Curb Appeal

One of the things I am most thankful for this year is my home (above). There's a big long story about that, but I don't think I'll go into it right now. Let's just say that we rented, and moved a lot, for a very long time. I spent a lot of that time wishing and dreaming for my own house. I spent hours on local real estate sites, searching and longing.

Last January that is exactly how I found this neighborhood. The builder had a home listed on the MLS; Handsome was (sort of) in the area and I asked him to drive by it. He stopped into the sales office, and somehow by the end of January we were under contract for a to-be-built house. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, because we weren't planning to buy at that time, and I never dreamed that when the time came I would get a brand new house!

It was considered an inventory house, because the builder had it all planned, so we didn't get to pick the model or lot, though we did get to choose between two (it was the incentives on inventory homes that made it possible for us to buy). I was able to change some of the planned finishes/colors, and we did make some other changes that we had to pay for.

On the exterior, we chose the brick and siding color, and I chose to have the porch columns only half brick instead of entirely brick (had to pay for that one). We haven't done anything in the way of landscaping yet, but I am so pleased with the curb appeal of the house itself. I'm very happy with my choices, and so grateful to have a pretty, new house.

We did not pick the elevation of our model, but of the available choices, there's only one that I like as well as ours. Yesterday I drove around the neighborhood snapping photos of different elevations of our model. Some of pictures aren't the greatest, because I was trying not to look like some, you know, weird stalker or something, so they're just drive-by shots, so to speak.

This one (above) is directly across the street from us. It is the 'Classic' elevation. I prefer our gabled roofline.

One street over is the 'Prairie'. A little plain; I'm just not a huge fan of this one.

This is the 'Revival' elevation, which is the same as ours. See the all-brick columns? I don't care for those, especially in person. It just looks and feels too closed in when you walk up the steps, kind of unwelcoming or something. Also, when they were building our house, they decided that this elevation now comes with shutters on the upper windows. Lucky us! I really think the shutters improve it.

This is the 'Tudor'. No porch. 'Nuff said.

This is the other one I like, the 'Craftsman'. I love the stone. I don't particularly like the color choices on this one, though.

We moved in on Handsome's birthday last April. The interior is still largely undecorated. We asked about picking out paint colors since they were going to have to paint anyway. Oh, naive children. Custom colors, it turns out, would add $4000! What? Does that sound ridiculous to anybody else? Merely putting a color in the paint sprayer other than builder white costs four. thousand. dollars. Builder white it is, then, until we get around to painting.

It was kind of funny; while it was being built, I had some kind of idea that I was going to move into my new house and it would be perfect. Of course, it is not perfect, as quickly became evident. There are things I would have done differently had I known. But I got all the biggies that were on my list...4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, walkout basement w/ rough-in for future bath, fireplace, laundry upstairs with bedrooms (paid for that), and because of moving the laundry, one of my favorite features, a mudroom!

This Thanksgiving, and in this time when so many are losing theirs, I'm thankful for my house!