We bought our lot in July via phone and photos by the realtor. We were there in Sept to design and they book you daily for one week.
I had selected my model and the changes I wanted to make - stretches 3 ways, eliminating one of the three bathrooms to make a storage closet and reconfigure the laundry area and making a large walk in closet for my sewing room. The items in the design center are not priced - tile, counters, faucets, knobs and handles. This would make it much easier if you are trying to control cost. The cabinets are not the quality we are used to having previously build a home with solid wood Woodmode cabinets. They are disappointing in fact. Lowes and Home Depot have a MUCH bigger selection of colors and quality and the same with flooring choices. After we got over that and had to work with what was available we finally moved on. The hardware-- faucets, handles, knobs - that is not standard is expensive but unless you want to deal with replacing it all just bite the bullet and order what you like. We went with the blind company they book you with even though it is expensive for plantations just to get it done and also the closet company but just the master. We will have the others done with a less expensive company. After selling our lovely lake home in NY and cramming into a rental for a year with things in storage we just wanted to be able to put our clothes away properly once we move in. We bought only the microwave from them because installation is expensive. We got all LG appliances ordered at Black Friday sales from Home Depot to be delivered the day after we close in Feb. We got a laminate flooring throughout as I have been there and done that with tile cracks and grout upkeep. We got quartz counters in the kitchen and other solid surface in the bathrooms and nice tile for backsplash and shower/tub areas. We got some of the pre wire internet deal but just the basic pkg. We went to TD pools to see what that was all about and ended up with a 12 x 25 fitness pool with splash deck and waterfall and pretty tile trim, chose the style of the bird cage and chose the finer screening for SPF factor and bug barrier. Just cutting 1 foot off the pool width saved over $1000 as it affects the deck and birdcage size. So - measure out what size pool you want on a floor and think carefully about it. We just wanted a fitness pool 4 1/2 ft deep and big enough to bob on a float or play mini volley ball or basketball . We are only 5 min from the community pool but with the virus and crowded aqua classes we can just do our own thing with music whenever we want.
The villages will now let you move rooms all around - put the kitchen in a different place, change windows and sizes of windows, remove a bathroom all sorts of things for a price of course. So use graph paper and plot out the furniture you really need to place and pin them down on final room sizes so you can make sure everything will fit the way you want. I have certain pieces that I needed to be sure of so this is what I did and also for the house we had built in NY. As for the color of the house I chose swatches from a paint store and they matched them for the house and front door color I wanted. i did not want landscaping that needs trimming as I like a spiky natural look for Florida so we went to a nursery and took pix of plants there as well as driving around. They do not give you very long with the landscape person and ours was not really knowledgeable about the plants I had wanted. That was the least impressive of all the appointments. You have to be very careful with all of this as there is a $500 change fee if you change ANYTHING after you sign. We close in mid Feb so just hope we will like it all put together.....With the selections we saw I cannot really think of anything I would change at this point EXCEPT to find out if our lot was in a flood zone before all this started - it is.....
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