Our selections

I told you earlier that I was going to dedicate an entire post just to all of our selections, and here it is.

If you haven't figured out that we're building a Verona by now, I want you to go ahead and hammer fist yourself in the groin and then get off my blog.  For the rest of you, please continue on if you'd like to know how we're setting up our Verona.  :)

For the elevation, we went with "L".  I really wanted a front porch, and my wife loves columns and/or pillars, so this seemed like a natural choice.  Here's a picture of a model Verona-L. Note the planter boxes. They aren't included, but we like them.  We'll probably end up doing that ourselves at some point.

Verona "L"

We were originally going to go with side-entry for the garage, but after looking at it both ways, we decided that the Verona just looks better with a front entry garage.  No offense to those of you who are die-hard side entry fans, but that saved us about $8k!  I just couldn't justify the extra expense for something that didn't have much of a tangible benefit, other than a slightly larger driveway.  Oh, speaking of driveways, we are planning on adding a parking pad on the left, something similar to this.  RH will do it for $6/sq foot, so I figure it shouldn't be more than $1500-$1800.

Parking pad for an extra car

For the exterior siding, we chose the boothbay blue siding, sandstone beige accent siding with the charlestowne brick, wicker exterior trim and sandstone garage door.  This is the only picture I took, which actually has 3 different brick and door selections in it.  The siding in the middle is what we chose, along with the brick/door on the upper left.

Exterior siding, brick and door (top left)

For the patio, we opted for the 3x3 concrete pad.  We tried to take it off altogether, but by code they have to put at least a 3x3 pad in.  We plan on putting in a really nice patio after we move in, with pavers and either a fire pit or a fireplace.  At $6/sq foot, that saved us a nice little chunk of change by coming down from a 10x12 pad.

That about does it for the exterior, now on to the interior.

I'll mix it up a bit and start from the top down.  We opted for the finished attic, without the bedroom or bathroom.  This is going to be my man-cave.  I haven't been able to find a picture of the floor plan with the attic, since RH only started offering this option several months ago, but at some point I'll get one and post it.  Only thing I added was a ceiling fan pre-wire, along with cable and data jacks.  Standard carpet for now.  Oak on both flights of stairs.

On the 2nd floor, standard carpet throughout.  On the bonus room, the alcove gets a 2' bump-out which is included with the 2' extension we opted for on the garage.  The alcove is going to be my wife's craft corner, and the bonus room will be the play room.  We put in 3 recessed lights and the ceiling fan pre-wire for the bonus.  We also added a laundry sink to the laundry room.  All bedrooms got cable jacks.  We did the tile-surround on all secondary bathrooms.  All bathrooms got the scottsdale maple cognac cabinets.

The secondary bathroom upstairs got the double bowl vanity.  In the master bath, we went with the upgraded shower, I think its called type E with alternate layout.  In the master suite, we added the tray ceiling.  We also added the ceiling fan pre-wire, but decided not to put any recessed lights in.  I don't want the bedroom to be lit up like Fenway Park at night, and during the day there will be plenty of natural light, so it seemed silly to put in all these extra ceiling lights.  Between the ceiling fan light and the night table lights, I think we'll be fine for lighting in there.

On the 1st floor, we went with vinyl for the foyer, kitchen and morning room, and standard carpet everywhere else.  I've already mentioned what we're planning to do for flooring in a previous post, but in short, we're going to put hardwoods and tile in the kitchen, morning room, dining room and foyer as soon as we move in, and basically get as much use as we can out of the cheap carpet they give us before upgrading to the mac-daddy of all carpets in a few years.  I also should mention that RH gave us the morning room for free, as it was part of the promotion they were having when we signed.  We added the extra windows in the morning room.  We also went with the fireplace on the back wall with the raised hearth and stacked stone going all the way to the ceiling, along with 2 recessed lights over the fireplace.  I'm super excited to see that!

Kentucky stone for the fireplace

On a side note, a wood-burning fireplace is something I've always loved (probably because I'm from up north originally) and we tried like hell to get one, but nowadays nobody will put one in new construction except for high-end custom homes.  The only exception we found was Legendary Homes, but after doing our research on them, I was not impressed with their record, and their prices were so low, I had to ask myself how they can be giving us so much house for such a low price.  There were just too many red flags, so we decided against them and went with Ryan.

Anyway, we put the ceiling fan pre-wire in the family room, along with a cable outlet.  We went with the guest bedroom up front, and the office in the back.  This will be my wife's office.  Data and cable jacks for her!  Ceiling fan pre-wire for the guest room, along with cable.

For the kitchen, we went with the peninsula counter along with the extra island, plus the double ovens.  We did the maple glaze hazelnut cabinets with santa cecelia granite.

Kitchen cabinets

We went with bronze hardware throughout the house, which is lighting, door hardware, cabinet knobs, and faucets.

In the garage, as I mentioned, we opted for the 2' extension. The nice thing about this is that it also gives the alcove in the bonus room a 2' extension at no additional charge. (I know, the cost is built into the price, but hey--it makes me feel like I'm getting a bargain!) We also added a utility sink in the garage.

I think that's everything...but feel free to ask about any selections I didn't mention.  Or those I did.  Or anything else.  Okay, I'm exhausted.  Stay classy!