House hunting

The little blue mark is our future house.  This photo is a bit old, most of the houses are done or in progress currently for my section

A model home of the "Celestial" floorplan - Ours will look similar except we have a front loading garage and this model had a side loading garage.  Our floorplan is also flipped, so garage left.

 

Our lot - good location on a side road

Our kitchen will look close to this - same appliances but different colors for cabinets, floors, etc

Well that was an exhausting three days.  Thank you to Dad, Kathy and Deb who helped at various points picking out everything from the land to the type of finish on the bathroom faucets.
I spent 8 non-stop hours on Friday with Brian the sales manager looking at models, looking at lots, going over floorplans, options and working the price.  By 7pm we left with a signed contract.  The next morning at 10am I had the design center to actually pick out the floorings, appliances, light fixtures etc.  That day took 4 hours at the design center, but 90 minutes of driving each direction. 

We ended up with the following: 

• Drees "Celestial" floorplan, garage left
• Oak flooring on entire main level including the stairs going up.  Only exception is the master bedroom which has carpet and the master bath which has 12x12 ceramic tile.
• Carpet for upper level and in the finished part of the basement (about 1/3 of basement)
• 4 bedrooms, 3 full bathrooms, 2 half bathrooms
• All baths, except master, and laundry room have vinyl flooring
• Ceiling fan rough ins for all rooms
• Utility sink rough in for a laundry room sink
• Covered patio with gas fireplace
• Wired cable and internet for most rooms

Glad I am done with that, but in the end we got all the major things we wanted and below our max budget.   The house started at $464,900 and then they nickle and dime to all the way up!  But in the end I am very happy with the floorplan, the lot we got and hopefully when it is all put together I will like all the interior choices I made.    I think we will really love living in Virginia - being so close to DC is amazing.  Just 2 hours in a Smithsonian museum showed me how cool a good museum can be, cant wait to bring Dexter there at least once a month.

So it will be a slow two months as the exact floorplans are finished, permits are pulled and the home loan is approved.  Until then I will just continue dreaming about our new home!