After countless hours considering every decorator detail in the past two weeks, today was our third and final design center meeting.
The stairs in the Opal floorplan are very prominent – the first thing you see when you walk in the door. We went with the same mission style as the model home.
We chose white oak engineered wood floors for the main level. Engineered wood is made of layers of real wood; the top layer is hardwood. In Colorado’s dry climate, traditional solid wood floors aren’t a good option because they crack. We’re not sure how long the dark floor trend is going to continue so we went with a lighter tone, and there weren’t great options for laminates in those lighter colors.
We knew we wanted modern, but sometimes that can turn out feeling cold. So for the second floor, we switched our initial choice of carpet from gray to light tan to add a little color. Berber is durable but doesn’t feel as nice on bare feet in the bedrooms, so we found carpet that’s half closed and half cut loop, and upgraded the pad.
For the bathrooms, we opted for warm brown cabinets with flat fronts, contrasted by a gray quartz counter. Mirrors will sit directly on the counter with no backsplash for a seamless look. Floors will be a medium slate gray set in a brick pattern. (There was much back-and-forth about which way to run the tile. We finally chose perpendicular to the vanity to make the bathroom look wider.)
With just the two of us, the guest bath and bedroom won’t get a lot of use so it’s hard to put a lot of money into them. We decided to go with the standard-issue white square tile and dress it up with a row of glass accent tiles. We have just one complaint about the design choices: the powder room’s wall-mounted sink with thin metal legs and exposed pipes is just plain ugly! There are no choices here, so it will certainly be replaced after closing.
Except for that sink, we were very impressed by the decorator options. And we could never have done it without the experts at the design center. In the end, our decorator options added about 10% to the base price. We’ll have a beautiful home without breaking the bank.
