I never realized how hard it could be to pick colors. I think the most confusing thing to pick was the outside siding & shutters. Apparently you can choose from 5-6 shades of white-beige. And then with each color, there are only a few colors you can choose ranging from a green, burgundy, black, brown, etc. You can't choose colors similar to the houses around yours. The house to the left is from the other builder and is yellow. The house to the right is a Ryan home, just finished and is beige. After much deliberation, we decided to choose a whitish color called "Cameo" and Federal Brown/Turkish Coffee for the shutters & front door. No other house in the neighbhorhood has Cameo, so i'm happy about that but i'm also kind of nervous...it's so hard to imagine it all put together.
Next came the counter tops....This is something we did not upgrade because we liked their vinyl options. We chose Butterum Granite...apparently a popular choice i realized after reading other blogs last night. We did not upgrade the cabinets so they are Fairfield Maple Spice.
The next appointment was with Rite Rug to choose all the flooring. This was the hardest appointment because we had to choose color of the hardwood, vinyl, carpet, tile, grout, etc. Not only do you have to choose all of those things, you have to put them together to make sure that the carpets match the hardwoods and the vinyl matches the cabinets, etc...etc....We took the advice of other bloggers and upgraded to the 10 lb carpet pad as well as the "Level 2" carpet. Next came the bathrooms. The guest bathroom was relatively easy since we did not need to upgrade anything. However, the master bath was challenging because we paid to do the major upgrade in that room...but the choices for basic tile were not very appealing. If you upgrade, you get MANY more options, plus a decorative peice, plus the tile in the bathtub & shower is the same tile on the floors, etc. We debated about this alot...but we decided to go ahead and do it since we did upgrade that room in the first place.
While that meeting was challenging, the Rite Rug representative was more than helpful and i truly enjoyed the appointment. She is a designer, not someone who is going to make commission on whatever i choose. Since i was having a hard time picturing everything together, she was very good at helping me pick between the ones i liked and tell me if she thought something wouldn't look good. She also came prepared with pictures of models she has decorated which was VERY helpful!
Yesterday was our Guardian appointment...which we enjoyed also. Once again, the representative was SO nice and friendly. He didn't try to sell their stuff or make us feel pressured into the upgrades. He went over everything that would be included , what upgrades other people are adding, etc. The most important things were the Cable & Phone Pre-Wires as well as the security system. We did end up pre-wiring all of the rooms for one or the other, depending on their use. The security system is free to install, but you can add upgrades like a bigger keypad that talks to you, or multiple keypads, etc. Initially, we decided to add an additional keypad upstairs so we could use the motion detectors. If you don't add this you cant set the motion detectors and then run upstairs... They also have an allowance for dogs less than 100 pounds..it wont set off the motion detectors. Later in the discussion about the security systems, he mentioned that they have a service called "total connect" where you can manage your system from your cell phone. This is an additioanl $5/month. I immediately asked if we would still need the second keypad upstairs if we could set it from our phones....and we saved $195! Later, he went through their other options, home theater systems, surround sound, central vacuum (which i really wanted) but we opted out of these options. This was probably our cheapest appointment yet!
So now everything is picked out and we are meeting with our PM this week!
