Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock

So you just bought a house? Time to rest on your laurels for a bit right? Wrong!

The moment after you sign your contract on a Ryan Homes house, the clock officially starts ticking.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

You have two sets of dates when most of your major interior and exterior decisions must be completed by.

These decisions fall into two major buckets: 14-day and 30-day.

Your required 14-day order includes a lot of the big ticket item decisions you will need to make regarding structural additions or upgrades. Examples of these items are as follows:

• Elevation Upgrade
• Morning Room Add-On
• Fireplace 
• Finished Basement 
• Gourmet Kitchen Upgrade
• Master Bathroom Configuration
• Plumbing - Wet Bar or Basement Bathroom Rough-Ins
• Electrical - Ceiling Fan Rough-Ins and Recessed Lighting
• Deck  

Playing around with exterior color option ideas.

Your 30-day decisions are definitely more fun.  This is when you get the opportunity to make the house a little more your own, as opposed to the standard builder including options. By this date, you will have picked the below:

• Appliance Packages
• Exterior Colors
• Flooring (Hardwood, Carpet, Tile)
• Kitchen Cabinet Type and Color 
• Kitchen Granite
• Kitchen Backsplash (if you selected to do one)
• Bathroom Cabinet Type and Color
• Bathroom Countertops
• Bathroom Flooring and Tile
• Hardware Finish (Standard or Oil Rubbed Bronze)

I'm not sure if this is the case at all Ryan Homes communities, but at Potomac Shores there is a designated Customer Satisfaction Specialist who helps walk you through all of your structural and interior/exterior options.  It's definitely a lot easier making these decisions when you can see things in person, but it helps to have some idea of what your vision is for the house.

We had a few options we could pick from for our cabinet, granite and vanity top selections:

Standard (Level 00) and Upgraded Cabinet Options for Kitchen/Bathrooms

Level 1 Granite and Level 2 Granite Options for Kitchen/Bathrooms

Bathroom Vanity Top Options

For flooring and tiling, you will go to a designated design center.  I suggest booking that appointment as soon as you can as they tend to book up extremely fast.

Before your 30-days is up, you will also have a separate appointment with Guardian to go over your wiring and security needs. 

Your two-hour allotted windows for these selections go fast so I'd highly recommend taking a look at  the above options and doing some "Ryan Homes" online sleuthing to see what other buyers have done in their homes. Pinterest is great for this as well. 

If you are a Potomac Shores buyer like myself, there are a number of other great blogs out there that are extremely helpful on this front. I have a few highlighted on my reading list, but two of my favorites thus far are Potomac Shores Living and Living with an Elizabeth.

I will cover our experiences for those meetings in a future post, as well as all of our final selections. Till next time...