Continuing our home building journey, let’s talk about the fun part – design meetings. If you haven’t been following along, catch up here.
From personal experience, design meetings can be fun, but also stressful (think budget). In my opinion, the key to alleviating that stress is being prepared and planning ahead. Thomsen has structured their meetings so that each client has at least 3 meetings – floor plan, exterior and interior. We had a few more meetings than the initial 3, but we also had a lot of custom changes and I’m thankful for the extra time and effort the design team was able to put into our home.
Design Meeting 1 – Floor Plan
In our initial meeting, we discussed our site plan, floor plan, layout, windows, door placement, etc. Leading up to this meeting, we felt a little stressed as we couldn’t decide if we wanted to change the upstairs layout from 4 bedrooms to 3 bedrooms with a larger master bath (I’ve always dreamt of a large soaking tub). After talking it over, we decided to keep the original 4-bedroom layout and I’m so glad we did. The extra space will be much needed in the future as a guest room as we have family visiting out of town often.
Nate and I also knew we wanted to add a larger window in the kitchen, a larger patio door, and we opened the office space on the main floor by partially removing a wall. These are all items that we knew we wanted to add before going into our meeting, which was extremely helpful.
Design Meeting 2 – Exterior
During our second meeting, Nate and I were able to pick out our exterior siding, garage doors, shingles, and more. I love the look of the LP Smartside and can’t wait to see what it looks like on our home. We chose a classic white siding and brown brick for the front. We also were able to select a front door and I knew I wanted something with a large window. I had some inspiration pictures saved and Shirley was able to obtain pricing for several different doors. I love that we are able to make our home custom to our wants and needs. She suggested an 8’ door instead of a 7’ door and transom window. I can’t wait to see what the door looks like and how much light it will let in our entryway.
