There's a Lot Going On!

I have quite the full update today.  This morning began with our realtor's photographer coming by the house to take pictures for the online listing.  I couldn't help but laugh when he asked me how many kids we had as he and I trucked toys from one room to another to get them out of the pictures.  (I've finally realized that Riley is on toy overload).  The pictures should be up on the Howard Hanna site tonight or tomorrow, and they should trickle down to the other 80+ sites that we're listed on by Sunday evening.  It was a gorgeous blue sky day today, so I am really excited to see the outdoor shots.

Next, I received a call this afternoon while at work.  It was the Centralized Scheduling Service (CSS) that our realtor uses to book and coordinate all showings.  I was in disbelief - an agent wants to show our house this Saturday morning.  And pictures aren't even up yet!  I have to imagine that this person drove by and saw we had put the house up for sale ... or their curiosity has been peaked by the great description John DeSantis put on his site.  Either way, I am extremely excited for Saturday.  We still want to give our bedroom a fresh coat of paint prior, so we'll be painting the day away tomorrow.

Lastly, we had our meeting with Ryan Homes this evening.  We were there for 2.5 hours and I am happy to hear that we accomplished everything that we wanted to do - and a little more.  Beth - our Ryan Homes sales person - is such a joy to work with.  We are really happy to be working with her.  It was exciting to tell her that we have decided 100% that we'll be building the Florence model.  The main thing we wanted to do tonight was go through every single possible upgrade option and select which we would want.  We want to have nearly an exact price in front of us.  We fine tuned our list a little more when we got home.  Wow, can those upgrades get expensive fast.  More on that in the next few days.

We also looked at cabinet samples, faucet options, and interior door choices - and Kevin and I were able to come to a common agreement very quickly on each.  Good thing we share the same taste for those types of things.  This is where I am happy that we're building with a builder such as Ryan and not a completely custom builder.  I need to have limited options - otherwise I don't know how I'd ever make a decision.  We haven't yet decided on stone, siding and shutter color - that will come in the future, as will flooring decisions.

Lastly, we looked at lots.  I am pretty sure that we have our lots narrowed down to three.  Two are corner lots (which come at an additional $5000 premium), one is not.  None would have houses directly behind us, though, which is a huge plus.

Wow - that is a LOT.  Tomorrow is a big day to get some things wrapped up here before the showing on Saturday.  The stager comes tomorrow morning - perfect timing for her to be able to suggest some better setups and arrangements for our house to be shown.