The flooring makes such a difference!

The flooring was better than I imagined! During the selection process, the flooring was my very favorite item. I loved the rustic look and texture. During the building process, I started to worry that the flooring maybe too dark for the dark cabinets. I was very happy to finally discover that the flooring looks great with the cabinets!

The floors are still dusty, but I love them! I am so relieved that they are not too dark!

Here is a close up of the counters. I love the color. I did not love the granite choices that Ryan offered. The upgrade to granite was expensive considering that the kitchen has such a large island. I know that everyone wants granite, but it's not my favorite look, even my husband knows that it is out of date. He clearly pays attention while I am watching HGTV! We decided to go with the upgraded Formica F180 Calacutta Marble. We knew that we could always purchase  quartz or marble (what I really wanted, but wasn't an option with Ryan) later for less money and have more choices later, but I am happy with the Calacutta Marble. I can't wait to add a backsplash to really pull it all together!

The Bateman Elevation B Exterior

The Good Stuff

I did not take many photos of the dry wall portion of the progress. It was messy and I didn't get over to the house until later in the evening, so it was usually dark inside of the house. Once I had a feel for the size of the house, I really only cared about the interior of the home. It is difficult to make choices from tiny samples of siding, cabinets, stone, flooring, etc.  so I was very nervous about how it would turn out. We loved the kitchen, even with no flooring!

 Here is the Butler Pantry and Butler Cabinet. This was our favorite surprise because no one (the Sales Rep or Project Manager) could tell us what these were by looking at the plans. That is one downfall to building a brand new model. The archway leads to the arrival center, the basement, and to the dining room.

 The island with a sink and dishwasher

A view of the morning room from the kitchen

The family room from the kitchen

Progress!

The pre-constuction meeting went well. We discovered a couple of mistakes and they were corrected right away. We realized that the Arrival Center was not standard as we were originally told, so the Sales Rep corrected that issue. The crown molding was not on the list of upgrades, but it was added with minimal effort. The beginning of the building process was slow. It took about 4 weeks until framing began. That is when things started to get exciting, especially because we had never seen a Bateman. I was amazed at how much the home was exactly how I had envisioned it from obsessing over the floor plans on line. 

Bateman Details

We chose the Bateman elevation B with Dakota Ledgestone, Gray siding, black shutters and door. We upgraded the cabinets to 42 inch with crown molding and they are Expresso. Yes, all of these selections have additional fancy names, but I do not have them on hand. I chose the traditional cabinet and not the more modern because I was going for the Rustic Glam look.


 Here are some of our selections. We did not end up using the granite sample shown in this photo. We chose Formica FX in Calacatta Marble instead.

We added the morning room to upgrade the kitchen to a wide open space and increased the island size to over 9 feet! We also added a bonus room that has a large finished storage area (a closet). The closet is important because it can now be considered a 5 bedroom house. This will come in handy for resale, but hopefully that will be many, many years from now. The Bateman comes standard with a 3 car garage. 

Welcome!

Welcome to Build a Bateman! My husband and I are building a Ryan Homes Bateman. We wanted to start a blog about the process because we appreciate all of the other bloggers who have shared their experience and most importantly photos of the building process. We felt it was important because the Bateman is a new model and currently, there are no decorated models to visit or any interior photos.

I am not new to the building process. This will be my second time building with Ryan Homes. The first time, I was a single mom of two children. I had a great experience and I loved the outcome. A month after we moved in, I met my husband. He sold his house and a year later, we were married and he moved in. We quickly outgrew our home after our twin girls made their appearance.  We researched all of the options from existing homes to building with a custom builder. After running into the same salesperson who helped me with my first home purchase, we knew that we were meant to build with Ryan again. The problem was that I was not in love with any of the models in our price range. They were all great, but having lived in a Ryan community for seven years, I had been in many of the models, so they didn't fell "new" to me. Unfortunately or fortunately, we had a few snags while attempting to sell our house and during that time, Ryan began offering new models in our area!

Originally, we fell in love with the Landon model home. It is what we refer to as the "New Ryan". I was excited to find new details like archways, arrival centers, and open kitchens with huge rectangular islands. The Landon layout wasn't exactly what we were looking for so we continued to research. We found that the Bateman plans had the similar "new" features that we loved and a layout that was practical for our very busy lifestyle. The problem was that it was so new, as I mentioned before, that we had nothing but a PDF plan and a few drawings of elevations. The Sales Reps knew nothing about the model. We were determined and with more patience that we wanted to deal with, we convinced Ryan to offer that model in the development that we had chosen.

At this point, we have signed all documents, chosen all options, and we will have our Pre-Construction meeting on Monday.