Second Design Meeting

We had our second design meeting with Symphony Homes today.  Of course, we started off with our list of questions about price and whether or not they do certain things.  Some of our questions included flooring in the mudroom, extra shelves in the pantry, ceiling fan framing, door placement in the basement, adding a sink to the laundry room, putting in a central vacuum system, and installing water softener system and a generator.  Whew!  Add those things to everything we asked last week, and Brittany has her work cut out for her.

After all our questions, we got down to the nitty-gritty details of the house.  First up, doors.  We chose a two panel door with a curve on the top for all the inside doors and a brush nickle round doorknob.  That was the easiest decision because we actually made it last week.  Next, stair railings.  We looked at wood and wrought iron and chose what we liked, but we need to get prices before the final decision.  Same story for the upstairs fireplace mantel, waiting on prices.

Now came the more involved and harder part.  All of the surfaces.  We chose a granite that we liked, but also chose a couple of quartz patterns.  Again, we're waiting on prices.  Apparently the quartz is more expensive.  The counter-tops are going to have a rounded edge.  We chose cabinet style, color, and wood.  Next, we chose tile for the floors of the bathrooms and laundry room and laminate for the guest and main baths.  We finalized the arrangement of the cabinets in the kitchen.  We put the bank of drawers in the island and converted the cabinet in the island to a tray holder for cookie sheets and such.  We also added one of those flip-out drawers under the kitchen sink for sponges and rags.

We changed our minds about the painting and decided to go with the two-tone paint.  Our trim will be white and the walls will be 'crisp khaki'.  The carpeting is going to be 'granola'.  The hard wood flooring is one of the hardest decisions.  We liked the look of walnut but found out that it was pretty soft.  Then we liked the look of hickory and found out that it is really expensive.  We finally moved back to the oak and chose a stain that we liked, but we also asked for the price of the hickory.

Those are all the decisions we made.  Mostly, it was a lot of narrowing things down to one or two choices and then we'll look at the prices next time and make final decisions.  It took us the whole three hours of the appointment!  Next week, we'll be meeting with the lighting guy and deciding outside colors and finishes.  It looks to be another 3 hour meeting!

First Design Meeting

Yesterday was the first design meeting for the house.  It's purpose was to decided on structural things so that they could get the plans off to the county for the building permit.

But- before that meeting started, Steve and I went to the Little America hotel and had a delicious breakfast.  It was our Valentine's date since we didn't have one on Tuesday.

The Symphony Homes office is in North Salt Lake- just a couple of miles from Sarah's house in Woods Cross.  We started off looking at some pretty detailed plans of each level of the house as well as drawings of the front, back, and each side.

We made a few changes to the plans.  In the basement- we divided the overly large storage room into a bedroom and a smaller storage room.  Making that part a bedroom requires adding a window well and a closet.  On the main floor- we added wood flooring to connect the entry and the kitchen and french doors to the flex room.  The garage door was placed facing the back.  We also discussed the fireplace (wood vs. gas).  The second floor- we added two windows to the master bedroom.

Those were the decisions we made, but we had a whole list of discussion items to talk about.  Soundproofing of certain rooms and/or the floors was one of the main items.  We want certain areas soundproofed like the flex room, Steve's office and the guestroom.  We also asked for prices on skylights, iron railing, separate heating for the basement, etc.  I also want a price for putting in one of those little bay windows in the kitchen.

Next week we go back to focus more on asthetics- especially colors.  There are so many decisions!  I think we have our work cut out for us.