We drove back to Spring this morning to bring the dogs to Lori’s and pick her up to head to the Design meeting in Escondido. We were planning on telling Kristi that we needed to consider a cheaper house or change some things on the Conway. Things are getting real and this is super scary. We had her take out the flooring update in the master bedroom so it will now have carpet. I was considering going to a lower inspiration package to lower the cost but we decided we wouldn’t be happy with the selections it came with. We both have our hearts set on that deep green tile in the master bathroom and I love that quartz island that comes with the Caves inspiration. The price only came down $5000 but we decided to go for it. We’ll probably need to put more on the down payment but we’re okay with that. I’m horrible at design and color matching so picking the brick, garage door, and paint colors was painful. Ricky likes dark brick and I like light brick. He told me to pick whatever I wanted. I went with a textured brick rather than a regular flat brick and a light stone with some splashes of rust in it. I let Ricky pick the color of the garage door and paint trim. The inside of the house will all be white and we’ll probably paint some of the walls before we move in. We also intended to ask Kristi to throw in blinds throughout the house and, of course, we forgot to ask about them. We are one step closer in this process, yay! Next will be a pre-construction meeting on December 18th. We’ll meet with the builder and confirm anything that we want added. We’re going to ask about moving the clothes rod in the master closet and adding a second rod and adding a table in the laundry room to have something to fold clothes on. We’ll possibly have them do the blocking and whatever else to have the TV mounted on the wall and wires not showing. This is a very stressful process, lol. I’m thankful that David Weekley has gone to the Inspiration packages and I didn’t have to go to a design center and pick out all the individual items for the interior. That would’ve been a nightmare to me.

The stone is Cave Rock Chopped and the brick is Postrock King.

Today, December 2, 2024, we got pre-qualified for our home loan. Things are getting real! Had to upload W2s, bank statements, property tax, home insurance proof, and many other things to the loan company website. This process is nerve racking.

Ricky and I did a thing yesterday. We’ve been house shopping for two years now, preparing for our move after my retirement. We finally made up our minds on the house and city we’ll be moving to. We decided on the David Weekley Conway model. We’ll be moving to the Escondido neighborhood in Magnolia, TX. We wanted a house with a 3-car garage due to not being able to have a building in the backyard. Turns out David Weekley sold all their 50 foot lots that were available by the time we were ready to sign a contract. Then we looked at Perry Homes and were interested in a house that had a porch across the entire back of the house. The price was pretty high for the amount of house we would get so we looked at the David Weekley’s on 60 foot lots. Turns out we could get way more house for the money compared to the Perry. The Conway model automatically comes with a 4-car garage in the 60 foot section and it also has a mother-in-law suite with a bathroom that the Perry didn’t have. We had been dealing directly with the sales women when we were looking in the beginning and I had seen some YouTube videos from realtors saying they could get good deals for people. I called Natasha Tessier who owns Dwell Realty in Montgomery, TX and set up a meeting with her. Turns out we don’t have to pay her anything as the builders have contracts to pay the realtors. Natasha is very nice and knowledgeable about the whole Houston area. We all met in Escondido and looked at Perry and DW homes. After we decided we were going to go with the Conway home we let her know so she could make a deal for us. Kristi Wells, the DW sales lady, told us they don’t make deals on new builds but they had a $15000 incentive. Natasha got her to increase that to $20000 and she said that’s all she could do. On our way home from there we decided we wanted the builder to install a whole home generator so we didn’t have to hire someone to do it later and also because it would be added to the price of the home. This all took place on Friday. We had a conference call on Sunday with Kristi and Natasha and signed the contract and then wired our earnest money. It feels so surreal. I’m beyond excited to start this adventure. Here are a few pictures of the outside, kitchen, master bathroom, and extra bathrooms! Our new address will be 1412 Florecer Lane, Magnolia, TX 77354.