Continuing with the House Series, we will be talking about the meeting for the Color Selections. That will include all the customizations, color selections, and upgrades.

After picking out a floor plan that best suited our family, the next couple of meetings regarded upgrades and color selections. It would be a complete lie, if I told you this was an easy process for me. Jacob left a lot of the customizations up to me. He overlooked everything of course and filled me in on what he liked or had questions about. But I learned quickly that the only thing he wanted to take the lead on was the exterior of the house. For example, the fencing, the fire pit, the patio, and the lighting, just to name a few things. With that knowledge, I left all those decisions up to him while I focused on the interior. Going into this floor plan I made a list of what we needed as family, the things we wanted, and the upgrades we were looking for in going with the smaller floor plan. Doing that gave me an idea of where we were spending a little extra and where we were fine with the standard as is.

Going into the meeting, I knew for certain that I wanted a few specific things, an all white kitchen, shiplap, and barn doors. Many people that know me know that I’m very particular in what I envision. For the most part, it was fairly easy to pick things out. There were a few change orders that needed to be made which personally stressed me out. But choosing the colors for the house came easy.

Let’s start with the outside! We originally wanted a high and low contrast look between the brick and roof. Shortly after starting the selection process, we could not find a brick that we truly loved in the basic selection.

We were given the option to view more choices at the actual ACME Brick warehouse.

At the time, we knew that we wanted our stone to be Austin White, and after looking at so many bricks we decided on the White Oak, which is shown at the top. I’m not sure what happen to the label for it at the time, but we loved the way it looked. We chose the white mortar to go with it instead of the standard gray.

Choosing our brick led to the color of the exterior paint. Orginally, we wanted black trim with white brick. When we were told that was not an option, we settled in on a dark espresso brown in the color Poppy Pods. This being a new development, I was not able to see how these colors would combine. After seeing a few houses go up, I realized that I didn’t like how the brown looked. And after discussing it with Jacob, we decided to make a change order. We changed the exterior color of Poppy Pods to Commerical White, and we just loved the way it looked with the brick. I thought the roof, light fixtures, and front door would be in perfect contrast to it.

Jacob, wanting to pick the front door, decided to go with the Collection 1 with Straps, Clavos, and the Speakeasy Full Plank door stained in Weathered Saddle. I don’t know much about wood or doors, but I know that it was a good looking door! I love when he gets excited and passionate about things, especially when it is so genuine.

Here is the color scheme for the kitchen.

Since we have an open floor plan and wanted that area to be the main focal point, most of our upgrades went towards the kitchen and floors. For the walls, I wanted a nice light gray. The one I thought to be a perfect fit in the entire house was Thin Ice. I wanted an all white kitchen, so I selected Delicate White for the color of the kitchen cabinets. I also picked this color for the cabinets in both bathrooms as well. I had planned on upgrading the counter tops and did some research on the pros and cons for marble, quartz, and granite. With the granite being the standard option, I went in with the hopes of marble. The BIGGEST con I had with the marble was the staining. I know me and I know that I’m accident prone. Personally, I did not feel comfortable getting marble with my chances of damaging or staining it being so likely a factor. On to the next option, Quartz! I love it! The one I ended up loving was a Level 2 upgrade of Maestro Quartz in Colorado White. It is white with gray veining.

I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted the backsplash too. I really like the white subway tile look, so I picked out the tile I liked best and added a note for it to be cut 3 x 6.

The flooring throughout the house was another big upgrade, we went in knowing this was going to happen. Little did I know that I was going to change the colors. We originally decided on Level 1 C Tile floors in 500 ash. Which is shown in the photo above at the very top. I made a change order to the color of the tile from the 500 Ash to 170 Sand. You can see it in the middle row on the right in the photo above. There were a few other upgrades made to the kitchen appliances, adding a double oven, a 5 Burner Cooktop, an apron sink, and some customized drawers. With the kitchen being where I spend the most time, I am VERY excited to see how it turns out.

The top left color is for the walls throughout the house, as is the top right color for the cabinets. For the counter tops in both bathrooms, we picked a matte white. And adding an extra sink to the guest bathroom, we decided to make all the bathrooms have wave sinks. Another upgrade we decided on was adding a drop slab and a bench seat to our shower in the master bathroom. The tile I picked for the master bathroom was Bleached Wood, in the bottom left of the photo. I was actually sending this photo to Jacob making sure it was a go.

For the backyard, we added 63 square feet to the covered patio and decided to keep a little room for our garden. We plan on putting in a fire pit once we close, and Jacob has a few more ideas for that project.

We plan on getting a carpenter, and electrician for some aftermarket additions when we close as well. I plan on ordering some light fixtures and I also want to add shiplap in a few rooms, as well as having a few doors made. I cannot wait to see it all come together!

That about does it for the color selection meeting. Making a lot of these decisions so early in the process wasn’t easy for me. Thankfully, with a few change orders, it was put to rest. Something that I have learned going through this process is the need to believe in myself more. There have been a few situations where I knew that I was questioning myself at the time, changed my mind, and later on went back to my original thought. Jacob does a great job in reminding me to believe in myself and what we are doing. I believe everything we do is a learning experience. Being able to do this and learning how to improve myself is a blessing in itself. Hopefully this helps or gives you some ideas. I hope you enjoyed this post. Next Thursday’s House Series post will be about the construction process. If you have any questions, feel free to comment or message me.