Windows! Day 63

They installed our windows today. It is looking fantastic! 

From the road

Sun room

Master

Garage, bedroom and bath

Our window in the master bath was broken. They ordered one right away. The crew that put in the windows was awesome - just two guys - but they were personable and very kind. We are happy this is done! 

Doors, half-walls, and shingles - Day 62

Lots of little things (that up to big things) were done today . Several doors were put on and lots of framing work was completed. 

From laundry to garage

Front door and sidelights! 

Master porch door & new framing for wall in basement.

Fireplace we may have messed up. We will have a raised hearth. We asked for it, but don't have it in writing so we need to talk to our field manager.

Kitchen to sunroom half wall

Dining room framing - this is going to be awesome! 

Our master octagonal tray ceiling! 

We are finally moving at a good pace and we hope this continues! Woop woop! 

Some of our open house inspiration

These were some of our favorite ideas from open houses held by Wayne Homes. 

TOP: this is how our dining room is going to look when all is said and done

BOTTOM LEFT: this is how our kitchen will be connected to our sunroom. My sink will over look the sunroom similar to the one one the right side. 

Our kitchen will not look like the one on the top, but it will be similar. We started with that design however! We are doing our own woodburning insert in our stone fireplace, but we want it to look like the one above. We have similar curb appeal to the house on the bottom left and will have the same den doors as the ones on the bottom left. 

Our dream is becoming a reality and we are so thankful!

Concrete is here! Day 31

They are pouring the basement walls today and the weather is perfect!

Our neighbors are awesome and took a few pics while I was at work. It is kind of torturous to know such fun things are going on at home while you are away! 

I wish our boys were home to see this! We are glad they stuck to their word as well. If we had to watch our basement dirt hole keep filling up with water, we were not going to be happy campers. Here comes the fun.... 

Finished basement wall forms - Day 30

Our basement wall forms are set. The walkout (in the bottom left picture) is finished, and we are ready for concrete. Our boys have enjoyed seeing all of the big trucks in our yard this week!

Stone - Day 21

They stoned our basement today! Every day, we cannot wait to get home to see what progress has been made. I am sure it will only get worse as the house starts looking more and more real. We are pretty jealous of our AWESOME neighbors that get to watch the progress while we are at work. :) We promised a "block party" of sorts when all is said and done. We love in the country and have new neighbors that just built around the corner too, So we have good reasons to get together! Besides the fact we have lived on our property for four years and are just learning  the names of people on our road.....

There are footer drains on both sides of the house.

Our first sump is located in the front left corner of the picture below. We need to make sure that our second sump is in the right place. It will be located by our walkout basement (which is in the picture above).

Roll off - Day 13

Looks like we had a special delivery today. Here's to not having to go to the dump for awhile. ;)

Porta-Potty on Day 3

I came home to a Porta-potty delivery. Let's hope no one tries to tip it in the next several months!

Update- 1/9 - while talking to our electrician, he said that Schumacher homes does not supply a porta potty!!! I cannot imagine NOT having this on some of the long days these workers have had here. Thanks for going the extra step, Wayne Homes. The workers and homeowners appreciate it!

Welcome home - A Wayne Homes Surprise!

This is what our Wayne Home will look like! We were given this on dig day which was a nice surprise!

Wayne Homes Montgomery Craftsman DIG DAY! - Day 1

My husband took a vacation day and stayed home for our dig day because I had to work 13 hours. Everything went smooth and we got some really great pictures of the dirt moving fast. We didn't hit water or find anything interesting. I was hoping for gold or oil, but I guess I'll keep dreaming. They finished digging around 5:00 and told us it would be between 1.5 and 3 weeks before they would be back. Can you say anticlimatic? They said they have been very backed up due to our awesomely rainy summer. Although we were bummed, we were happy to know what to expect.

Our boys look so tiny in our basement!!

First scoops of dirt!

It had to rain after...

We are hoping to keep track of our build every day and to provide reviews of Wayne Homes and their subcontractors. If you have questions about our experience, don't hesitate to email us at OhioWayneHomestead@gmail.com.

A welcomed surprise from Wayne Homes!

Our dig date was moved up to September 11th, which made us happy for many reasons....mostly being it was earlier, but also because it was my husband's grandpa's birthday. We like to think he had something to do with it. :) We are so thankful to be able to embark on this journey together. It has been a dream of our to build a home in the country since we started dating "a few" years ago (cough...cough...in 1999). It is so humbling to look back at all we have been through to bring us where we are today.

Wayne Homes Pre-Construction Meeting #2

Besides a lot of yawning, we plowed through the details and finished this meeting with a strong desire to down a bottle of wine. It was a smooth meeting, but we were ready to be done and get this show on the road. I'm sure Wayne Homes was tired of our emails, calls, and visits too.... but hey, customers keep them in business and here we are giving them mad props. Our original dig date was set for September 23, 2013.

Wayne Homes Pre-Construction Meeting #1

We honestly did not stress much before this meeting because we felt comfortable with our choices at this point. Our field manager met us out at our lot bright and early in the morning and we baked together in the sun for a few hours. It seemed like a simple process because we are in the country and do not have many lot regulations or issues. He was very easy to deal with, realistic, and down-to-earth which made for a good first impression. We were excited after our lot meeting on our way up to the Cygnet office.

