Granite Yard Voyage

Brad and I are heading to the granite yard on Thursday morning to select our granite slabs. We have already selected the colors we want but as we all know no two slabs are alike. We will be shopping for each of the following slabs:

Sapphire blue for the kitchen

Vicenza Brown for the master bath 

Santa Cecilia for the hall bath

When it comes to the granites we selected, only Santa Cecilia varies greatly from slab to slab. Santa Cecilia will often have many different tones and will go from an almost white to very yellow finish. We are hoping to find a whiter/lighter option in the yard. Click here for a little more information about Santa Cecilia granite.

Between now and Thursday morning I'll be reading all I can find about selecting granite slabs. Watch for a recap post of our voyage!

Major details = done

Brad and I spent yesterday morning selecting our carpet, tile and tile backsplash. Before arriving to select our flooring, we had to make the final decision on the granite for the kitchen. I was a little torn between using either the tan brown, that we originally selected, or a new option called "sapphire blue" In the end, we selected the sapphire blue. It has a lot of the same tones that the tan brown did but the brown-ish spots a little lighter and the blue specks are really my style.

Here as few photos for comparison:

Tan brown granite. Tan brown is a wonderful choice for kitchen granite but I worried for us that it was a little dark. The lighter areas also tend to have a pink undertone which just wasn't us.

Sapphire blue granite. Our builders wife said she has never used this granite, which worried us at first, but I think its really going to be wonderful for us.

< - - So pretty!!

With the granite selection finally made, we went about selecting tile flooring to go in the kitchen and bathrooms, carpet for the bedrooms and living room and then our backsplash. The hardest thing to select was the backsplash. We were given 6 choices of tile and only 3 choices of carpet so it was pretty easy to narrow those down. H and I try to do a process of eliminate to work from the ones we know we don't like down, seems to work pretty well.

Selecting the backsplash was difficult due to the large number of options we were given! We basically started with the entire showroom and worked from there. We negotiated the backsplash into our purchase price so a backsplash is not something the builder normally does. Due to this, the builders wife was also a little overwhelmed with the choices. We had spent a fair amount of time looking at different options online and discovered that we really liked the glass tile and stone mix look.

Inspiration 

Our final selections: 

Can't wait to see our kitchen installed! We selected the same tile and same carpet for the entire house. For the bathrooms, we will have the same tile as pictured above and the same cabinets and granite that we highlighted here.

Our next step is paint colors and lights. Our house is quickly becoming a home!

Speed racer!

It's been over a week since my last post and a lot has changed at the house! Brad and I made some decisions about the kitchens and bathrooms but still have a few to make. We are picking out tile, carpet and our backsplash tomorrow.

We have been getting out to the house every few days to see the progress and boy has there been a lot of it! In the past 9-days we have seen some major changes occur. They started and completed the framing, started on the roof and have it ready for shingles, started and mostly completed the siding, prepped for brick on the front of the house and got all the doors and windows in. They also started plumbing and installed the hall bath tub on the inside. I think the biggest difference was between the 18 and 19th because it basically went from a shell to really looking like a home. It's been amazing and fun to watch!

Decisions still to make: 

Flooring - scheduled for tomorrow (Saturday)

Lights - soon, maybe weekend after this one

Selecting our granite slabs - next week, still to be scheduled

Landscaping - probably not till June

Things we are watching for: 

Roof to be completed

Garage door to be added

Cabinet maker to chalk out cabinet layout

Brick work to begin

Siding to be finished

Have ride this has been so far! Can't wait for more!

Samples and decisions

Tuesday night was spent in a world wind of colors, textures and styles. In one hour twenty minutes, Brad and I selected cabinet styles and colors along with granite colors for our kitchen and two bathrooms. We left feeling accomplished and happy but then the DOUBT hit! We got home and I immediately started to doubt our selections. My biggest concern were the dark colored cabinets that we selected for the hall bath only. My concern centered around the fact that we only selected that color for the hall bath and had done the kitchen and master in the same lighter tone. I tend to be a symmetrical person when it comes to design so the idea of one cabinet being different, well I just couldn't wrap my mind around it.

A text to our relator but the breaks on ordering and a call to the cabinet man the next day had samples in my hand. Thankfully, cabinet man was understanding and said he didn't need to order our cabinets for at least another week and he could bring me samples so I could visual see our selections again. As soon as I had the samples, I felt so much better about our choices. However, the idea of only the one bath having dark cabinets was still causing me mental brain farts.

So here's what my crazy female mind, as Brad likes to say, is thinking now. Dark cabinet color in the hall bath and master and lighter cabinet in kitchen. All granites would stay the same, however, here I go again with my female mind, we might try to find a lighter granite for the master. We are happy with a darker granite in the kitchen and not concerned because it gets lots of natural light. Decisions, decisions. 

