Soon after Brady and Jenna signed their purchase agreement they met with our design specialists to start sections on the exterior of their new home. Checkout part four of Jenna’s guest blog and their home building journey.
Exterior Meeting
We wrote our purchase agreement in the winter knowing that they wouldn’t start building our house until the ground thawed, but we were still able to jump into the decision making process rather quickly (with some wiggle room)!
Our next meeting was to make exterior choices. We were able to pick up a little packet with samples to get our minds started towards what we wanted, but doing a little research in advance also helped with these decisions. We drove around many neighborhoods to look at colors, the difference between brick and stone, front porches, trim colors, and yes, even shingle colors!
We met with Heidi and Amber, our design team from Thomsen homes, and were amazed at their knowledge, expertise, and organization! They had a clear agenda for our meeting, but going off the schedule to discuss a random question that popped up never phased them.
We started by walking through our site plans to look at structural changes. For example, we decided to move a door on the main level to a different wall. They made notes right on our site plans and sent them off to the developer to be modified and reprinted before we left!
Exterior Choices
Next up, exterior choices! This is where our experience building four years ago was a little different. Four years ago, we didn’t even look at the color choices that were considered upgrades because we knew that it wasn’t in our budget for our first home. This time around, being that this is our forever home, we knew that an upgraded color was likely going to be our choice. (If you’re on a tighter budget, don’t let this upgrade make you nervous! We absolutely loved the color of our first home as well, we just had a different idea in mind after I had a little too much fun exploring Pinterest.) Since we had a more specific color choice in mind the second time around, they assured us that if a sample wasn’t on hand that we had in mind, they would do their best to help us find the color we were looking for. Thankfully, they had exactly what I had envisioned!
Remember earlier when I mentioned how organized Heidi and Amber are? We’d move on to our next exterior choice, I would be conflicted on a decision, and they would quickly pull up pictures of different builds that Thomsen had done to give me a visual comparison. This alone gave me so much ease with our decision making because I didn’t have to try and imagine what something would look like.
After we made all of our selections, they lined them up on these neat little shelves so that we could see our exterior choices all together. They encouraged us to take pictures as well! These pictures were so nice to look back on as we continued to dream about our soon to be forever home. (But they also came in handy down the road when we decided to add a deck and needed to choose a color that correlated with our exterior choices!)
The final step of this meeting was to look at the standard verses upgraded options for a water heater and sump pump. I’m going to be honest, this part of the meeting was like listening to another language for us because we didn’t even know it was an option for upgrading. They encouraged us to think about it and we weren’t pressured to make a decision that day. We went home to talk it over with our parents (one was actually able to stop into the Thomsen office later in the week to look at the choices) and then we felt confident with our choice with their help and guidance.
This is the perfect example of Thomsen Homes being more than just a home builder. They value your opinion and truly want you feeling confident, not pressured, into the choices you make. Whether it’s a standard choice or an upgrade, you will be getting a spectacular house that was made for you!
Stay tuned for more blogs on Jenna and Brady’s home building journey!
