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First Look: Our New House (Video Tour)

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September 16, 2019 By Jackie

Things are coming full circle. It was only a few months ago when I took you on a tour of another house with the same floor plan as our future house. Today, I get to take you on the first tour of our new house. 

Our house is a modern elevation, so there are some big differences from the other house I showed you. Plus, in this video, you’ll get a sneak peek at our design selections—most of them are already installed.

As you watch the video, keep an eye out for these special features:

  • Two-Story Foyer – Our house is one level, but it doesn’t look it thanks to the foyer that is 19 ft. on the high side. The front of our house is south facing. With the south-facing front door and window above plus two east-facing windows up high the foyer gets a ton of natural light.
  • Vaulted Office – One cool surprise feature of our modern elevation is that the office ceiling is also vaulted. It slopes up toward the front of the house and makes the room feel larger.
  • Office Doors Swing Out – Best change ever! In our old house, the office doors swung in and swallowed up two corners of the room. Because we have a large enough foyer in this house, we asked the builder to flip the doors and make them swing out. That leaves more useable space in the office. My husband wants his desk floating in the middle, which would not have been possible if the doors swung in. Bonus: We get to see the pretty single-lite doors all the time now. Whether they are open or closed, they are visible in the foyer.
  • Double Lights in the Dining Room – LINK It’s way easier to hang two pendant lights over a long dining table than it is to find (and afford) a long enough chandelier. Check out the pendant lights we picked. The trick is you need two junction boxes on the same switch. We asked the builder to make this change upfront. The upgrade was only $XX. We were also able to move the junction boxes closer to the wall since we plan to have bench seating along the wall and the table won’t be centered in the room.
  • Patio Home with Green Space – You’ll notice out the patio doors and living room windows, our neighbor’s house is only 10 ft. away. The space in-between is our “backyard”. We have a rear-entry garage, so there is no yard behind the house. They call this style of home with a small, low-maintenance yard, a patio home. We made up for the lack of a back yard by choosing a lot on a large green space…it’s basically a park in our front yard that the association maintains. Our kids will have more play space than they’ve ever had before, and we’ll have less yard to maintain than ever before. It’s a win-win. We plan to xeriscape the side yard in the future to make it even lower-maintenance.
  • Our Kitchen Finishes – Except flooring, all of our kitchen selections are in. It’s so rewarding to see it all come together. Teal island + quartz counters + white cabinets + midcentury backsplash = dream kitchen!
  • Deleted Closets – I think our realtor was going to have a heart attack if I deleted or shrunk another closet in this house, but it had way too much storage for us. We deleted a closet in the owner’s entry to make a more open, useable mudroom space. There’s another closet in the same hallway that we switched from a linen closet to a coat closet. In the third bedroom, we asked the builder to shrink a large walk-in closet down to a standard depth closet to increase the bedroom size. I don’t think our teen boy is going to miss the closet space. Bonus: After they framed up his closet, the builder was able to expand the space under a bulkhead and add extra shelves, so he still has a lot of storage in his “small” closet.
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Whole House Lighting Plan
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4 Reasons We Chose White Walls for Our New House

Comments

  1. Diane Christin says

    September 17, 2019 at 6:38 am

    Very lovely ideas! Can’t wait to see the final design. Love that the children have a separate area.

    • Jackie says

      September 17, 2019 at 7:56 am

      Thanks, Diane. The separate “kids wing” was a must for us with a one level floor plan. It helps make the house feel larger and gives everyone their own space.

  2. Anne Duguay says

    September 17, 2019 at 7:19 am

    What a lovely home! It is so very nice to see a smaller home being built. I absolutely love how you’ve played with the scale of the vertical space. It lives very large! Wonderful! The kitchen and dining area will be fantastic.

    • Jackie says

      September 17, 2019 at 7:55 am

      Thanks, Anne. The high ceilings were a selling feature for this home. It doesn’t feel like a one-story. And we’re very excited to have a smaller, easier to maintain home and lot.

      • Tisha says

        September 18, 2019 at 11:22 pm

        I love it. I love that it’s perfectly functional. So many homes now have large unusable spaces, mine included. I wish I had your thought process. I can’t wait to see the finished product. I’m so happy that you’re able to fulfill these dreams!

        • Jackie says

          September 19, 2019 at 4:58 pm

          Thank you, Tisha. I’m working on a post about how we settled on the right size house. Please let me know if you have any questions I can answer in that post.

  3. Valerie Preston says

    September 17, 2019 at 7:44 am

    The house is looking great and it’s awesome that your builder was willing to work with you and make changes. Not all builders are created equal. You must be so excited to start this new adventure in your new home. Can’t wait to see more.

    • Jackie says

      September 17, 2019 at 7:53 am

      Thank you, Valerie. One thing that helped with our changes was asking the builder to make them up front. We got approval to remove and modify the closets before we signed the contract. It’s best to know what you want as early in the process as possible.

  4. Terri Asbury says

    September 17, 2019 at 9:53 am

    How exciting to see the progress! Thank you for sharing. The ideas you’ve had for various tweaks in the build, thoughtful details, are amazing! Bonus points for having a builder who is willing to work with you on such details. I look forward to seeing your updates and it all coming together. All the best to you and your family!!

    • Jackie says

      September 17, 2019 at 1:54 pm

      Hey, Terri. You’re so sweet. Sometimes I worry I overthink everything too much. But as all the little details are coming together, we’re glad we put a lot of thought into it and that our builder was receptive to our ideas.

  5. Patricia says

    September 17, 2019 at 7:09 pm

    Thanks so much for the sneak peak. I love the intentional design and would expect nothing less. I always appreciate your intentional thought process. It is so good to see you posting again!

    • Jackie says

      September 17, 2019 at 9:07 pm

      You’re so sweet, Patricia. I’ve got more posts coming up :)

  6. Maureen says

    September 24, 2019 at 6:15 am

    Jackie,

    So very happy for you!

    Maureen

  7. Debbie Reed says

    October 12, 2019 at 3:35 pm

    I love the back splash in your kitchen. I just remolded my 1974 kitchen. I used the same cabinets you used and a marble looking quartz counter top. We raised the ceiling and took out the old fluorescent lighting. Replacing it with four LED recessed lights. I put in a herringbone backsplash which I love. But after seeing your beautiful blue backsplash I wonder If that is something I would have enjoyed in my kitchen. Your house is going to be gorgeous when it is done.

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