Hello friends! Well, we are at the end! The house is done and we will be moving in on Monday! The last few weeks have been very stressful. We've run into several issues that we wanted taken care of before we closed. Mostly due to texture and paint on the walls. There are still a few more things that will have to be taken care of after we move in....but we are so excited to finally get in!
July 18 - Kitchen Cabinets and granite have been installed. The kitchen is one of the things that I have a grand vision for in the future. I really want it to be beautiful and timeless. I want white cabinets, stacked cabinets with glass and lighting up top. Roll out cabinets. Lots of customization inside the cabinets to help with organization. That just wasn't going to happen with this builder and with our budget. For one thing, to upgrade to white cabinets was going to be atlas $7,000 more. And, the cabinets that the builder uses are not real wood. They are melamine. So even if spent $7,000 more, they weren't going to be what I really wanted. And to add in all of the other extras I wanted it would not have even been possible for what I was willing to pay right now.
My husband's cousin is a beautiful finish carpenter and builds custom cabinetry. I had him come in before we even signed papers and quote what it would cost to get the kitchen that I really want. It wasn't much more than what I would have paid the builder just to upgrade to white. So, I decided to put in the cabinet that the builder included with the price of the house and in a few years, I will redo my kitchen the way I really want. Luckily, the cabinets that came with the house are ones that I do like. We have very similar cabinets in our current home. I did add in a few upgrade just to make them more functional while I am going to be using them over the next few years. After seeing them installed, I am happy with the choice that I made except for ONE thing. I wish I had paid a little bit extra to get the 42" uppers. Looking back, it really would have been worth the added expense and I think I would have liked the look of them better. But considering everything else, that is my ONLY regret on finishes in the entire house. Not too bad!
By the way, we are planning on putting in a full kitchen downstairs when we finish it, so my plan is to move the current kitchen cabinets down there when I get my new custom ones.
I really love the granite that I chose. It's called Black and White. It matches really well with our current cabinets. I think it will also go well with white cabinets. And its great with the paint color.
They've also started working on the stucco on the outside of our house.
July 23 - The bathroom cabinets and counters have been installed. Unfortunately they installed the cabinets in the master bathroom backwards, so they will have to fix that. The original plans had only cabinets below the sinks, and I had put in a custom order for drawers. But, I want the drawers on the inside of the cabinet instead of the outside. I really don't like the bathroom light fixture, so that will also change in the future.
There was also a problem in the upstairs bathroom. They forgot to order the longer cabinet (because we pushed out the side wall 2 feet) so we have quite a large gap between the cabinet and the toilet. Right now the plan is to add additional bank of drawers and redo the counter top. Hopefully they get that done before we move in.
July 29 - They have begun installing the carpet. We chose a light shade of gray. We chose to upgrade the carpet pad a few levels but only upgraded the carpet one level since we plan to put hardwoods in most of the upstairs.
August 1 - They have poured the cement on our driveway and stairs and are done with the stucco and working on the stone.
August 20 - We go the bank of drawers installed in the upstairs bathroom just in time!
August 22 - It is done and we closed on it this morning! We will move in on Monday (which happens to be the first day of school...so that should be interesting! But its done! And it's beautiful. I am so pleased with the way it turned out.
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