Monday, August 20, 2012

Selections are written in stone

I've been working on this post for a long time, but I wanted to have all the details nailed down before listing things.  As it is there's still one thing we're waiting on but I got tired of holding on to this post...it was pretty much finished on Saturday.

We're building a Rome, Elevation E, with side entry garage, per plan (not reversed).  As far as I can discover this exact format hasn't been blogged about yet, so here is the brochure drawing:

Elevation E - drawing

We are doing all siding in Irish Thistle, with Island Pearl as the accent shake siding in the upper middle.  Shutters and Doors will be Black; trim, garage door, and gutters will be white.  We have brick to grade in our community and we picked Grand Caramel, but I don't have a picture of that.  Apparently our roof color is Weathered Wood, whatever that means.  Here is my artistic rendering of what our house will look like:

elevation E - colors
Obviously that's not going to be EXACT, but it's roughly what it'll look like on the outside.  Only more three-dimensional.

Inside is pretty standard for the Rome...elevation E does have extra square footage in the loft (2 foot bump) and bedroom four (1 foot bump).  We upgraded the master bath to the shower stall with a bench and put jets in the tub, and did the double-bowl vanity in both bathrooms.

Top floor:
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Non-standards: raised the dryer vent three feet above plan (no charge), centered the laundry room door on the wall (on the version we first saw it was centered, but the version when we signed had it all the way on the end - $200)

We got the gourmet island, 42" cabinets, morning room, extra windows in morning room and family room, recessed lights in the kitchen (plus a couple extra for pendants down the road), double-patio door on morning room (instead of slider), 12x14 wood deck (not pictured because I'm not sure what it'll look like).
Main floor:
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Non-standards:  put a single oven in the island (more on this in another post - $2250), removed mudroom closet ($200), put the laundry tub in the garage (apparently we can no longer get it in the laundry room for some reason, so no charge beyond the cost of the tub itself), extra coach light outside garage (standard is we only get one on one side, $300).  We're getting the gas range, so we also have the alternate microwave location, which is fine with me because I don't really want it above the range anyways.  Here's the alternate location for the Rome (this is a home we walked through when deciding our floor plan...I think that might be our cabinet choice, too):

IMG_7954

We got a finished basement as part of our incentive package (along with $7500 towards upgrades), and put in a powder room and recessed lights.  Since we have a walkout, we don't have to have a sump pump, apparently.  Basement:

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Non-standard:  moved walkout door from the side of the morning room to the back (no charge).


Inside finishes:
Manchester Gunstock hardwood flooring (base level hardwood)
2nd level carpet (beige pictured, but I might be changing the upstairs to a light gray)
6lb carpet pad
base level vinyl
upgraded master bath tile (not sure what level...2 or 3, I think)
black appliances
Blue Storm laminate countertops
Wyoming Cherry Bordeaux cabinets (bathrooms will have the basic maple spice)
oil-rubbed bronze everything (the only metal thing not ORB should be the kitchen sink)

FLOORING

We're getting ethernet ports put in 4 rooms, wiring for surround sound in the basement (this is what we're waiting on...they didn't include it in our original quote, so we're having to jump through hoops to get pricing), and a central vacuum.  The low-voltage appointment (we don't have Guardian here) was actually the easiest out of all the appointments we've had yet, but the follow-up has been disappointing.  Flooring wasn't all that hard either since we pretty much stuck to what we'd budgeted for, but it did take a while to nail down colors and such.

I THINK that's everything...let me know if I left something out.  :)

23 comments:

  1. Beautiful choices. By far one of the most detailed and descriptive "selections" posts I've seen - well done!

    I like that newer plans seem to have an optional microwave location... for us they either wanted to raise it higher over the stove (which we chose) or install it under a standard cabinet and lose counter space.

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    1. Thanks! I know my audience is going to be mostly other builders, so I'm trying to make my blog useful.

      That microwave location had me worried until we saw it in that house...I knew I didn't want it over the stove but I didn't know how it would muck up the cabinet layout. If I had the choice I wouldn't have any of those narrow cabinets, but it LOOKS okay and that's probably more important. I'll just use the narrow one for rarely-used sauces or something. :)

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  2. Nice choices! :) BTW the columns with the railings really make the porch stand out and look amazing!! I think its one of the best features of the Rome!

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    1. I saw it on your blog, and it does look great! Not sure whether we'll need them or not, apparently it depends on how high the porch ends up being...but I'm going to go ahead and assume we are. It's a good slope from the front to the back of the house.

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  3. Hi Amanda,
    You know I am in love with Elevation E! :-) You know I was bamboozled on this option!! So it gives me great pleasure to watch yours being built!! They claim they cannot do Elevation E because the shake siding does not fit in with the look and feel of our community! BS They also do not offer all vinyl homes in our community regardless of the model for the same reason.

