Day 26: Final Selection Day

This is it! Final Selection Day!

Today Im letting go of all of my anxiety and Im going to enjoy this moment. Many people never get to experience this in their whole entire lives. Im going to enjoy this blessing that God has bestowed upon me and be thankful and joyous.

Chance told me at our last meeting that he expected construction to begin the first week of December. Changes will happen fast then. For today, Im going to relish the serenity of the moment because in a couple short weeks, changes will happen every day!

Watch for pictures of my selections today in a separate post to follow later today, and wish me luck!

Day 25: Urbana Antique

For the past week all I've thought about, in my free time, has been about the design and décor of my home. What do I want it to look like? How do I want it to function? What do I want my home to say to people who see it or who visit? What does it need to impress me, make me comfortable and make me happy?

 

Cabinets.
Countertops.
Backsplash.
Fixtures.
Carpet.
Tile.
Wood/laminate.
Paint.
Trim.
Brick.
Insulation.

 

Just to name a few. My options packet is about 50 pages! When you daydream about building a house, it's a lot of overzealousness and the best of everything. When you actually do it, it's a bit more intense. By about a thousand. However, it's very exciting, too!

 

Most of the choices were easy to consider, visualize and make a selection on such as the gorgeous granite I treated myself to or the upgrade from pedestal sink to cabinet in the powder room. Other things were not as clear and required some thought (and even gazing at a zillion pictures online and on my phone) like flooring and fixture colors.

 

Then there were big things like brick. When you go into the design studio, they only have 4 rows of brick in these 12×24 frames. I don't know about you, but a house is huge! Visualizing a small swatch of brick on a big house is not easy, for me anyway. On top of that, try to picture what color paint and trim you want, too. Impossible!

 

I drove around and around, took pictures, talked to people, sent Jennifer a gazillion emails, and even dragged my kids and mom out to help. Brick looks different in the sun as opposed to in the shade. What looks red in the shade may look brown in the sun. It kept playing tricks on my mind.

 

I am drawn to neutral colors. I've found three brown bricks that I could settle with. Bricks with names like Mojave and Canyon Springs. Then there is this really interesting variety with a lot of color that I'm drawn to, Fall Creek. It is pretty, however, I'm not a flashy type of person. I just can't pull the trigger on a brick already overly popular in my neighborhood.

 

It took a lot of struggle, thought and frustration but I really didn't decide until yesterday (okay... today). I took one more trip around the neighborhood looking at my favorites. This time I was able to get out and go see it up close and in both, the sun and shade, at the same time. That's when I knew it was the one.

 

 

 

Urbana Antique. This is it!

 

Here's the variations in the coloring from sunlight to shade. Near where the fence meets the house, some sunlight is able to partly lighten the bricks there, leaving part in the shade. You can see how much the coloring changes. This is why I've struggled with picking brick this week. Houses all face different directions, when you see one in the shade and another in the sunlight, they look completely different even though they have the same brick. I urge you, if you're driving around looking at brick, too, to make sure you see the same house and same brick in sun as well as shade because one or the other just might change your mind. You have to live with your brick for a long time and be happy with it, be able to choose new paint colors (when the time comes) and landscape with it as a background.

I couldn't be more relieved and ready to move onto the next phase. Now, tomorrow, I can go to my Final Pick Day and select all of the things I've been visualizing all week. It will be nice to make it all official. That will be a huge relief! And, having this done, Thanksgiving will be much less stressful, much more peaceful.

 

Watch for pics coming tomorrow!

Day 20: Kennewick

Isnt this brick gorgeous?! I first fell in love with this brick when I fell in love with the house over on Waizel Way (in another KB Home neighborhood). I came really close to buying that house, however underwriting made me wait. Luckily for me, too, because now Im building my own and getting to experience all that goes along with it. Im designing my own home from the ground up.

 

After picking out my preliminary selections yesterday and going over budget, I went home and slept on it. I talked to friends and family and thought some more. Then I made a list. I crossed out the things I knew I could add on later with the help of a handyman, or as a DIY type thing, and I then settled upon the flooring. It seemed a bit steep so I checked with Fabulous Jennifer, my designer at the KB Home Studio, and we discussed adding in some laminate flooring in lieu of some of the tile. When she sent me back a new quote, I was over the moon happy. This was the fix I needed to be able to keep all of the other goodies I have planned.

 

Then came the brick. As I said before, I wasn't gaga over the one I chose, even though I love looking at it in the neighborhood. One woman I spoke with while driving around looking at brick told me that her neighbor has it and two others down her street. Yeah, no thanks. I dont want to be a cookie cutter. And, since my house is on the corner, it needs to wow people, right?

 

So, I keep going back to the Waizel Way house. I loved that brick! It isn't one of the "included" options with KB, however Im having Fabulous Jennifer quote me on it. Keep your fingers crossed that the tile-laminate swap will be able to fund the brick. Then we're all set!

 

Here are a few more pictures of Kennewick brick from the house over on Waizel Way:

 



Day 19: Preliminary Pick Day



Today was my Preliminary Pick Day, as Im fondly calling it. This is the day when I had to actually make choices and about the items that will be installed in my home such as bathtubs and cabinets, flooring and paint, and about a zillion other things it seems.

When you go in, they give you a huge packet of all of the options. It's sectioned out but some parts can get tedious reading and navigating though. Luckily they don't even give you the carpet choices or it would be even bigger! I started on the packet two days before, when I came in to browse. Most of what I wanted I knew. However, I knew Id be adding on much more today.

I had the nicest sales rep, Jennifer, who graciously jumped in and started early with me when she found me browsing the kitchen area before my appointment. She helped me make choices, offered advice, let me take as much time as I needed and, since she had just built a home herself, she knew what I was feeling through all of this. Above are my preliminary choices.

I started in the cabinets and countertops section of the design studio as this is the first room you get to when you begin this process. The granite and cabinets came together really quick, thankfully. I love the granite! It's a snow white with chocolate and black. The cabinets I choice are an espresso color (not black, sorry if the picture doesn't show off its beautiful true coloring).

Then we sat down for a bit and she went over all of the interior structural options such as room conversions, upgrades to the countertop heights and prewiring for ceiling fans, adding on a patio cover, and stuff like that.

Next we picked out all of the faucets and upgraded the kids' bathtub to porcelain with tile surround. I picked the marble tub for the master with separate shower and marble surrounds in both of those. I love how clean and smooth they are! I know Im going to love sinking into that tub at the end of a long day (like today, wah!).

Next we moved onto picking the exterior 8' door and the interior doors. We picked out lighting, upgraded the railings to black wrought iron spindles, and talked about paint. Im opting to not have the house painted a special color inside for two reasons. One, they pretty much only offer shades of white; I don't want to pay for something Im going to turn around and paint over. And two, I have something else in mind for that money. :)

Brick, exterior paint and roofing came next. This part is hard! It's very difficult to visualize what a small sample of brick will look like on a big house. I drove around my neighborhood beforehand, but to be honest, Im still undecided. I made a pick, however it is subject to change before my final appointment next week. One good thing I learned though was that since Im on a corner, that side that faces the street will be solid brick. That's an add-on I don't have to pay for! Sweet deal!

Flooring and tile was pretty much the last step of the process. I was a little disappointed in their selection of backsplashes. They offered nothing by way of tiny pieces except for the glass mosaic, which Im not a fan of. I wanted something more along the lines of a pretty white but had to settle for a 12" tile. Thankfully its silky smooth like stone and not like floor tile. It'll work for now until I decide to rip it out down the road. I did pick out carpeting fairly quick, however I realize now I need to confirm with Jennifer which areas are having tile and which are having carpet.

So, the process seems short, however you're making a thousand decisions within a few hours and by the end, I was starting to get a headache. Im eager to see it all installed in my new home. I just know it will be beautiful!