Well... I'm a little late to the game with this blog. At this point, we have already picked all of our options and finishes and have done our flooring appointment. We just have our wiring appointment with Trinity and our 30-day meeting. We are waiting to figure out this financing mess. My husband's job is commission based and has thrown a wrench in the mortgage, but our loan officer is awesome. Things seem to be headed in the right direction.
So, I figure I had better catch you up on what our selections are so far. In case you weren't sure, we selected the Venice floor plan. Our community offers the Florence, Venice, Brentwood, and Rome. One story wasn't an option for my husband, so the Brentwood was out. The Rome felt like WAY more space than we needed. It's just he and I and our french bulldog for now. The Florence was okay, but we didn't have one to see. However, when we walked through the Venice, it felt like home to us. The bedrooms all felt like a good size. The laundry was on the second floor. There was a nice little mudroom. Plus, there was room for us to grow with the unfinished basement. We truly feel that this could be a long-term home for us. So, the Venice it was.
Here is the floor plan: (ours will be reversed of these renderings)
Pretty isn't it?
Our Options:
We chose Elevation B. Which looks something like this:
It doesn't have any fancy stone or brick, but that's okay. I wanted to spend most of my money on the interior. However, the gable overhangs were a must. Our siding, shutter, and door color choices are different. We picked Irish Thistle siding, black shutters, and a Marooned front door. Here are the color swatches:
Like it? We do. The Irish Thistle is not quite green and not quite gray and was a good compromise for us. We both like the gray siding, but we weren't super excited by the shutter and door choices that came with it. I liked the Spanish Olive green, but my husband wasn't quite digging it. The tan options weren't really exciting to us. So, I showed him the Irish Thistle option, and we haven't looked back. Plus, I really like the Marooned door! (It's much prettier in person.)
For the interior:
We (after much debate and agony and torture and sleepless nights and back and forth and debate and agony and torture) decided to get the morning room. Our sales rep was super awesome and got us in to see a Venice currently being built without the morning room. It sealed the deal for us. While it is still nice without the morning room, it just didn't feel as big and open. Plus, the layout for the family room, dining room, and kitchen are the exact same in our current apartment and would only be 2 feet longer in the house. This just didn't really seem like much of a step up for us in a house we plan to live in for a very long time. We stretched our budget some, but it just feels worth it.
We want the gourmet island, but they changed the design from the curved look you see on the floor plans. So right now we're kind of not sure what is going to happen with that. We'll keep you posted on it.
We chose to have a 13x9 deck added now. We decided that a deck was really important, and the price seemed reasonable for the Trex Deck. We also talked with my brother who works in the carpentry/home remodel/contractor realm, and he said it really would be much easier to just have it put in now. Plus our basement is a walkout so the deck is definitely higher off the ground.
This leads me to the next option. The way our lot is, we were able to have a walkout exit from the basement so that's what we chose. Works for us and for down the road. Better than the alternative "escape hatch". We also have the bump out in the basement since we got the morning room.
In the master bath, we got double sinks. We chose the separate soaking tub and shower and opted for a seat in the shower. Love it!
Those are the major floor plan options we chose.
Now for our kitchen....
We chose the Scottsdale Maple Espresso Cabinets. They are a beautiful dark brown. I have always really liked dark cabinets so this was an easy pick. This is what they will look like:
I found the photo in a google search, and I believe that it is from another Venice. So thank you to the wonderful blogger before me!
Then I picked Santa Cecilia Light Granite. I originally selected the Santa Cecilia, but I was worried it would be too dark. With the dark cabinets, I want to keep the rest of the space light. Here is a close up of the Santa Cecilia Light:
I think it will also work better with our style than the more gold-toned Santa Cecilia.
We also picked the Santa Cecilia Light for our Master Bathroom counter top. The Maple Espresso cabinets will also be in both bathrooms upstairs, but the hall bath will have a white top.
As for the Master Bath....
We opted to get the floor, shower surround, and bathtub surround tiled. We stuck with the gray family. Here are the photos of our selections:
We stuck with a sort of light grayish tile for the floor and surrounds. Then I feel like the accent tiles tie in the gray and dark brown cabinets. I can't wait to see this finished.
Now for our flooring...
If you're still with me, hooray for you. I promise this is the last thing!
After much consideration and reading many, many blogs, we decided not to spend a ton of money on flooring. They didn't really offer many options, and they were way over priced. As much as I wanted hardwood throughout the downstairs, we decided we will just add that later when we have cash-in-hand. We upgraded the carpets one level to get the stain protection, and we upgraded the padding upstairs for durability. It pained me a little to pick vinyl for the kitchen and morning room, but I will survive for a year or 2 as-is. Here is a look at the vinyl with the cabinets. I'll survive.
The carpet we picked is a 'greige'. The gray-beige love child. It really works for us. It's made by Shaw and called Seattle Mist. Here is a sample:
The vinyl we picked for the upstairs second bath and laundry room is a lighter version of the kitchen vinyl and will carry us through until I can afford to tile them. I somehow forgot to take a picture of it, but it's very similar to what is in the kitchen. However, It's a little lighter and has a bit more gray in it.
We decided to pay an extra $25 to upgrade the hardwood in the foyer because that gave us two more dark wood options. This wood determined the stain on our banister on the stairs, so the darker woods were definitely important for when we put hardwood in down the road. I don't want to rip out or re-stain the banister. Here's a look:
Here's a look at our options all together:
While I would love to just have hardwoods and not the vinyl, it was a smart choice for us to wait. I can live with it. For now...
That's all we have for you for now, but we will be updating regularly. Thursday we have our wiring meeting with Trinity and our 30-day meeting to finalize all our options with Ryan Homes. We are hoping to have some kind of resolution to the gourmet island issue. I don't want to go into too much detail because I am trying not to let my emotions get the best of me and allow Ryan a shot to work it out for us.
Thanks for sticking around this long!
-J
