Project New Casa

[05yellowgt]

I thought I would start a project thread tracking our journey in building our first new house. Our family just expanded again to a total of five (I am late getting a thread started about that too :lol:) and have outgrown our first home. We've tried to build for about the last year and a half but have had trouble selling our current house (its in an historic district around Downtown Dayton so there isn't a huge demand surprise surprise) but I've been lucky enough to advance to a point in my career that we could afford to go ahead and build anyway and still try to rent/sell our first house. We've debated moving South (Lebanon) North (Troy) and East (Columbus) and changed our minds several times. We ended up moving a little bit north to Tipp City Ohio. The community we are moving into is just on the Miami County side of the Miami/Montgomery county line so we get much lower taxes, but still are close to the 70/75 interchange so we can get just about anywhere quickly. Enough with the background, lets talk about the house.

We selected a Ranch style home with a bonus loft bedroom/home office. The total square footage is going to be right around 3500 sqft including about 960sqft of finished basement. There are a total of 4 bedrooms and a 2 car garage. I wanted a 3 car, but it just didnt fit in the overall budget. We're allowed 10x12 sheds, so that is where all the yard tools will go so I can maximize the use of garage space for other things. The basement has several non finished areas that I have future plans for. One will be a theater room. I work for the Larges A/V integrator in the world, so I plan on using any and all available discounts to make that into a really nice setup. The other area I wanted to build up will be a secure area to store, maintain, and tinker with firearms. I've referred to it as a little armory, my wife has called it my panic room. I want this room to be hidden and as secure as I can reasonably make it so I'm thinking about a hidden door and some type of reinforcement for the interior wall where the door will be. Both of those items will be on hold till we sell our first house though.

Here is a rendering of the exterior of the house
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-09GMDZ0IuKM/UvOjc4-4fZI/AAAAAAAAI50/AIN05q4gHJI/w1280-h494-no/home+rendering.jpg

One of my daughters and I the day we got to put the sold sticker up!
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-vZvyFyhMJkE/UvOiqs0enaI/AAAAAAAAI6A/ZY2SPfm2QkM/w482-h856-no/SOLD%2521.jpg

Basement excavated
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-HGqr_4pO2rA/U16SQSLK3BI/AAAAAAAAJG8/TuiKnMmo6WU/w727-h543-no/2014-04-28

Basement walls up and insulated
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-mEYzoJyLiws/U16SUb3fUhI/AAAAAAAAJG4/lhCFySJdwWU/w727-h543-no/2014-04-28

Basement Backfilled
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-kZxEXauoSXg/U16SWRrHbsI/AAAAAAAAJHs/4-T2AiqvdV0/w727-h543-no/2014-04-28

I-Beams in
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-R1dQObEg9ts/U16SYYGYYnI/AAAAAAAAJH8/-gPpypIY56w/w727-h543-no/2014-04-28

Basement and Garage floors poured and framing started
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-nnZpYLgwlOI/U16SbyM7mjI/AAAAAAAAJIY/wcWaPfr9uO4/w727-h543-no/2014-04-28



We've been told by the builder that we should be ready to close and move in Mid to Late June. There have been some delays due to weather, but we are supposed to still be on schedule. I'm hoping that they get a roof on the house sooner than later, I'm not thrilled about the idea of all that lumber getting all the rain on it that we are supposed to get this week.

Thanks for reading and I'll keep this up to date as the build progresses.

[Blkcobra01]

Congrats John nice looking house Tipp/Miami county is a nice area.

[bkstang95]

Congrats on the build! We are considering building with them in the very near future. Did you have any trouble in dealing with the sales reps or NVR mortgage?

[05yellowgt]

We haven't had any problems, but this is actually our third try at building so we've been through it all a few times. We had previously done contingency contracts with Fischer Homes and Homewood Homes. Homewood was good to us and easy to work with, but our house didn't sell. Then we did the same thing with Fischer Homes and regretted it from almost the moment we signed the contract. The sales person we worked with spoke out both sides of her mouth, would just get up in the middle of a discussion to take cell phone calls, and outright lied to us about several items. We were glad that we got out of that one and got our deposit back.

As far as Ryan, the process has been fairly smooth. We liked our Sales rep and they were very accommodating to us and our crazy schedules. NVR has been pretty straight forward to deal with even with some complexities of some loans I am a co-signer on. If you were to ask me right this second, I would say that I would recommend Ryan. If something goes south I will be sure to update this thread and let everyone know.

[bkstang95]

Good to hear! I look forward to see the progress of your build.

[smytty]

Congrats looks nice...
Some advice, i just had one built...
Get a home inspector and have them go there for every part of the process, framing, electrical, plumbing. At the least get one to go through before your final walk through for your punch list... Also get ready for the settlement issues... This is something i wish they wouldve warned us about... Every house has them, its just kinda of shocking to see, drywall pops , cracks and creaks... Goodluck and stay on them...

[Gearhead]

We haven't had any problems, but this is actually our third try at building so we've been through it all a few times. We had previously done contingency contracts with Fischer Homes and Homewood Homes. Homewood was good to us and easy to work with, but our house didn't sell. Then we did the same thing with Fischer Homes and regretted it from almost the moment we signed the contract. The sales person we worked with spoke out both sides of her mouth, would just get up in the middle of a discussion to take cell phone calls, and outright lied to us about several items. We were glad that we got out of that one and got our deposit back.
.

Good thing you didn't build with Fischer. We built a Fischer home and it's junk. There isn't a 90 degree angle or a straight wall in this house. The first house I built was a Drees, back in the mid 1990's, that house was near perfect. Sold it at the bottom of the housing market crash and still made 20k on it.
They're a bit pricey now though....

[05yellowgt]

They got a lot done this week considering the weather. Check it out. http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/02/sujy4aba.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/02/a2asanes.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/02/ury8agav.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/02/sy3ybave.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/02/gyty8u9y.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/02/dygy8ena.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/02/6ahune3e.jpg

[NO SHOT]

Looks nice!! I'm sure you're excited. I believe wallmasters would have done the walls they do good work. I noticed the geomat plus they use for waterproofing.

[bkstang95]

Out of curiosity, have they finished the build? How did everything work out dealing with NVR?