Pre-Drywall Meeting

Hello!

We had our pre-drywall meeting today. Our PM tried to reschedule it to this Thursday since they haven't started insulation on our house yet, but our inspector said he actually would prefer to see the house without it and make sure nothing major would be behind any insulation. So that's what we did.

Frank was very nice to us, as usual. We walked the house and he explained to us what we were seeing. We had a few questions about the house, but we didn't know exactly what to look for. Having the inspector with us was very important as he did catch a couple of things we would have never thought of (a crack on the window frame, a disconnected HVAC duct, a couple of cables not nailed to the walls). Nothing too major, according to him, but glad he caught it. He will be sending us a report by tomorrow.

Now, the most important thing: the closing date.
According to Frank, they are having some issues with the electric company coming over, installing the meter, and starting service in the homes. Apparently, demand is way too high and they are having issues keeping up with it all. Frank hopes and is somewhat confident that they will have it all taken care of by first week of May. If that's the case, we should have our walk on 5/27 and close 5/31. We had talked to RH about closing in June, so I'll remind our SR of it and maybe we can schedule it for a couple of days later-- 6/2. That would work perfectly for us :)

We asked Frank for a few favors, but unfortunately he couldn't help us. They were:
- leave the granite lip out for backsplash
- install our fans
- install our cabinet knobs (we bought oil bronze ones). This he may be able to help after the house passes the QA inspection.

This is it! We are so excited and can't wait to move! :D

I GOTS A TABLE!

YAAAAAAY.

Can you tell I'm extremely excited?!

I've been in love with this dining table for months. Never have I owned or seriously considered getting anything from Pottery Barn, but every once in a while I'd browse the website and dream about all the wonderful pieces of furniture I'd like to buy for my new home. The Toscana Dining Table costs $1299. Table only; no chairs or benches. The lowest I had seen it drop to was $999. Then today, I logged in to daydream a little more and saw it was $599 for the stain color I want (Tuscan Chestnut). AND I got a 20% off code on my email! I'm surprised they let me use it. Price of the table before shipping and taxes was $479 (!!). It does not get any better than that.

We live in an apartment, so grandma and grandpa let us ship the table to their house for the time being. I will keep an eye on promotions for the bench and chairs so I can complete the set. No rush, though, as we still have a few months before moving. So happy right now :D

Look at this beauty <3

First Visit to the Community and Making the Decision

Chad and I weren't particularly shopping for a house. We visited Ryan Homes communities and registered for news and updates in the past, but we had never filled out applications. Chad received an email about this community sometime in late December and we went check it out.

On our first visit, the sales rep (Sam) at the community was very nice to us. Well, I wouldn't expect anything different from someone who is trying to sell me something, but I had a good vibe about her. We took a tour of the model, I stole some candies from the goodies bowl on the kitchen counter (hey, don't judge), and we sat down with Sam to talk estimates. After adding and subtracting and more adding and more subtracting options to the house, pretty much everything we need / want in a house was in the final quote and the numbers were not bad. I mean, enough to make the stingy side of me cringe at the thought of paying for it for 30 years, but not bad, nonetheless.

We went back home and really analyzed our savings and expenses. The one thing we were very concerned about was with being house poor. What is the point of buying a home if we can't take care of it, right? Another decision we had to make was whether or not it was worth it to put paying off our debt in the back burner for a year or so. We had made the commitment a few months prior to start dumping every extra penny we had into our student loans in order to become debt free. Although that is also very important to us, we realized that we can resume doing that once we are settled and used to our monthly bills. As I mentioned in my previous post, it really made sense for us to take this step and we are glad we did. You know you made a good decision when the thought of it makes you feel more excitement than anxiety.

On January 2, we went back to the community and told Sam the good news. We signed our purchase agreement, I stole more candies from the goodies bowl, and we paid the required fee to hold the lot and take it off the market ($5,000). Then, it was real. Yay!

Of course we had to take the obligatory photo: