So if you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed last night that I posted a little photo with the progress of our new home. Yep, the second floor is going up this week!
While we are extremely excited to see some major progress and know they will finish before the holiday season, I have to say that I’m second guessing every single selection we made for our new home.
But our final color sheet was turned in and that’s it… no more changes to the new digs from here on out.
In case you haven’t heard or don’t remember, we’re building a new home with a local homebuilder, but luckily we were able to customize the floorplan to fit my family’s needs.
One thing I have to say though is that it’s kinda hard to choose from pre-selected cabinets, countertops, etc. I mean we could’ve asked for custom items, but it would have driven up the price of the home. Yeah, can’t have that.
Well we ended up choosing white cabinets since I wanted a light and bright kitchen…
And since I couldn’t afford granite, I had to choose from these color chips for our countertops. Yep, with all of these choices I still didn’t find what I was looking for… and then it changed my entire kitchen plan from white/gray to white/beige. URGH, this was the biggest change in my dream home plans, but I’m rolling with it knowing I can always upgrade down the road.
One of the things I absolutely LOVED about our home builder were the Moen plumbing fixtures. Yep, ALL Moen. And the standard fixtures were all amazing.
I was shocked that I didn’t even need to spend tons of money to upgrade my bathroom since the “builder grade” was exactly what I was looking for.
One of the fixtures I did upgrade was our kitchen faucet. At a conference this past year I was introduced to the Moen MotionSense kitchen faucet and quickly fell in love. Wave your hand above the faucet and it turns on or off. Or you can place your hands or object near the sensor at the base and it turns on.
LOVE this faucet. Great for kiddos that can’t quite reach the handle, or when your hands are covered in grime. Definitely going to cut down on bacteria in our kitchen! (see more about it here)
So we also had to pick out colors for the exterior of our home. Siding, shutters, shingles…
And who knew they would have about 50 different colors of brick? How many different red bricks can one company make? Let’s just say I was going cross-eyed by the end of this decision.
I have to say I’m pretty calm with our exterior decisions. There are plenty of homes in the neighborhood with the same colors scheme so I know what I’m getting into.
But the interior, that’s a different story.
It would have been so much easier to pick out everything that was in the display model or to have purchased an inventory home. But oh well, I’m rolling the dice and fingers crossed that everything turns out ok!
Flooring, lighting, countertops, cabinets, stain color, fireplace marble, brick, siding, shutters, windows… whoever said building a house from scratch was fun was clearly insane. I find it stressful.
Anyone else in the same boat with past experiences?
Sue says
Erin,
What you are describing now is why new construction has never appealed to me. However, you have such a good eye for design that I am sure your color choices will look great. And like you said, you can always change/upgrade down the line. How exciting that you will be in before the holidays, looking forward to seeing the rest of the construction!
Sue
Amanda says
Oh my goodness I can’t agree with you more!! We are about 3 weeks away from moving in ad it’s great to finally start seeing things come together 🙂 I have to say, it’s not 100% what I pictured in my head, but it all looks amazing and it’s nothing we can’t live with for now and maybe even change in the future. I’ve learned my lesson though – I don’t think I’ll ever build again, and I’ll definitely never build while pregnant (we found out the day we broke ground!!!)
Annie says
Erin,
Your home will be beautiful!! And the Moen Motion Sense faucet, how cool is that!
Annie
howtonestforless says
LOVE it!! Just arrived in the mail over the weekend 😉
Kim G says
I think choices when building have come a LONG way! We built our house 15 years ago and we had about 2 or 3 choices for the standard cabinets, appliances, countertops and faucets. Then there were 2 levels of upgrades on all of those items and they were horrifically expensive. I would have loved to have more choices, but that just wasn’t the case. I also think it depends on the builder, too. Some builders offer a little more in their home store than others. Aside from the lack of choices, we had a great building experience and I would readily do it again (we are still in the house we built). I’m still hoping to get my dream house one of these days. 🙂
howtonestforless says
I agree Kim! We built our first home 7 years ago and it was 2 choices of cabinets, about 10 of countertops… a lot has changed! It’s still hard to not have full control, but I guess until we can afford that custom dream home, I’ll just have to upgrade certain items later!
Megan says
Erin, I know your pain. I had to do all my colour selections 3 weeks after giving birth to our fourth child. I knew it was coming so I went around and pick most of the things (bricks, roof tiles, downpipe colour ect) while I was heavily pregnant. The day of our colour and fixtures selection I’d had no sleep because our builder didn’t want to waste too much time putting everything on paper. Although I love our house I wish I’d spent more time looking into the electrical side of things as having power points on the side of the island bench in the kitchen would have been smart. Don’t think I’ll build again 🙂
howtonestforless says
Unless I have complete control, I dont know if I could do this again. Too stressful!! And I couldn’t even imagine bring pregnant with 3 other little ones 🙂 You brave woman!
Cheryl @ Artzzle says
Your first home was very nicely done. I have no doubt the new one will be just as lovely. Can’t wait to see your pictures and tour of that one!
howtonestforless says
Thank you so much Cheryl!
BeachyKeen says
I love your home…but why no color? I noticed your first home had no color on the walls….you have to be trusting of color and let it enter your world….I know it can be difficult…it took me some time as well…But once you do…you can never go back…your home is gorgeous! Your ideas are awesome…but ya gotta have color…..
howtonestforless says
I’m a BIG fan of color… it’s just takes me awhile to get there! We still haven’t painted the new place as I like to take my time picking out paint. I also like neutral furniture and wall color at times so I can easily change out textiles, like area rugs and accent pillows to change with the season or my mood!