Pictures of The Milan Model

We visited a model of the Milan while we were in Ohio and got to see how our house will look in a reverse floor plan.

Kitchen

Morning Room

Front Entry, Viewed from the Family and Kitchen Area

Dining Room

Living Room

View of Front Entry from the door

Stairs to the Second Floor

Upstairs Bathroom

Laundry Room

Loft Area

Bedroom #1

Bedroom #2

Loft

Master Bedroom

Master Bedroom (View from teh exterior wall/mirror)

Master Bathroom

Master Bathroom

Exterior Selections

Surprisingly, the exterior selection meeting was the easiest for my husband and I.  And then it became the hardest one.  So for Elevation L, we got to select stone for the front, two colors for a dominant and less dominant siding color, shutters and doors, and a coordinating brick color for the back and sides.

Here's what Elevation L looks like:

We easily selected the following:

Bucks County Stone

Raisin for the door

...but the brick.  

Well, we found out that our neighbor had picked the one we felt matched best.  And none of the other brick colors felt right.  So we jumped in the car and drove around the neighborhood looking at houses and decided we liked this color combination:

Stone:  Dakota Ledgestone

Siding:  Monterey Taupe and Cobblestone

Door and Shutters:  Black

Trim:  White

We love our selections, even though we had to make a change.  I can't wait to see it for real!!

 

Flooring Selections

For our flooring and countertop selections, we did not opt to upgrade a lot and will plan to do that in about 5 years or so.  Regardless, we still love what we ended up with!!

Kitchen Cabinets:  Maple Espresso 

Laminate Countertops:  Travertine

Tile:   Station Square

Close up of the tile (kitchen, morning room, front entry, garage entry and powder room.)

Upstairs bathroom cabinet:  Fairfield Honey

Tile:  Initiator

Paint Color:  Agreeable Grey

Carpet (family room, dining room, study, all bedrooms, loft and basement): Cobble Mill

Stair Railing Stain:  Midnight Black 

Options Selected in the Milan

Our philosophy in selecting our options in the Milan was to focus on things that would be difficult to upgrade or change in the future.  Additionally, we tried thinking about options that we would like if we either stayed in the house forever or if we decided to sell it in 10 years.

The things that were "thrown in" by Ryan Homes were:

• Finished basement ($13,995)
• Morning room ($15,995)
• 200 Amp Service ($695)
• Upgrade to the 50 gallon Water Heater ($200)

So here are the options we selected:

• Elevation L with the partial stone (like this)

• Window Egress in the Basement
• Garage Service Door
• Side windows in the Morning Room
• Gourmet Island 
• Kitchen Cabinet Upgrade 1
• Powder Room Window
• Study
• Owner's Bathroom Soaking Tub and Shower
• Paint Package Three Tone (We didn't want the white or cream.  We opted for the Agreeable Gray throughout.)
• Metal Balusters on the Stairs

• 7 overhead lights (Morning room, family room, study, all three bedrooms and the loft.)
• Water Softener Rough-In
• Gas Oven Hook-Up
• Gas Dryer Hook-Up
• Gas Water Heater

Lot Selection

So lot selection.

One of the things we hated about some of the lots were the giant utility boxes out in the front yards.  Some were big boxes, others were smaller gas line pipes.

The lot (#361) we first selected had a smaller pipe in the front corner.

We had until January 14th to make final selections on our lot, so we headed back to Ohio for a couple of days to finalize our options, the lot, and do our Guardian and Flooring America meetings.  

The first thing we did was drive around and make sure we were happy with the lot.  And sure enough, we made a change.

First, we realized that our driveway would be right next to our neighbors.  Not a big deal, but we liked the idea of grass-driveway-grass-driveway and not grass-driveway-driveway-grass.  If you notice on the picture, our Sales Rep went through and showed us which side of each lot the driveway had to be on.  FYI, we didn't get to choose - it was how the community was laid our.  Which also meant we didn't get a choice on whether our floor plan was to plan or reverse.

Secondly, as we were driving around, we realized that the back of the lot we had first selected had a good size dip into the drainage canal.  It significantly shortened our back yard and was the main reason we decided to change.  We ended up going with Lot #337 (top row, middle-ish).  It has a smaller utility set up in the front, but it backs up to another part of the community where the yards are bigger, so the distance to our neighbors in the back was more than what it would be with most other lots.