First Mortgage Meeting

Anxiety. That's the word I would use to describe how I've felt over the last few days up until today when I met with the loan officer. Kenny is on travel for work and couldn't call into our meeting so I took the rest our documents that we hadn't already emailed to her and went to the mortgage company's office.

I expected the meeting to be pretty long but it actually ended being relatively short, only about an hour. It was kind of an overview of the whole application and approval process. She asked a few questions and then showed me our estimated payment amount based on what interest rate we qualified for after running our credit - nothing unexpected there.

The most time consuming part of the meeting was signing all of the documents acknowledging that all of my information was correct, that the mortgage company works with the builder and on and on.

Then she went over how closing will work, which is the part I was especially nervous about. Because we're building the house, we can't lock in our interest rate yet. According to the loan office, we'll get a pre-approval and then closer to the closing date they'll run everything again and we'll lock in our rate. But that lock in won't come until about 60-90 days prior to closing which won't be until right near the end of construction.

Now we wait for our application to be reviewed by the underwriter which takes about three weeks. I thought I was anxious before. Turns out that was nothing.

Granite, And Cabinets, And Vanities! Oh My!

It's been a little bit less than a week since we reserved our lot but we're already in a time crunch to get some of the big decisions out of the way. We spent part of our Sunday afternoon meeting with our sales rep and picking the colors and finishes for our kitchen and bathrooms. One of the many perks of building your home is getting the opportunity to pick almost every detail of the house. But it's also a little intimidating, especially when there are so many options to choose from.

Since we made the decision to buy the house and scheduled this weekend's appointment,  we've spent almost every night before bed talking about whether we wanted dark finishes or light finishes in the kitchen. I've searched through pictures of color schemes on Pinterest to try to get an idea of what the different combinations would look like but pinning ideas on Pinterest is definitely a lot easier than making a final decision of the colors that you're going to have to live with. Add onto that that I don't exactly have a reputation for making decisions easily (just ask Kenny) but surprisingly, we made our choices for the kitchen pretty fast.

With the level of upgrade we have, we had about five choices and we decided to go with the Maple Espresso cabinets. Originally I wanted light white cabinets but after seeing this one, I was convinced otherwise. It was hard to get a good photograph that didn't make the cabinets look black but it's actually a really beautiful dark brown color with a hint of red and a glossy finish. Once we picked the cabinets, we moved onto the granite.

There were fewer choices for the granite and we had to make sure it matched the cabinets so the decision was a little easier. We narrowed it down to two and after holding up the two pieces of granite to the cabinet door sample, we made this choice pretty fast too.

We chose the light speckled granite to go with the dark cabinets. We also decided to keep the same dark cabinets in our bathrooms with the cultured marble vanity tops. It'll look something like this which is the bathroom in the model home.

Our last choice of the day was the hardest choice which was picking the color of the siding, trim, front door, and shutters. We were slightly limited in our siding choices because the houses on either side of us are almost done construction and since the builder doesn't want two houses of the same color next to each other, we had to pick something our neighbors hadn't already picked.

Our sales rep started by showing us our options and having us eliminate them one by one. We narrowed it down, made our decision and left the office feeling really excited. After we left we decided to walk around and take a look at some of the houses that were already done....which caused us to change our mind. We went back to the office and switched our decision and then left again, feeling even more excited.

The colors we chose for the outside of the house is something that I've decided not to share on the blog, just because I want there to be some element of surprise when it's done.

While we were in the office, we also made two future appointments for later in February - one to go to the flooring showroom and pick the color of the floors and carpets, and one to meet with the wiring company. But in the very near future, this week while Kenny is traveling for work, I'm meeting with the loan officer to get the mortgage process started. This is the scary part!

Our First Home

Well it's official!

My fiancé and I are going to be homeowners. But not only are we going to be first time homeowners, we're building our first home. All while planning a wedding. Crazy right?

Nothing like doing all of this stuff at once to make you feel like you're finally an adult. I honestly don't think it hit either of us until now.

I wanted to start a blog to document the process from getting approved for the house to picking everything down to the light fixtures and the color of the siding. Not because I thought anybody would want to read it, but to remember the whole process when we're sitting in our brand new home...and if you want to read, that's a plus too!

We reserved our lot a few days ago and the fun part starts this weekend - we get to start picking colors and finishes for our cabinets, granite and bathroom vanities.

Along with documenting all the steps from reserving the lot, to construction, to moving in and everything in between, maybe I'll even use it to share some interior decorating ideas that we decide to use. This whole process has me feeling creative!

Stay tuned!