Our PC meeting did not move very fast, and this could be for many reasons - some of which are our fault, and some of which we will not fault anyone. The typical woman in charge was pregnant and training a temporary replacement. We swallowed our pride (it was diguised in multiple caffeinated K-Cups and some delicious Otis Spunkmeyer cookies) and put our patience pants on. Our questions took a very long time to get answered (like, "Do we have room for a shelf on the end of the kitchen cabinet? Is our furnace big enough?") but we all survived. We also stayed until 5:00 and had to schedule another meeting to finish the details.

Our Finishes / Choices from the Wayne Homes Showroom

For the exterior, we chose earth tones because we have an existing building on our property. Since we chose the craftsman elevation, we got to pick stone for a wainscot....I'd say that's one of the things we are most excited about!

We chose dark brown shingles. This was one of the choices that worried me for some reason, but I think it will look just fine. 

We picked Spring Valley Maple Chiffon cabinets and smoked habanero "wood look" level 4 vinyl for our kitchen flooring. We also used the vinyl in our sunroom, laundry room, dining room and main bath. We contemplated putting in a wood floor ourselves because we have done several, but went with this after much research and discussion. With two young and active boys, I do not think we will be disappointed. We upgraded to an 8 lb pad and a level 2 carpet for minimal cost.

I don't remember the name of our counter top, but it is a high definition laminate. The upgrade was cheap and will look nice. We have put in two laminate counter tops ourselves and have been very happy with their look, wear and tear. We didn't see the need for stone. 

In our master bath, we opted for a totally different look. 

Wayne Homes Color Selection Meeting

Color Selection Meeting
The week before this meeting, my husband and I were literally crazy. We looked at every paint sample we could find to match with our flooring, fireplace stone, and cabinets. We turned on the lights, we turned off the lights, we looked at them at the end of the hallway, we looked at them outside, we drove to the restaurant that featured our chosen stone facade on a much grander scale, we sent pictures from our phone to relatives, and we doubted ourselves. We researched. We. were. bonkers. We are both thankful that this meeting is over.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.... Our Journey with Wayne Homes

Our History 

I'm L, my husband is M, and we started this process in 2009 when we purchased our land in the country. We spent time with Wayne Homes, K. Hovnanian Homes, and Schumacher homes getting quotes. Initially, we preferred Schumacher Homes because at that time they included many things as "standard" - like wood trim and even a fireplace. We got two very thourough quotes from them for the Olivia plan (now renamed) and its smaller version, the Pearson (also now renamed). Both plans were two-story homes with the master bedroom downstairs. At the time of our quote, we didn't feel comfortable with the cost and didn't want to sacrifice our wants and needs, so we decided to wait.

Fast forward to mid 2012 when mortgage rates were rediculously low, and we found ourselves investigating nearly every builder in our area, even pre-fab home builders. We were preparing to build in 2013 or early 2014. Each builder had a different quality that we liked, but we kept coming back to Wayne Homes. We tried to go back to Schumacher, but our original Home Consultant there wasn't interested in giving us a quote if we weren't interested in building right away, so we asked for a new one. Even though he was a lot of help, we had already invested a great deal of time with Wayne Homes and had built a solid rapport with our New Home Consultant. We also broke down the differences between the two builders and found we got more for our money with Wayne.

Decision Making, more decision making, and changing those decisions.... 

One of the biggest blessings and curses of this process was having the time to change our minds. When we started  looking at homes, we investigated the Camden Craftsman. We thought that was enough square footage for us. When we visited a few homes of comparable size, we started wondering if it was too cramped. In February of 2013, our WH Home Consultant, Kristi, thought we should give the McCallister a try. This stuck for a little while, but both the hubby and myself kept going back to the Montgomery. This, I'm sure, was no fun for our home consultant who received many emails full of questions. Regardless, Kristi was always prompt and considerate and never made us feel like we were a pain to deal with....which was quite the blessing when we were making the biggest purchase in our entire lives.

Open Houses

Our first open house was quite an emotional roller coaster. I had been following blogs (Thanks OhioMags and Brent & Kristy!) and  my husband and I were pretty positive the Montgomery was our floor plan...that is, until we walked into our first open house. There we were about two hours away, with our parents, brother, and two children.....completely underwhelmed. We didn't like the changes the homeowners had made to the plan. We felt like the dining room space wasn't defined enough and that the living area was cramped. We left and we were a complete mess because we didn't think this was a house for us, but we had already invested so much time.

Time was on our side when we got home, however. When we moved to the country in 2010, we watched the people down the road build a Wayne Home. We didn't know the plan, nor did we go to the open house because we weren't interested in building with Wayne Homes at the time. After investigating the Montgomery plan and elevations, we realized the house down the road was a Montgomery. Fearing that all of our time would be wasted if we had to start over again, hubby and I discussed stopping by and introducing ourselves in hopes that the people that lived there wouldn't think we were the creepiest people ever. Luckily, they were awesome and invited us in to show us around. Their plan was exactly what we were looking for. They had great things to say about WH. Given that we would probably have many of the same crews, this reassured the hubby and I and brought us off the edge of jumping and starting over.

Can you say referral credit? Because they saved our deal with WH. We signed contigent in April, but didn't stop doing our homework.

Over the next four months, we visted five open houses at various stages of construction. We took notes, we made changes, and we kept another builder in our back pocket in case this deal went bad. Needless to say, we stayed with Wayne Homes.