Almost...

Time stamp july 12th
I passed by the house and voila! The front is almost cpmplete with them installing those big stands (idk what its called) in the patio... the garage looks great with those small windows. Enjoy the photos!

Our hazel espresso cabinets with espresso island combination!:)

Hallway bath with white tiles and blue decos :) looking nice and clean :)

Our Master bath with supposed to be Ala sand tiles but it looks like heathland...?? Maybe the light is playing with my eyes..:)

Pre dry wall meeting

Here are some photos during our pre dry wall meeting, my husband was there so he was the one who paid attention to our PM with regards to electrical stuff and i basically did the photo shoot for record purposes :)

It was quick, we did a tour around the house and our PM was very open to questions and he answered everything  knowledgeably.

Framing

I cant believe it, they are pretty quick at building :) photos below...

May 19th

OMG! Someone vandalized my concrete!

May 23

OMG got covered with dirt

May 26

Small basement window 

I already started packing some stuff so i dont get overwhelmed by the time the house is done..

June 2nd

I pass by every other day but was surprised to see wood!

June 3rd  

We have walls!! (See the guy waiving on the roof?) 

June 4

 Wow! Look at that :) I love how the kids got excited when they saw it! They went down and started admiring the house. Its really a nice experience when you see the house being built. I am also happy that the sun is shining on the porch for late afternoon coffee breaks :) 

Also, one of our future neighbors already introduced themselves to us. :)

We have a hole!!!

TIME STAMP MAY 8TH. Happy mothers day to all the moms out there! I cant believe this! We have a hole!!! Ive been waiting for few weeks for any sign that the ground has been moved... I let one week pass then, tada! Our PM called saying we have a hole already... Im regretting it a little bit that i didnt see them working on it but it was raining the whole week... so here's the picture of THE HOLE :)

Advance Flooring

I'm gonna go ahead and start writing about flooring! since its one of the most exciting part...
We went to our flooring appointment, it was one hour away from where we live, the meeting took  about 2 hours, which made us 15mins late with our appointment with Guardian (Yep, it was a busy day for us.) It was partly me because its so hard choosing the right shade of ceramic to go with the deco... hmmm...
We met with N who was very nice and she really cared about what color we're gonna choose, if it matches with everything else and what not.

We already knew what color of cabinets we want so it was fairly easy part...


We are having the Rushmore painted hazelnut glaze cabinets with Maple espresso for the gourmet island. I'm so excited to see what this combination would look like, i saw some on pinterest and they look divine! (credits to my husband who picked out this combination)
New Caledonia granite which we both like seeing it from the model homes.
We upgraded our vinyl so there's more texture and the pattern that i like is the on the photo below so its 1 step up to the free vinyl.
We are having vinyl in the kitchen and morning room, then carpet all over 1st floor and 2 floor.
It was tempting to go ahead and upgrade to ceramic tiles in the kitchen and morning room but it would cost us about $4,000 more if we did, that $4,000 was already spent on upgrading carpet and ceramic tiles on masters and hallway bath.
Will just save up to upgrade everything with ceramics and hardwood mix... in the futuuurrrreee....

You can see a peak of the upgrade padding for the carpets which we didn't get, it would be more $$$ for us we did, so i asked my husband to pick an upgrade, stain resistant carpet or upgraded padding... and he chose carpet.. so that's that.

This is the first choice we did for the kids bath, we didn't upgrade the cabinetry and the counter top, i like the white marbled culture in the bathrooms mainly because it looks clean and white. I also didn't think the kids would care what color of cabinets they have for their bathroom. Wheat cabinets look light and clean anyways.

This is it.. one of the upgrades that i did was the backsplash :) I did the second upgrade to have that dark deco you see on the left side, to be placed in a diamond shape design with every 3-4 tiles apart... exciting!!:) That tile on the back of the cabinet is the one we're going to use as the main tile for backsplash and use the deco on the left... N said we could mix and match so that was fun...

In the above photo you will also see the color of the carpet, i really wanted a light tone for the carpet so we didn't have a hard time choosing that one. I know it's looks too light but hey, it's stain resistant with a warranty.

We also did an upgrade on the tiles in the master bath, it was suposed to be vinyl but the deco upgrade only comes with the level 2 upgrade with the 9×12 surround ceramic and 12x12 floor ceramics.

This is the end of flooring... for now :) Again comments and suggestions are welcome... Thanks!

Edit: May 15th

Additional info about flooring, i went back a week after my 1st appointment to change my kids bathroom, from vinyl, i added around $650 tp upgrade them to ceramics 12x12 flooring and 9x12 wall tiles with deco, i figured i want to finish up the whole second floor upgrades. 

My daughter wanted white tiles so we got the ones above and did the deco on the bottom, the blue ones...

We also change the tiles on the master bath, so we used the ones above and still kept the deco MV27

The carpet we changed as well cause we might have picked a super light one at first, we decided to go with Cameo this time...

1st blog, done with options

We're a family of five, Johnson my husband, Anika, Joseph, Angela our silly kids and me, A.j. 

This is my first time doing a blog, so please be kind. Also i won't be naming names of our Sales rep, agents and Proj. manager, mainly because I'm in healthcare and I'm always thinking about privacy laws :) 

Last month, we decided to buy our first house. Yes, we are now on board in the roller coaster of building a new construction. We decided to buy a home in South Jersey, we already live here so my kids won't have to change schools, and the location is perfect (close to grocery stores, the school and in laws) plus we love the town. 

We first visited the model home in November, (just looking around... started talking to our agent/friend M,started checking our credit scores, questioned ourselves if we can afford to buy). 

 I always passed by the office, with a lot of questions to my super patient Sales rep who's our "lucky" charm ;).  We did a lot of master selection sheets, from different floor plans, to doing 3.5% down payment to 5%, fha vs. conventional, finished basement to unfinished, hardwood to vinyl,  you get the picture :)

Fast forward to March 2, 2016 (with LOTS of visits to the model home and one other location, Thanks for your patience guys, you know who you are K and M) we reserved the lot.

We chose the Venice model elevation C with full front porch no stones and no shutters :( this elevation is the only one that we can put a porch on sadly although i already envisioned the color of the shutters were gonna pick out, i don't have one... but i get more windows, so its still a win win.

We did the first round of upgrades after a few days and paid our deposit. It was overwhelming and i felt like i was having a panic attack, I couldn't even sign the date right at contract signing! Twice! There were so many options and i didn't want to go over the budget.

Thanks to everyone who helped me with selections/upgrades and decision making. Family and friends, my father in law, our agent, Ryan's sales personnel and Proj manager. I also read other blog's so to all, thanks for the ideas, photos and info's!

ok, enough talk and lets go with the first wave of upgrades that we did. 

FIRST UPGRADE: (since down payment)

* Full front porch 

* 3 piece plumbing rough in basement

* Door opener with 2 remote

* Garage grille pattern 

* Exterior trim white

* Morning room (half off incentives)

* Kitchen Gourmet island (half off incentive)

* Granite counter top (half off incentives)

* Gas range hook up

* Dryer hook up 

* Carpeted stair white balusters

* 4 Recessed lights (Family room) 

* 5 Ceiling fan rough in (4 Bedrooms, 1 Living room)

* Ceiling fan (Family room)

* 1 Floodlights double

Future home picture below:
My first blog ends here, comments and suggestions welcome :)

This is the Venice Elevation C with front porch without stones