Our changes included:
- New Caledonia granite counter tops ($4.5K). Our cabinets are Maple Cognac and the hardwood floor is Gunstock Dundee. I would have liked to gone darker on the cabinets, but most blogs I read hate the dark dark cabinets.
- Third car garage ($12.5K). Yay!!! I get to finally park inside.
- Additional cable and data outlets. Our package included six cable/phone outlets. We added two additional cable and two data. We decided to only have one phone outlet as we have not used the land line in our house now for 2 years; we only have it for the discounted cable rates. I believe the charge for all 4 was around $400.
- We passed on the security system as I did not want to sign a contract for 3 years. The $250 installation charge was appealing, but an additional $45/month for 3 years was not something I wanted to add at this time. I know it's not a lot, but I just wasn't comfortable increasing our monthly expenses any more just yet.
- The only remaining item is to finalize our carpet color. Currently we have, Shaw Favorite Choice in Light Aspiration. We are second guessing ourselves and want to make sure it is not too dark. Hopefully we can take some carpet samples from Rusmur floors this week and compare to the carpet we have now in our rental.
I guess I can always start shopping for the fridge, washer and dryer that we need to purchase for the house. That should keep me busy until July when they are scheduled to start building. I could also go crazy on furniture, but I want to wait until we are living in the house to see what we actually need and prioritize each room.
I want a third car garage, lucky!
ReplyDeleteThe color of your cabinets is very cool! Love 'em! I would have loved a third car garage. I know I'm gonna miss that in future. You made good choices....
ReplyDeleteWe had a 2 month waiting period too. By these blogs are a great way to get thru the waiting period. :-)
Also, I would suggest talking of the word verification on posts and comments....
ReplyDeleteSettings>Posts and Comments> Show Word Verification >OFF
Just found your blog - interesting post about interest rates! I just went through the same frenzied search for better interest rates today. It's such a pain that you are signed and ready to go but have to wait so long until you can start (and thus, lock in your interest rate.)
ReplyDeleteI actually talked to our LO today and found out that in addition to the 60-day lock, you can do a 90-day or 120-day as well. In our case, the rates were all the same, but you got less (or no) credit for the rate. If you're worried about where rates will go in the next few weeks, however, it might be something worth investigating.
Finally... anytime I see a fellow blogger mentioning that they're shopping for appliances, I like to offer our "friends and family" discount at GE. We're not at the point yet where we're ready to buy appliances, but I've seen that the deals/prices are pretty competitive. Plus it seems that they always have 10% off sales around holidays (Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, etc.) so if you time it right, you can get an even bigger discount.
If you're interested, feel free to leave your email address in the comments section on my blog and I can send you the invite to access the online store
www.buildingwithryanhomes-parkplace.blogspot.com