Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The Details

Tomorrow we're scheduled to visit with our Adair rep, Jackie, and pick out the house details. Everything from countertops to windows & appliances. I'ma post the floorplan one more time for y'all, and see what input you can come up with. I value experience & advice. :)

Here's something I worked on last night; house paint. The exterior paint colors, doors, trim, garage, etc. We get to pick our own paint colors and actually paint the house ourselves.

I started with a black & white pdf version of our home, and gave it some paint treatments.


This one is a more mellow, Williamsburg-type green with a red door accent color. The stone facade around the garage & porch posts will be a "slate" type, natural-looking stone. I've already decided that. The roof will likely be brown. We only have 3 shades of shingles to choose from. 




Next, I went with a more olive-y warm green, with chestnut accents. I think next I will try a white garage door. I can't help it, but something in me really wants a RED DOOR on my house! :)


And here's the floor plan again. 

I'm still thinking about black painted cabinets, maybe slightly distressed finish, with white quartz or equivalant countertops.






2 comments:

  1. It looks lovely. And I completely agree, that out west, the old homes are basically just "old". Not quaint, not beautiful, not appealing. We built finally here in Las Vegas because the price was equal to what we would be paying for ones less than 10 years old, with things we didn't like anyway. For us, it was smarter to pay very close to the same and get to choose exactly what we wanted (to an extent, in certain things). Especially since this is not our FINAL home. We want to build in NC, a "dream home." :)

    I would say, if Adair makes you choose appliances based on a small selection, try to do what you can to get your own. It's too easy to go with their selection, and be unhappy. They may be getting a deal, but if you're unhappy it doesn't pay.

    Lastly, if you have your heart set on certain things that may take a few months to get the money for (say, custom cabinets), do what you can to live without cabinets at all, rather than spend on lesser ones and never really like them.

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  2. A lot depends on if you're thinking of this as a long term home for yourself or looking at re-sell-ability?
    If you're looking at re-sell value, go a little more neutral. Don't do the red door (actually, I'd recommend that anyway as garage doors are expensive to replace and if you end up not liking it you're going to be stuck with it for a long time - and red kinda locks you into a color scheme and is not easy to paint over, especially on a metal door). As your window frames will probably be white, just match your door to that - trim paint is where you do colors easier. I was a bit horrified at the concept of white garage door (with white windows) and then using creamy trim color, but truthfully, you really don't notice the white. The best thing to do is drive around and look at some newer neighborhoods where they've used some nice colors. Playing on the computer is not the same as seeing it in natural light - especially for exterior paint. (BTW, if you need it, we have a paint sprayer that Jeff used to do our house and it worked great.)
    Go for the Quartz if you can - it's the most durable of all the countertop materials - highest temp resistant,etc. The mottled colors are a blessing for cleaning, too - I can hardly even tell when my countertop is dirty until I rub my hand on it;) I'd also recommend choosing your countertop pattern first - then match everything else to it. It will be the dominating factor in your kitchen, especially if you go light colored.
    I may have already told you this, but after much research and angst over kitchen flooring, we went vinyl (everybody thought we were crazy for not using wood or tile, but...). I almost went tile, but decided it was too high maintenance (future sealings, breakage, etc.), too cold and too hard. The laminate wood floors are crazy for a kitchen - one bad spill and you have to replace half the floor - what a nightmare. Real wood is the alternative, but again, more maintenance and for me, more worries about water damage. Plus having dogs will tear it up.
    Does Adair give you limited choices for things like flooring and countertops? Do they have a place where you can see them all? or take home samples? If so, DO THAT! Samples can look totally different in a store than at home. I thought I had a countertop all picked out, until I saw it in a display kitchen at Home Depot and HATED it! The 12x12 sample was very deceiving. Kinda like that room you were talking about a while back where the green paint looked yellow in different light;)
    As for appliances, you can save a lot by going to Sears Outlet, using Ebay (new!) and Craigslist. I found the dishwasher I wanted, but it was like $1000 and I thought we'd just put in our old one temporarily until later when maybe I could find one cheaper. Then Sears had a sale, and even though I had to drive to Chehalis to get it, I got it for $599! Also, lots of contractors selling appliances out there brand new because their clients changed their minds. Are you going gas or electric? I highly recommend gas:)
    I love slate - but I'm not sure I'd put green with it, unless it's a gray-green? It tends towards blues/grays. You could ask about the tones in their slates - it depends a lot on where it comes from.
    The easiest way to do trim is to get the gutter colors (they have a limited list of colors to choose from ) and then match your trim to that color, then contrast house color - may seem backwards, but it saves you from having to paint the gutters yourself and then having the paint peel.
    That's probably way more advice than you wanted:P Sorry, I get going on this topic that has ruled my life for the last year! So many things to think about! We learned the long, hard way on some of them. Thank the Lord, Jeff is a measure-4X-cut-once kind of guy, or we'd probably have had a lot more issues!

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