We did make one decisions that I'm not concerned about and that's the style of the cabinets. With a builder we had only five different options and felt this design was the best.

We liked the detail on the door and the raised panel.

Kitchen Conundrum

Brad and I will be picking out our kitchen with the builder's wife tomorrow night! Now that tomorrow is tomorrow, it seems so close. We've discussed what we like and what we don't but trying to nail it down has been difficult.

We know we don't like white or light wood colored cabinets, so we are mostly focusing on a dark cherry or maple finishes but the countertops are our biggest confusion. Granite comes standard in our new place so light or dark is the question. The kitchen in our new home is a decent size and receives good natural light but I'm concerned that going too dark will make the room appear smaller than it really is.

Below is a photo of the finished house we viewed. I actually really love the colors they selected. I think the cabinets are a wonderful color and the granite they selected was soothing in the room.  

Kitchen in finished sample home.

We negotiated in a back-splash and cabinet hardware so we have a few other pieces to consider and I think it might be the extras that are throwing me off. I'm not sure how to pair a back-splash with granite or what kind of back-splash to do. I tend to be drawn to the glass tile back-splashes.

Inspiration photos:

I know they look pretty similar but I really like both of these looks.

These cabinets with the brown toned granite is really great!

I really like the darker granite in this photo.

Really love glass tile back-splashes!

Oh so many choices!!

Check marks

On Wednesday night, Brad and I along with our agent met with the builder and his wife to select colors for the outside of the house. Because the slab was already poured they needed to order windows and a few other items quickly so framing could begin. It was all a little overwhelming at first but we knew of a house by the same builder that we really liked so we went with the same general color scheme.

From the front our house will look like this:

Outside of complete house, our floor plan.

This is closer to the color scheme that we selected including the brick color.

These are the colors we selected.

We selected colors for the windows, garage door, siding, and front door. We also selected the style of windows we wanted. We selected what the builder called a "six on top" style window. Here's an example:

I really love the design we selected for our front door and I can't wait to see it! Our door will look very similar to the one below with the glass work, we will not have the two side panels or panel above though.

The design of the glass is called

Naples Glass with Antique Black Caming.

Ask for the moon and see what you get

Our strategy for bidding on our first home was to ask for the moon and see what we could get. Our agent cautioned that while she thought our requests were reasonable, we shouldn't expect the builder to agree to all of them. We expected them to agree to the smaller things but maybe not the larger, more expensive requests. We were all shocked when the builder agreed to it all.

Here's the little extras we requested:

• Tile in the master closet instead of carpeting like in the sold comparable house because the closet is attached to the master bath. 
• Glass doors installed on the master shower
• An additional cable jack installed in the living room. We liked the idea of having jacks on two separate walls because it will give us more options for furniture placement and will also, we believe, help with re-sale because buyers will be able to picture their furniture in more than one set-up. 
• Upper cabinets in the laundry room. I personally love this idea because the garage is right off the laundry area. These cabinets will provide a lot of added storage. 
• Patio extension. The plans call for a patio of 7 ft which makes it even with the roof line but for grilling and outdoor living purposes we liked the idea of a larger patio area.
• Mirrors and all fixtures for the bathrooms including towel racks, etc
• Tile back splash in kitchen
• Upgraded carpet pad. Builder grade carpet pad is very thin and an upgraded pad will make help improve the look and feel of any carpet. 
• Extra linen closet installed that was present in sold comparable house but not on floor plan. Our agent said it would likely come standard because builder change floor plans slightly as they go along building them but it never hurts to clarify anything. 
• Larger window to be installed over the kitchen window. We had originally ask for this but during our first meeting with the builder it was discussed that we would have to lose cabinet space or the crown molding on the cabinets for it to be accomplished and we weren't willing to do that. So, the money allotted for this larger window will be devoted to additional landscaping in the front of the house.
• Our last request was a 6 ft privacy fence to be installed in the backyard. Our agent said it was unlikely due to cost that they would agree to this last request but they did! We are so happy! A fence was one of Brad's major wants so its great to check a major want off the list.

Under Contract!

We are officially under contract for our first home! Our agent called at 12:57pm to let us know the builder had accepted our bid and was willing to include all the little "extras" we asked for in the purchased price. We are pretty shocked right now but can't wait to get the process started. The process will start quickly too because they want us to go and pick out windows TONIGHT.

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my first blog! My husband and I are starting the exciting journey of buying and building our first home. We never imagined we would tackle building a home from the ground up but after seeing homes available on the market in our price range, building was the best idea for us. We can build a new home for the same price as an existing home. Our journey starts now and this is going to be a crazy ride!