This morning Sibylle and I met with the builder (Lon), his agent (Katie), and our agent (Eileen) to review most of the interior design decisions and sign off on them. By the end of our two hour meeting we had initialed some 25 times our acceptance of some color or texture or feature or style.
It may be easier to list the items remaining to be selected or picked than cover the ones we are done with. Plumbing fixtures and lighting are the two major remaining areas were we get input.
Here’s what we settled today:
- Utility sink style for laundry room and garage
- Garden tub for master bath instead of jetted tub
- Credit for spare (unused) recessed lights $300
- Approved exit door location in garage
- Understanding that concrete pad for garage exit door won’t be affixed with porch bracket and therefore will move as ground moves.
- Approved extra power outlet locations in garage
- Approved installation of frost free faucets on outside of house
- Approved re-orienting deck stairs
- Approved fireplace mantle design, and that it will be painted like interoir trim
- Approved hardwood floor selection for kitchen, pantry, dining, living, and master bed rooms, and front entry hall
- Approved carpet selection for upstairs bedrooms, master bedroom closet, and stairs. And selected anti-microbial cushion for under carpet in those locations
- Approved carpet selection for studio space
- Approved tile selections for bathroom floors, shower walls, master bath back splash, shower accent, fireplace surround, and patio entry.
- Approved increase in flooring allowance to match similar house recently completed by same builder
- Selected colors for vanity tops in master, hall, and half baths
- Selected interior wall colors and trim color
- Approved masonry selection for front facade
- Saw samples of exterior house color and picked a beautiful blue
- Requested that exposed foundation on sides of house be painted blue as well
Whew.
It was a good session, light hearted at times, and accomplishing quite a bit. We both feel very good about the choices and selections we made. And it felt good to be in control of so many things. Especially the exterior house color. We visited the house late this afternoon and saw samples of the color on the house itself and it looked very good.
The base paint used by the house painters is slightly different than what Lon used for his small samples, so he wanted us to see it as it will be on the house. It looks marvelous.
Midway through the meeting we went outside to have a discussion with the city ordinance guys about the shape of the driveway. The primary speaker was very inconsistent with his answers, changing the allowed width of the drive at the “throat” (the point of the drive 10′ in from the road) from 24 to 28 to 26 to 30 to 24 feet in a matter of minutes. He was also very good at not listening to the question asked, he was more focused on his answer than my questions. Realizing that I could only make our situation worse by persisting, I left the discussion. Tomorrow we’ll find out what the city will allow.
On the whole a very good day in building our house.
