Yesterday was our design center appointment. The one where you walk through the beautiful showroom and drool over everything you think you can’t have. We were so excited, yet nervous. You hear horror stories of going to the design center and going WAY over budget so that fear takes over! We were also super excited to be able to pick all of our colors for our very own house..the place where Munch will grow up, go to school, play with her friends, and have sleepover parties!
The appointment started out choosing electrical options. We were pretty discouraged at first because they kept naming off options of things we didn’t even think about, but needed. It seemed to eat up our budget real quick. I was thinking “wouldn’t it be better to put this at the end so you can choose your pretty stuff first!??” But then there probably wouldn’t be any money left!
Once we started getting into the kitchen and bathroom options it got more fun! We thought we had it all figured out until we started debating over granite styles, whether to do granite throughout the bathrooms too and what floors to choose. Did you know there are SEVERAL styles of wood plank tile and TONS of grout choices?! It’s like going to the eye doctor and they are like “Camera one? Camera two?” We ended up with some options that REALLY worked with our style. At the end though, we did have to sit down and decide on wants vs. needs since we did end up over our budget. We ended up choosing a beautiful backsplash and blinds over upgrading all the bathroom fixtures throughout since you can change that out yourself later easily.
Here are our final choices! We also did one of those awesome black granite composite sinks. I can’t WAIT to see it all together!
It’s important when choosing home options to think about what is easy to change out later and what will be the best investment. In my experience… Kitchen’s, Bathrooms, and Flooring sell homes. Fixtures can be easily changed out after closing and purchased at a lower price than the builder offers. For example, we priced sink faucets at Lowe’s the day before our appointment. The same faucet was $200 at Lowes vs. $500 through the builder. You also have to think about whether you want to finance an option for 30 years or just pay for it up front and do it yourself after you close.
If you’re looking to do a new build yourself and would like FREE representation from me, the #NewBuildNinja, contact me at [email protected]! We’ll also hook you up with this sweet deal we have going on now if you close on a New Build with our team!
Stay tuned…next up is our Pre-Construction meeting! Getting close to breaking ground!
-JD aka #NewBuildNinja
