Final Selections

It was finally time for our final selections- IE the exterior of the home.  We easily agreed on the Spanish Olive for the siding but the shutters and doors was another matter. I really wanted a red door.  Red doors are supposed to let in happiness and I really want my home to be a happy place.  Alas the red door selections were few and then didn't look well with the shutters.  The SR mentioned that most people just pick black shutters- we shut that down immediately.

In the end we picked one of their suggested color schemes:  Spanish  Olive siding, Fiery Red Shutters and a French Roast Door

For the stone we chose the option as it seem to capture all the colors of the exterior.

Other selections we made was to add two more outlets for the prewires and that was it.  I try to convince them that they wanted to throw in the gourmet island for free but to no avail.


We considered adding the wet bar but decided that it would probably be cheaper using an outside source, in addition this would probably be the person helping to finish out the media room.

This a shot of the media room in the model.  It's HUGE! 

Take it from the top

I guess I need to give a little background on how we arrived at the decision to build a home vs purchasing a resale.

Earlier this year while we were in the just looking stage- my husband gave explicit instructions to look for homes that are 20 years old or less.  Not a hard thing to do- except it really made no sense until we were ready to purchase because any home that we really liked would have been sold before we were ready to buy.  

The game plan was to create superior credit by paying down debt in a massive way- this we started in February and had made huge strides  and cleared quite a few credits cards and even payed off a car note.  Well sometime in May- after coming from a swim class for my oldest son, S, I came across a Toll Brothers sign advertising new construction.  My curiosity got the better of me and I drove over to the site and really liked what I saw.  I immediately told me husband who told me no, we couldn't afford it.  I let it go but that must have got him interested in the idea of new construction.  A week later we toured the Toll Brothers model home and was wowed.  So much so, we spent the rest of the day traveling Toll Brother sites looking at model homes.

Thus started our interest in new construction.  My husband began researching other sites and I was pretty much resistant to all of them, I wanted the first one and had even chosen my preferred model, the Columbia.  I made him go to community events, prefilled out paper work that he refused to sign, I cried and and yelled and was just plain in a bad mood for about 2 weeks.  But then I decided, just to follow his game plan and point out what I LIKED about a site first before I shot it down.  But he always got me back- he would get my hopes about a home, then decide we had to look at one more place. 

Honestly- most of these places were pretty decent but had some fatal flaws- one place the lot size was JUST big enough to fit the house- no backyard or rather NO yard at all for the kids.  Another had power lines right in the back yard-no thank you!  One offered nearly 1 acre lots and pretty much promised to customize the home anyway we wanted.   I just wasn't interested in having a septic system for sewage, yuck!  And Toll Brothers?  Lovely homes- they just all pushed the top of our budget AT base price.  And when I visited someone else's home who opted not to do a lot of the upgrades I was sorely disappointed on what was considered standard.   

But I persisted and it was on a visit to yet another Toll Brothers site (there are like 8-10 of them within  a 30- 40 min drive of my home in Philadelphia) that we decided to visit another builder.  We had seen the sign for this community several times but had totally ignored it but now something seemed to call us to it.  It was a Ryan Homes community and we walked in about 30 minutes before closing .  The sales rep (SR) decided to walk us around the home (the first time ANY of the reps except for the one with the septic tank had performed that task for us).  We discussed the features of the model home, the Ravenna and for me, after seeing the grandness of the other homes, the model felt "tight"  She went to her wonder wall (touch screen with the models being offered at the community) and told us about the Verona and its open floor plan.  She briefly mentioned the Courtland Gate but said she believed she will not be able to offer it any more- she hadn't sold any since the site opened up a year ago.

Did I mention that I was stubborn?  I took the information but refused to make a commitment because we had another meeting next week at a brand new Toll Brothers site.