Day #1

Day #1 - Signing the paper choosing exterior colors.

Last night we did it... we signed our life away to Ryan Homes! We are now "all in". The process up to this point has been a roller coaster. Everything hinges on timing and it never seemed to be on our side. However, we found a lot that we loved that had the view and large-ish (I say ish because it is not huge but much larger than what we have now!) back yard that we demanded. 

The process started off with signing and initialing 42,363 pages. These are agreements and legal contracts blah blah blah. You then fill out mortgage forms and blah blah blah. This takes a considerable amount of time. 

During the deciding process (see above as roller coaster) we decided on a plan and an elevation. Elevation is what the exterior of your house will look like... think curb appeal. These ranged from Elevation A through N for our particular house. We picked K for those scoring at home. 

After signing your life away we get to put a sticker on the plans lot board saying that our lot is SOLD (see below). Yeah! Everyone is still happy and having fun!

The next process is to pick out exterior materials. Our elevation is a craftsman elevation which consists of siding, brick and shakers. This part is considered the "fun" part. I put the fun in quotes because to a normal, rational & sane human being this part would be fun. I had a preconceived notion that I would be able to pick from a few brick choices and several siding and shaker colors. I was wrong... boy was I wrong. This is when the fun became severe disappointment for me. The choices of brick were great and also the siding... however the shaker colors were the same as the siding colors. I think of myself as a design oriented person with an issue with authority, you will see what I mean in the next paragraph.

I had several combinations in my head when entering this meeting. Dark cream siding w/ hunter green shakers, etc. Seeing all the choices in front of us we started picking siding and shakers, NONE of which they would do. Our rep pulled out a paper out of thin air that had combinations of what shakers you could use with each siding choice and also what door color you had to use. Now, for a normal person, this is a GREAT idea. However, for me, I hate that I just agreed to this house and now I can't even create a good color combo. I have to use Ryan's bland idea of what looks good. Needless to say this process went on for well over an hour with no clear choice... frankly, they all sucked. They were all tan with tan shakers, cream with tan shakers, bland puke bland! NO color. Now, at this point, I can only imagine what the look on my face was because our rep ended the process abruptly saying we have a full 2 weeks to decide what we want. So we picked a light colored siding with the darkest shaker "we were allowed" and ended the session. We really wanted a dark siding with a light shaker at this point but Ryan knows best! Our preliminary choices are below, the door color is the deep teal on the right. ::SIGH::

So that is it for Day #1 of the process. I should be so excited that I can't stand it but I am not. I am left with a feeling of regret and disappointment. Let's hope the flooring meeting is not the same and I get out of this mood. #FirstWorldProblems

Lessons learned:

• "Being different" is impossible with Ryan... at least with exterior choices. 
• If you like bland exteriors... Ryan is your builder!
• I get my hopes up WAY too much. 
• You can do weeks worth of research and something will still catch you off guard. 
• I need to calm down
• I need a vacation
• My wife has a large tolerance for "my shit", she puts up with a lot of it!
• Yaaa!!... I am building my dream home... I think.