Lisa Johnson's House and Home - Articles on Home, Family, and Living

Lisa Johnson on Buying a New Home or House

Chapter 8: Customization Options and Upgrades

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October 1, 2003

This is where I had the most fun!

After the placing the initial deposit and getting through the initial loan process, came the time to configure our home. The builder's representative set up an appointment for us to visit their design center.

The design center was located off site, in another town. When we arrived for our appointment, we were greeted by a designer who showed us all the options and upgrades we could choose from. The design center had several show rooms, each one built to look like a room in an actual home, showcasing every feature available.

Each house the builder builds has its own unique set of customization choices. The designer went into her computer to find out which house we were buying so that she could determine what customization choices were available to us.

Each home comes with a certain amount of "basic" features that are built into the base price. But if you are willing to pay more, you can upgrade certain features, and add a bunch of extra goodies.

The customization choices we were presented with included the following:

Flooring: We could choose the flooring for any room or walkway in the house, including the staircase. We could select from hard wood, laminate, vinyl, ceramic tile, and a wide array of carpeting choices.

The "basic" flooring was carpeting for much of the house except for the kitchen, laundry room, and foyer. The kitchen and foyer would have a dull boring looking vinyl as its basic flooring. The foyer had ceramic tile in a choice of four colors as the basic flooring. The bathrooms had carpeting, but we opted to go with vinyl, which was actually cheaper, and we got a credit as a result.

Woodwork: The kitchen cabinets and bathroom cabinets are all customizable, allowing you to get a variety of stains and woodgrains. You could opt to get paint-grade wood if you wanted the cabinets painted.

We could have a fireplace mantle, and custom cabinets fitted into the media niche, both of which are optional. There were various design choices for the stair rails, whether we wanted stained wood, painted wood, or wrought iron. The basic stair rails were painted wood.

Counter top: The kitchen counter tops came basic with white ceramic tile. But we could upgrade to any kind of tile, or opt to go with Corian, wood, or marble. The same choices were true for bathroom counter tops.

There were also choices to add a variety of backsplashes. The basic arrangement called for a low backsplash with the same white ceramic tile. We chose to add on to it with some designer tile for both the kitchen and bathrooms.

Appliances: As part of the house, the builder puts in a refigerator, dish washer, gas oven, microwave over, and a washer and dryer. But they offer to upgrade them to other brands, better models, all the way up professional-grade stainless steel appliances.

Wiring: There were options to add additional phone jacks and cable television jacks. The basic arrangement provided for two jacks of each. We opted to get surround sound speakers wired and mounted into the family room walls. There was an option to add an intercom system throughout the home. They also offered an option to set up wiring for ceiling fans in any room.

Miscellaneous: We could choose to upgrade the sink fixtures, shower fixtures, and bathtub fixtures. We could even opt to get a jacuzzi bathtub. We could have added custom tile work to any of the showers and tubs. We opted to put a gas outlet on the exterior of the house to hook our barbeque up to the natural gas line, as well as a power outlet to hook up an above-ground jaccuzi.

To round things out, we opted to get the custom closet organizer and the garage door opener. We could have opted to upgrade the garage door by getting one with windows on it, but chose to stay with the basic garage door.

One thing we could not customize is the color of the walls. Everyone gets white. And the paint they use is very cheap. It's so cheap you can run your fingernail across it and scrape it off. We could not upgrade the base moulding or add crown moulding, nor add window mouldings. There were no options for curtains or blinds.

Our builder did, however, landscape our front yard. They put in a sprinkler system and a timer. They put in sod, trees and shrubs. All of this came at no extra cost. Most builders seems to do this, though we found some that did not.

All in all, the customization choices we picked out added about $30,000.00 more to the price of our home. But we were very happy with it all. We could have saved a lot of money if we opted to upgrade everything ourself, but it would have been a greater hassel having to find good contractors, and moving all your stuff around to make room for the work. Besides, when the builder does it for you, it's all ready to go when you take ownership of the house.

Finally, in order to have all these customization options, you have to buy into the house before construction starts. So, find a housing development when it has just recently opened, and enjoy the best part of buying a new construction home!

Next:   Chapter 9 - Monitoring the Construction Progress

Suggested Links

·  Tips on Buying a Home

·  HUD Homebuying Guide

·  Homebuying Consumer Info Center

·  Real Estate ABC

·  Home Buying Guide.com