continued for this house, options, and cabinets.  For the cabinets, I checked into model homes, what Ryan offered, and details from the manufacturer, Timberlake Cabinets.

The first and most essential step in starting the research process is to get any and all information from your Sales Representative. They will often have a "Out of Town" packet of information. Get everything emailed or shared on Dropbox, Google Drive, or similar services. You can save them a lot of emailing trouble with the Dropbox method.

Returning to cabinets, the first document I looked at was the Kitchen and Bath selling sheets for the cabinets. The first tier was eliminated immediately due to color. I'm sure they do this to up-sell you to the higher tiers.  That left the second and third rows seen below.

Lot Selection

Continuing to catch up on posts.

Lot selection was tough, mainly because there were so few lots left in our community. There were three main locations still available that we looked at.  The first was right across from an entrance road (headlights), so we eliminated that one. The next was oriented with evening sun in the kitchen. My wife didn't like that, so that was ruled out. That left a plot on a cul-de-sac and another lot with the same orientation on a different street.

Model Selection and the Permit Special

In our community, the model home is a 'Verona', which is nice, but much more expansive than we really need. It also doesn't add any more rooms or features for all the extra space. The other models were much pricier, and we didn't like them anyway. Enter the 'Ravenna'.

With our timeline, we weren't sure if we would have a place to move directly to when we moved in September. Trying to get a house built in that short a time seemed impossible, so we were expecting to have to buy a house that didn't have what we wanted or have to build and have it take months longer than we desired. With that problem: Enter the 'Permit Special'.

Deciding to Build

We didn't plan to buy a house, or even build for that matter.

I'm in the Army, and coming up on orders, I didn't know where I was going next. This compacted our timeline considerably. When I finally found out, we didn't hesitate to find a place to live; going to scope out Richmond and the areas north of Fort Lee the next day.

Things changed after we saw what our rental dollars would get us. We looked at rentals in South Richmond, Chester, Colonial Heights, and Hopewell. We weren't too impressed with the houses. We could buy for the same price as renting.

Starting a Blog and the Story so Far

I've never done a blog, but I've read plenty of them.

After reading many home building blogs, I decided to start one as well. My wife thought it would be a good idea to document our progress (or issues), be nice to look back upon, and let our friends and family see progress as it occurs.

Other blogs have also been a great resource, so in an attempt to help the next family, I'll try to post some of the tips and tricks I've learned and the latest information from Ryan and their related companies.

To catch everyone up, we've completed the following items:

• Selected a community: Mount Blanco near Richmond, VA
• Selected a Model: Ravenna
• Selected Structural items
• Signed Contract
• Complete Mortgage application

I'll do separate blog posts to explain each of these so it's more logically organized.