A Good Model

Mr. B and I have now been in our "new" house a bit over a year. It seems like the time has really flown by; an entire year (or more) here! Every time we have to go back over to the town house, it feels freaky. Not that I didn't love living there, I did. And, as much as I looked forward to moving into our new house, I went through a few months of being a bit sad and depressed for leaving the town house. How silly, I know; just a piece of property, but, that's the way it is sometimes.

Each day, I walk through our new neighborhood with Lucy. Over the past year, many, many additional houses have gone up. In fact, the houses to the right of us were not even lots when we moved in. Now, the majority of them are built and people have moved in.

As I walk, I often have the opportunity to sneak peeks into the homes. And, of course, I can certainly look at all of the exteriors. In so doing, I am continually reminded of KB Home's "Model", which is, have a relatively inexpensive base price for the houses and allow the home owners to "add on" extras here and there that both a) improve the value of the house and b) really makes each home owners' home THEIRS.

The houses in our development range in square footage from roughly 1700 to 3400. For each model, there are three different elevations one can chose. This determines things like window shutter placement, size of certain front windows and whether or not there is a front porch. From there, there are many, many exterior options such as what color siding, whether there is stone or brick, the color of the shutters and front door and the type of front door (plain or with a window). Ditto with the garage doors.

For both the exterior and interior of the house, there are certain things that are "standard" (included in the base price of the house) with anything "nicer" than these things costing the home owner more. When you pick out your house, you are required to have three seperate appointments at KB's Design Studio. This is when and where you pick out just about everything you could possibly imagine for your home (or elect to stick with the "standard" stuff, but, in any case, you have to go chose).

Sit back and look around your house. Furniture and furnishings not-with-standing, everything you see in your house we had to select for our new house. So, we're talking EVERYTHING. Ceiling height. Smooth or unsmooth ceilings. Crown molding, chair rails, the type of staircase (closed or open, wood or iron, heck, even the color of the stain), door hardware, light fixtures, ceiling fans, cabinetry, knobs on the cabinets, kitchen island or not, countertops, garbage disposal (and size), kitchen sink type and size, kitchen plumbing fixtures, appliances, flooring, insulation, roof, whether or not we wanted the bonus room/sitting room closed in to make a 5th bedroom, the layout of the bathrooms including size of sinks and toilets and all hardware. The location of the fireplace, whether we wanted a blower on it or not and the type and size of the mantle and the hearth. Whether we wanted grids on all of our windows. Sod. Size of the patio slab. Did we want a screened in porch or overhang (this could only be done in 10X10 which we obviously did not do). The exterior lights (e.g., coach lights on the garage, light by the front door). Whether we wanted a side-entry garage door, a garage door opener (and what type), the garage finished off or not. Window treatments. A fence around our yard.

Really, it WAS overwhelming and I'm glad we had to go three times to get it all figured out exactly the way we wanted it. Matching/coordinating everything can be fun but also a huge pain in the butt.

As it turns out, the only things we didn't upgrade were the size of the pedestal sink in the 1/2 bathroom downstairs (which, by the way, is now an upgrade (the bathroom) for all future houses of this model being built), the size of the fireplace mantle (we figured we didn't need one bigger than what the standard was) and the window coverings, fence and screened in porch (all of which we did on our own later on). I think the only thing we had absolutely no say in the matter about was what side of the house the garage would be on.

So, while I walk throughout the neighborhood, it amuses me to see what people have done/not done to their houses. Some of the exterior finishes I really like; some are just dreadful. Someone painted their front door BLOOD RED and it looks terrible. A lot of people did not get exterior lights at all. I've noticed some folks who did not get garage door openers (something they probably regret when it is raining).

Keith, our customer service representative who has been inside ALL of the houses in the development, told me that he is continually amazed how many people have no furniture because they are so house poor. Of course, these are probably the same people that have a brand new SUV and a Mercedes in their driveways.

But, all in all, I think KB's model is good. Let people chose what they want. It really does allow for a lot of variety and individual expression. So, even though a vast number of the houses in our development are the same floor plan as ours, you can bet there's no two that look that much alike on the outside and probably NONE that are exactly the same inside.

Mrs. B