    My favorite aspects of elevation E: the front porch, of course, the huge side by side windows on the porch, the large peak at the top, the pretty columns and the shake siding. It is one of the best looking exteriors for the Rome. Congratulations!

    We have a walk out basement with a sump pump that will be installed. How come they are not putting the sump pump in your house? What do you plan on doing with the mudroom, are you installing a hutch for coats?

    When we submitted our contract the gas range was okay under the OTR microwave; however, that has changed. It's nice to see an alternate layout of the kitchen cabinets with the microwave. Some people have opted to use that slim cabinet as a spice cabinet. Pretty cute idea! :-)

    Very nice blog, Amanda! I am sure you are going to love love the oven island! HOLLA! When do you break ground?

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    1. Yes, we were very happy to be able to get the E...I've always had a porch of some kind, and not having one was just going to bug me for the rest of my life! lol

      I will double-check on the sump pump, but they specifically told me we wouldn't need one. In the mudroom we're going to have a bench with storage underneath for shoes and coat hooks above. The alternative would have been to do shoes in the garage, and that just doesn't seem right to me.

      We actually have that slim cabinet in our current house, and it does NOT work well for spices. Too narrow, too deep, and too high. I actually prefer my spices in a drawer. Maybe I'll do a post on that down the road!

      Don't have a date yet...we only just got the non-standard quotes so they still have to draw the blueprints and submit for the permits.

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    2. I understand!! Our loan was approved on July 3 and it took them forever to return with the customizations/non-standards. They day I thought we were going to schedule our date to break ground was the same day we were told Elevation E was no longer an option. Now we are waiting for the front porch approval from the county which pushed us back. I do not mind waiting because the SR's schedule for other homes to be built was on the same timeframe. She can only break ground on one house per week. We are at least on the schedule for a tentative date that I hope moves up or is finalized.

      Since there is very little closet space, my original idea was to turn the laundry room upstairs into a coat closet. However, I have changed my mind and I am going to have a complete closet system built in the garage that will include the shoe rack. We won't be wearing shoes in the house so I wanted the shoe removal before entry. We asked for the garage to be insulated on all walls and home depot has garage door insulation that we will install ourselves. It's really simple. We also plan to finish our the entire garage with paint and epoxy the floors.

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  4. what community in Richmond are you building?

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  5. It's so funny that my house is the same color on the outside as yours. We are building a Capri in Virginia, but I have not started a blog because I will not be there throughout the building process. Our house is a Capri (it has a first floor master), Elevation L, it's like a cottage elevation, with a full porch. The outside is irish thistle, with island pearl shake, and white trim. Our doors and shutters are blackwatch green and our brick is Savannah Moss. Our counter tops are also Bluestorm...you have great taste!

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    1. I am building the Capri, just wondering where you are building, our community requires side entry garage, porch, partial brick at least, and brick to grade...we may be neighbors!

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    2. None of those options except brick to grade were required in our neighborhood, that just happened to be the combo we liked best. We actually didn't like the Rome at first because we didn't know side-entry was an option and thought it was odd looking with front entry! Our neighborhood doesn't have many restrictions on appearance.

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  6. I can't wait to see the oven in the island! That sounds awesome! Did you consider requesting a non-standard wall double oven instead? It's AMAZING!

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    1. We did, but my husband was very much not a fan of adding the additional cabinets the way that Maria (Home Sweet Rome) did. He felt like they would block traffic. I'm not going to tell you what I thought of what he thought. ;) But I did some soul searching and realized what really mattered was having two ovens, not specifically having the double wall ovens, so he was appeased and I got what I needed with this plan. Besides, it was at least 50% cheaper than the wall ovens, I'm sure!

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  7. I'm building a Rome in Richmond too!

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    1. Wonderful! Are you going to blog about it?

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    2. Hi Jessica, hope you join us on the home builder's blog! We are building a Rome in Maryland!! Would love to have you on board!

      Feel free to join us at ricknadase.blogspot.com to follow our journey. just click the "join this site"

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    3. We are probably going to blog about our experience, but we are still trying to sell our house before breaking ground. but we have made all our selections and picked the lot and signed all the paper work!

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    4. What neighborhood? You can email me if you'd rather not put in on here. :)

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    6. Can you send me an email? You can get to it from my profile, by clicking on my name. I want to get into specifics with you and I'd rather not do it online!

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  8. Hi Amanda, those selections look great! We picked Sahara Buff for everywhere we're getting carpet except for the family room (family room special for upgraded pad + higher level carpet ended up being only $50 more). We also got the word that the microwave has to be offset from the range. In that layout I have no idea where they would actually put it, so something to add for the pre-construction meeting!

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    1. The only place they could put it in your floorplan would be next to the double ovens, I think. Which wouldn't be horrible. There just aren't any cabinets over the countertops that could accommodate it.

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