Ryan Homes' Hewitt's Landing site pictures: Back in the day

Earlier this week, we got an e-mail from our awesome SR stating that our PM would probably be contacting us soon since it appears that BGE lines were going in along our street. Only so that the next day, we got an e-mail saying she had spoken a little too soon, and that only the markers were down. However, the lines would be going in soon.

I had some time to kill yesterday, so I drove by the site and took some pics, simply because it as anyone who's building a house knows...it's HARD to not want to check on progress early and often! Even when the progress is, well, seeing other homes going up or seeing grass growing on other folks lots, and, seeing random markers staked in our lot. Thus I took random pictures, ranging from our street sign, to the neighboring lots, etc.,

I'll post them below because digital space is cheap, and I've got nothing else to do until we get the phone call saying "the road is in" or something along those lines. Besides, I think that one day I'll look back like "wow, the neighborhood used to look like this??!"

Anyway, I'm excited about being excited about one day having a road. And here's my way of expressing it.

It appears the development is getting one of those stone signs thingies! They always seem more regal

This is the street that leads into our development. These are the phase 1 homes. That one is Lot #2

This is a side pic of Lot 1. Shown there is the pond, which is hidden behind the trees

There's our intersection. Our lot is the one closest to the trees

Shown below are pics of our site. Which appears to be, well, the dump site...

Here's our future road!!!

Below here is a picture of the end of the phase 1 road. It terminates in a stub, and our back is to a conservatory. So bottomline is, we will have low traffic, despite being a corner lot. And our back is to the woods.

The end of the phase 1 development road

This is a pic of Lot 3--the existing home. See the barn peeking through?

This is facing lot 14. Which I think is the biggest lot. But not a very level grade

This is lot 4. They are across from us and sit besides the barn on lot 3. Look at that grass though...*drools*

This is a far away pic of lot 6 I believe. They also have an existing house. But that one will be removed

This may or may not be our well

Big Backyards

Since being sold on "3 acres", I've been pondering: What do people do with BIG backyards?

Sort of like this guy, but you know, less mathy!

It's my understanding that our patio door (the one leading out of the morning room) will be about 2-3 feet off the ground (which consequently forced us to get a welled egress from the basement, instead of a walkout basement).  Growing up where I did, I am accustomed to 0.25-0.333 acre lots.  My last home's lot size was around that, with essentially enough to have a deck, a little playground, and enough room left over for a reasonable sized basketball hoop.

Something along the lines of this

This time around though, I'm thinking:

• Basketball court
• Deck
• Stone patio
• ...*Draws blank*

Because I'm an avid basketball fan, and amateur player (whenever time permits), I want a real court. Ultimately, I'd love to put a half-court in the yard somewhere. 

Dream court!

And then maybe a deck (which RH charges about $45-48 per sq. ft)

Maybe not this elaborate...but hey, dream big right?

And of course, the stone patio idea:

Not exactly like this, but close enough

It's after the stone patio, where I begin to draw blanks.  Does anyone have other thoughts or ideas on what to do with a large yard space?  I've done some Pinterest searching, and I've come up with:

• Pool
• Garden
• Shed
• Playground
• Fountain

Anything else?  

Choosing a site

I've already spoken a little (or a lot, depending on your perspective) about how this journey began, and for context, that can be found here.  When our search began, we had a few lot sizes to choose from.  I'll take pictures of the various lots soon, and post them to the site.

There were a few requirements we had for our home, and lot size was one of the most important.  Our ideal lot was 1/2 to 1 acre, but while we were open to larger lots, we definitely did not want a lot smaller than 1/2 acre. 
Another factor for lot selection was location within the community.  We didn't want to be at the front of the community, nor at the back.  We hope that a location in the center of the community would allow us to mingle with neighbors, and present better opportunities for socializing.  Ultimately, one look at the blog name and you can guess which one we chose :).



Lucky 13

As mentioned in the previous post, our Sales Representative (SR), showed us the two lots available, as Ryan Homes' policy for this development was to only release two sites at once--for whatever reason (maybe permits or something...who knows).

Lot 1was about 2 acres, which was cool.   It's located on a corner lot at the intersection of a low-traffic road (in the sense that it's a dead end), which I was actually OK with.  However, our major issue was the pond located at the rear of the lot.  And while my SR thought it could make for some interesting times for the kids (I agreed--but not interesting in the good way), I was more concerned about standing water, bugs, and mosquitos--thanks to my fiancé's irrational fear of the Zika virus.  Not only did the pond seem less than desirable, it felt like it limited lot usage to 60%.

Pre-existing structure (barn and house obscured by trees)



I've mastered paint shop!!

I admittedly just got carried away with google earth and paint shop.  However, that's a pretty rough idea of how Lot 1 was placed, relative to Lot 2 (which was not available yet) and the pond, barn on the other side of Lot 2, which you can see.

Okay, so that's enough talk about a site we didn't even choose! Now on to good ole LOT 13.  Full disclosure, I was not totally in love with the lot at first site (see what I did there?).  Mainly because it was so much land (3 acres) and I was worried that due to positioning, most of the yard would be side yard, which wasn't ideal for gatherings (cookouts) or privacy in general.  However, after taking a look at it a second time, when our SR could actually mark off where and how much our yard would be, I quickly grew to appreciate the site more.

The Pressure: The decision between Lots 1 and 13 was primarily driven by the fact that these lots did not have a premium (Extra money paid on top of base price of home for the location of the land).  The SR told us that after these lots sold, all future homes in the community would have lot premiums, ranging from $20-$40K.  It's not like this information was presented in writing, so we had to go with our gut.  We certainly felt good about the site, since it was a corner site backing to trees, and our nearest neighbors are about and acre away on each side...literally.  Thus, LOT 13 IT IS!

I'll update these pictures shortly, but in the interim, here's what I have for good ole lot 13!

That's my scientific estimation of our lot size. That's about 3 acres right??

Right now, there's just mainly pictures of dirt and dirt and more dirt. But I'll upload more pics as time goes on.