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Monday, February 11, 2013

Hello World!


Hello World, this is our Blog's Debut!

We are going to try to document our home building experience here for others to use for their journeys and to serve as a time capsule for us.  We have chosen Ryan Homes, a fairly large builder in our area.  We have shopped for some time and decided on RH for the value we seemed to be getting for our money.  There were other contributing factors too.  Maybe we'll get to a few of these during our future posts.

Like many of you that may be looking at building a Ryan home, or those of you that already have, I'm sure you read and followed a few of these blogs.  We have benefited greatly from other's blogs and were able to make much more informed decisions by doing so.  We discovered many great ideas and several lessons learned.  Our hope is that anyone reading this will do the same and maybe we can return the favor to the next person looking to build their dream home.

On that note, we are building a Highgrove and so far we have only found one other blog on this home.  We have visited several Ryan Homes communities and there are only a handful of SR's that have even seen one.  Even Ryan doesn't have a great selection of pictures on this model.  The rumor is that the VP of the company owns one.  If it is good enough for him, then it is good enough for me.  At any rate, hopefully our experience will help others.

We have chosen the Highgrove floor plan due to the value it brings from a price per square foot perspective.  We looked at other models and found that once you add all the structural options you want, the other homes are more expensive than the list price of the Highgrove

For our family with 3 kids ranging from 4 to 15, this home gives everyone a generous and comfortable living space.  We are renting our current home and when the kids have friends over, there is nowhere to get away.  It's been especially challenging since they've gotten older.  We hope the Highgrove will help with this problem and make both the kids and more importantly, the parents happier.

Although I haven't actually been inside one, the pictures I've seen really tell the story.  I really enjoy the two story spaces (Foyer and Family Room) and all the light that comes into the main living areas from these rooms.  The 9' ceilings provide for great spaces that don't make you feel closed in (which is a staple for most Ryan Homes).  The basement includes 9' ceilings as well which really makes it a true living space.  I'm happy about that.

Probably like most people, we didn't create this blog until we were pretty far along in the process. Not including shopping around with other builder's and looking at resale homes... we have been working with Ryan for about 3 weeks already. We have already signed our purchase agreement, picked out all our options, colors and flooring and approved our Production Release (PR).  We are just waiting to be put on the production schedule.

Highgrove Elevation "C" w/Left Side Entry 3 Car Garage


The picture above is of a Model with the same Elevation we are getting.  This is Elevation "C" with a 3 Car Side Entry Garage.  The other thing I like about this image is that it shows the garage on the left, where ours will be.  We are not getting this color brick and it looks like their roof is lighter but it should be pretty close.  Also, notice the hipped roof.  I like this more traditional look.


Rendering of Highgrove Elevation "C" with Solarium and 2 Car Side Entry Garage


This is the rendering of the home from the front.  We are not getting the little addition on the left side.  That is a solarium, and for one, they don't offer them anymore due to Energy Star reasons, and they are a bit too swanky for me.  Besides I don't have a Baby Grand Piano to put inside it.

Well buckle up and enjoy the ride, here we go!

6 comments:

  1. Love it. It looks huge! How many square feet is it? How many bedrooms? Never heard of this model.

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  2. The pictures are deceiving. This model is 3,500ish not including the basement. The way we configured the house it has 4 bedrooms, 4.5 baths and a study. We didn't get the morning room because this savings paid for all our flooring and the upgraded kitchen. This house has a dinette the size of some o RH's smaller morning rooms, so I don't know if we will miss it.

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  3. Hello! It is nice to see another Highgrove blog up! We live in Maryland and will be building a Highgrove as well. We are waiting on our lot to be released before we can move forward with the process. My BIL is getting an Avalon built on the lot that will back to ours - however our phase doesn't open up until the end of April. I will have to live through you until then! I have been collecting Highgrove pics. Here is the link if your interested.

    https://plus.google.com/photos/115867560607966298956/albums/5854149221266348865?authkey=CLeY5dLI0924Ew

    Hopefully, you will start building soon!

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    1. Thanks Christina. You have many more pictures than I've been able to find. There were three Highgroves built in Southern Ohio and only one had a blog (High Hopes for our Highgrove). There are some great construction photos on their blog and it helped us get a feel for the space. It also helped us to ask questions we would not otherwise known to ask. Our SR hasn't built one before and has only been in one once (and it was the VP of the company's house, so it was highly upgraded. I'm sure ours will not be as nice.). We are supposed to get a build date by tomorrow. My gut is telling me a 1st or 2nd week of April start. I will post as soon as I know. Thanks again for the link to the pictures, they really help to get a feel for the spaces.

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  4. Replies
    1. Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to seeing your Verona being framed this week. That's so exciting. Good luck!

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