Sign Off

Yesterday was our sign-off meeting!!

The process of our sign-off was:

• Meet with Tracy from Guardian to make our selections on Home Theater and Security
• Go over all of the colors and selections we chose with Amy, our Fischer Designer
• Walk thru our plans on the prints
• Go back over the selections to make sure anything we added was correct

The whole process took us about four hours. Going over the colors and selections we had chosen was fairly easy for us, because we had done a preview day and selection day and reviewed our selection sheet before sign off.

Seeing the plans and going over the whole house on paper was very exciting!
We did make changes to the plans as we reviewed them. Amy was very thorough and marked everything with a red pen.
Here are some of the changes we made:

• Move hose bibs to sides of the house instead of front and back (so we don't have one on the front porch)
• Added a coach light to the back patio and move the spotlights to the back of the morning room pointing out into the backyard
• In the family room we added a few outlets for cable and television
• In the master bedroom we added a second outlet in the bathroom
• In the laundry room we flipped the washer and dryer locations - we would have never thought of this, but Tony (a salesperson sitting in) suggested it because if you have front loaders and open the doors they will hit each other
• In the basement we moved the bathroom rough-in to make more usable space when we finish the basement

After making changes, we reviewed the selections packet again. Amy was very patient and helpful as we walked thru the prints. After our FINAL review, we signed everything!!!

Tentative start date for construction is April 19!

Meeting with Guardian

We met with Tracy at Guardian Protective Services tonight. They offer many services and hardware such as:
Different levels of Surround Sound and Home Theater, Whole Home intercoms, Security systems and more. We received pricing for the Home Theater and Security systems. After researching other types of Home Theater systems, we feel like their prices are very reasonable considering all of the installation is done before you move in. We are deciding between two levels of the Home Theater and Security.

We are planning to hang our TV above our fireplace, so we are adding a 'Flat panel tv package' behind the fireplace. This will run all of our wires behind the wall with a connection point above the fireplace and the other point next to the fireplace at the bottom of the wall. We won't have any wires runnng along the wall like we do today. :) We may also add an additional HDMI wire behind the wall, not sure about that one yet.

We will be meeting with Tracy this Wednesday to sign a contract with Guardian before our sign off appointment with Fischer.

Tracy was another great person we got to meet during this journey! She was so sweet and a pleasure to work with!

Selections Day!!

Today was Selections Day at the Fischer Homes Design Center. We met with Amy, our design coordinator, and walked through each detail of every room. We spent an hour and half looking over the Whitman diagram and placing lights, cable hookups, outlets, etc. The next hour and a half were spent putting together our exterior and interior options. I highly recommend going to the Design Center for a preview visit before your selections appointment. We had a good idea of our color choices before today.

Exterior:
We are adding the front porch, a back patio and a brick wrap on the sides and back of the house.

Kitchen:
Appliances- We are purchasing the range, microwave and dishwasher from Fischer. We are going to have the ice/water rough-in but will purchase our own refrigerator.
We are upgrading the cabinets to 42 inches in the kitchen, and adding the gourmet island. We are going with the standard vinyl floor.
We are upgrading our kitchen sink to a deep double bowl and adding a stainless steel faucet.

Family Room:
We are adding the electric fireplace and upgraded rectangular window wall. We are also upgrading our carpet pad on the first floor and up the stairs.

Cable outlets: We are putting cable outlets in our living room, family room and master bedroom.

We are going to add the Plasma package for television. We will talk to Guardian about this more at our appointment, but it will allow us to have all of the cables for our television ran behind the wall up to a spot above our fireplace, where our tv will go.

We are having all of the bedrooms pre-wired for ceiling fans. Another option we are adding to the master bath is a window. The standard is no window, but I think one is needed for lighting and steam from the shower.

Lighting: We are adding recessed lights in the family room, kitchen, morning room, and on the front porch.

