More Furniture Shopping Today

We decided to go to a furniture store recommended to us by the lovely saleswoman, Didem, from our flooring appointment.  The place is called Green Front Furniture.  They have 3 locations around the country, with one being in Manassas.  This is the one we visited.  They have so much stuff!  I was a bit overwhelmed.  They had tons of high-end, quality furniture.  I highly recommend this place.  Here are a few items that caught my eye.

I am so in love with this sofa.  We thought that the formal living room was going to be Alonso's office, but since we are getting dark hardwoods in there too, we might rethink our decision.  This sofa is helping us to change our minds! :-)

Orange is my color!

So in love with this.  It is so comfy too!  Love the high back look.

The $600 outdoor chair.  Of course I love it.  It's the most expensive chair they had on the lot :-/

The chairs they had to go with the sofa.  I'm not in love with them, but they are unique looking.

Hubby likes this table. Me, not so much.

Various Pics of Our Voyage

Here are some miscellaneous pictures of our voyage.

Front door area of model home (Venice)

Side view of Venice model home

Wish I could get this type of sink as seen in the Venice model home.

Living room, model home.  We decided to upgrade to hardwoods in this room as well.

Upstairs, second bath.  We opted for the additional full bath in the basement as well.

One of the bedrooms.

We're getting two of these for the family room. They are automatic and sooooo comfy.

I'm almost 90% sure that this will be the table in the morning room, aka my dining area.  I will get these chairs as well, but will quickly replace with white ones and some wing backs for the ends.

Another view of the table.  I really dislike these chairs, but they come as a set with the table.

A Hiccup, A Cough, and a Sneeze

This hasn't been the easiest of processes. We've had a few problems with understanding a few things in our contract and what was explained to us verbally.  We were told a few things by our original saleswoman that proved not to be accurate.  However, the new saleswoman was able to work things out on our behalf.  Things which were told to us were eventually honored, although it was pointed out to us SEVERAL times that Ryan Homes does not give away "free stuff".  We took great offense to this every time it was pointed out to us, and after we clearly stated that we understood this and were not seeking "free stuff" from anyone, thank you very much.  We simply wanted what was stated to us originally.  We did realize that a few things, and I mean like 3 things, were not in the contract that we signed.  We just "figured" they were in the contract because of what was told to us.  Our bad.  We should have read the contract more thoroughly than we did.  A few of the upgrades that were notated on our brochure, our floor plan, and other paperwork were not included in our contract.  PLEASE CHECK YOUR CONTRACT! That is the best advice I can give you to save yourself some headache.
Our headache was so great this week that we almost backed out of the deal.  My husband was not a happy camper.  We still aren't totally great with the events that occurred this week, but we really want this house and we really want to live in this neighborhood.
Here are our selections for the home (pictures pulled a lot of warm tones for some reason.  I tried to tweak them a bit):

Exterior Choices
Primary Siding- Pebble Clay
Accent Siding- Sandy Tan
Trim- White
Door- Outerspace
Shutters- Brown
Stone- Autumn Buckeye Fieldstone

Kitchen
Deep Java hardwood
Rushmore Painted Maple Linen Cabinets (NOT the ones pictured.  They were just used for color ref.)
Giallo Napoleon Granite
*we were going to get the backsplash upgrade, but they had nothing I liked in the showroom :-(

Master Bathroom
Florentine Series- White Carrera Marble, Light grey Carrera Marble Flooring, all with white grout
Maple Espresso Cabinets, double sinks

Hardwoods- Deep Java (LOVE IT!!!)
Foyer
Living Room
Powder Room
Kitchen
Morning Room

Carpeting (Bedrooms, family room, stairs, basement)
Upgraded padding- Defender 7/16"
Upgraded carpeting- Gentle Beige
*we decided that carpeting does not add resale value to the home, so were didn't spend a lot of money on this.

Upstairs guest bath, Basement full bath
Standard oak cabinets
White Wall w/Snow (tile)
Initiator Vinyl flooring

Laundry Room
Initiator Vinyl

My ultimate upgrade for the master bath.  We kinda splurged here.  Marble all around!

Most people go with darker cabinets in the kitchen.  Not me!  I love the clean white look.  Still a little on the fence with my choices.  I love the granite.  I love the cabinets.  I just don't know if I love them together.

Exterior stone choice-Fieldstone Autumn Buckeye

Exterior Siding- Pebble Clay and Sandy Tan

Cabinets- Painted Maple Linen (middle)

My master bath selections.  So in love with it!

Giallo Napoleon and Saint Cecilia (?).  I see a lot of people building with Ryan going with the second choice.  I went with the Giallo.  I love this dark flooring.

The sum of my selections. We upgraded the padding and carpet as well. Vinyl flooring for the other baths and laundry room. Side note- I actually broke the granite sample and chipped the Brazilian Cherry hardwoods in the showroom.  Whoops!

More pics of selections.

A clearer picture. The marble is really a pretty shade of white with light grey veins.  The floor is a light grayish shade.  I am so in love with this!

Bye -Bye Nice Sales Lady

So.....
We got a phone call from a woman two days ago from our sales office.  Apparently, our super sweet saleswoman we were working with had a "traumatic life experience" recently, and is taking a leave of absence from the company.  We were kinda shocked.  We really liked her and felt comfortable with her.  We are hoping that she will recover from whatever she is dealing with (we were assured that she is okay physically) and can come back to work soon.
What left us feeling really uncomfortable was the new saleswoman telling us that she hoped that our previous sales lady didn't make us promises or told us something that was incorrect as far as what the company could or couldn't offer.  She said that she was finding this to be true with some of the other customers.  I will be really mad if we were told something, only to find out the company will not stand by what we were originally told.
Our appointment to pick cabinets and make some other finalizations was to be on the 15th.  That did not work for the new saleswoman, so we had to move that date up to 12th (Monday).  So I'm happy about that.
We went to the model home in our area and snapped some pics.

 I am in love with this morning room!

Another view of the kitchen from the morning room.  

I am so glad that I opted for the double oven.  I am also relieved to know that the side cabinets to the fridge are super deep, since I am forgoing a pantry.

 I love the contrast of the floor and the clean look of the cabinets.

 Kitchen view.

Another view of the morning room.

Backsplash.  I really want this exact kitchen.  Don't know if I'll get it, but mine will be close to it!

I really wanted to see the under-cabinet lighting fixture.  I am thinking I will install these myself.  Hopefully they won't be too difficult.

Is this marble?  I will ask Monday.

I want to recreate, as closely as possible, the look of this kitchen and morning room, minus the blue wall.  Mine will be a lovely shade of orange :-)

And Here We Go!!

Well, we have officially begun.  Building our first home together.  My husband has had experience with building, I have not.  He built that home before he met me.  It was our first home together.  A true starter home.  I loved it.  Didn't realize how much until we moved from Texas to Northern Virginia.  We have been in an apartment since we moved to the area almost 5 years ago.  We never seriously considered getting a house here because of the sticker shock in this area.  We actually hated this part of the country- job brought us here.  We wanted to go back to Texas for a time.  I think that we're resigned to the fact that Northern Virginia is our home for now, especially since we are building a Venice!
We are in the very early stages of tis process.  We just met with NVR (Ryan Homes mortgage company) on Monday.  Next Wednesday we have an appointment to pick specifics for the house (cabinets, fixtures, etc).
Anyway, here are some pics of our lot.  It is an upgrade, since it is a corner lot.  We really wanted to be sure to have a backyard that was more than a square foot of grass!  Hopefully we will.  I'm still unsure about the actual square footage of the back of the house to the property line.