Laundry room: We are adding a laundry tub. I am very excited about this! With two boys there are bound to be muddy clothes that will need to be washed out :)

Basement: We are doing the rough-in for a full bath but are not doing a finished basement or a walk-out.

Our meeting with Guardian and our sign-off appointment are in 2 weeks! This is going to be a long 2 weeks :) Currently, our contract says estimated start date is April 19!!
Here are some pictures of our options

Shingles, Brick, Siding, Trim, Garage Door, Front Door and Shutters

Railing with 1st floor vinyl

Orleans Kitchen Faucet

Dining Room light (similar one in foyer)

Kitchen Cabinets, Counter top and Vinyl flooring

Master bath cabinets (will be squared not rounded) and floor

Our Fireplace (Trim Option C) - we will have black tile instead of brick.

Mortgage Meeting

We met with Victory Mortgage this week. Our loan officer was very thorough in explaining everything from rate locks to fees, however I still feel really confused :). The building process takes 4-6 months, therefore you can lock in your interest rate anytime until you close. There is a risk associated with that, because one you lock - that's it. If you lock 6 months out at 3.875%, you might have a cap of 4.3% meaning the highest the rate could go is 4.3%. However, if you wait until 60 days before you close to lock your rate, you might end up with a better rate - or not. It's all such a gamble and no one can tell you which way to go. Clear as mud.
For now, we are going to wait and see what happens with the rate. We will email our loan officer every week or two to check the interest rates and decide when to lock from there.

A few things we haven't decided on yet...

-To get a front porch or not
-Which upgrade of cabinets we will get

After talking with friends tonight who love their front porch we are leaning that way. I would rather have it than regret not getting it.

Tuesday we go for Selections. We will have the entire day to work with a designer on every detail of our home.

Here is a link to our floorplan on Fischer's website.

http://www.fischerhomes.com/img/brochures/F71.pdf

Site Walk-thru

Today we went for our site walk-thru with our Sales Counselor, Tim and our Superintendent, Dave. They had staked out where our house will sit on our lot, and went over where items inside our home will be; sump pump, electrical box, etc.
It was really nice to have Dave point out what the grade of our driveway and yard will be.We left there really excited!!

Here is a picture of Dave and Tim showing us the grade of our property once the house is built.

Here is a picture of our lot.

First Post!!

We have just started the process to build a home with Fischer Homes. After having our house for sale for 8 months, we have finally closed and can focus on building!

We met with Fischer to look at several house plans. We toured the Salem, Whitman, Columbia and Chase.

The Chase reminded me of a ranch where the living room, kitchen and dining room were all in one. The upstairs was HUGE. It’s a very nice 4 bedroom; we just didn’t care for the 1^st floor layout.

We toured a Columbia that is currently for sale. It’s a beautiful home, however we were told they have changed the floor plan to remove about 100 sq ft from the 2^nd floor.

The Salem and Whitman are very comparable homes. The Salem has a formal living room and dining room right as enter the front door. In the Whitman you enter a foyer which leads you to the other rooms. Both houses are 4-bdrm and each has a nice size closet (walk-in’s!) The Salem did have a strange cabinet on the 2^nd floor in the hallway in place of a hall closet.

We decided to build a Whitman!!

We signed our contract a week ago. The process is going rather quick over the next few weeks.

We will make three visits to the Fischer Homes Design Center. The first was to walk around and look at all of the available options (cabinets, flooring, etc). Our second trip will be next week and we will have a design associate dedicated to helping us pick out our options. The third and final trip will be to sign off on all of our choices.

On Saturday we made our first trip to the Design Center. It is very organized and Fischer makes this a fun and enjoyable experience (right down to fresh baked cookies!). The associates were knowledgeable and willing to help answer any questions. We were there for about two hours and have a pretty good idea of what all of our options will be. Of course, everything could change when we go back next week and actually walk around with a designer.

We also have our site walk this week, and our meeting with our mortgage company. I’ll have more updates after this week!