So many decisions...!

There’s a lot that goes into a house…  Growing up I remember a lot of what my parents went through building our house, but it’s hard to really appreciate it all as a kid.  I started the process of trying to figure out what this house will look like when it’s done back before I even closed on it.  I first found the house back in April, and the whole real estate process to get to the closing took somewhere around two months to go through.  Through that whole time, I formed a pretty good idea of what I wanted the house to look for.  From the homes I looked at, it was obvious that having a master bathroom drastically boosted the sales price, and I knew I wanted to do the kitchen.  And during the process of looking at houses, I saw quite a few that had exposed and refinished one of the brick walls as an accent, and it looks very cool, so that was added to my list.  My list grew a bit longer when the inspector revealed the water damage to the back of the house, which requires replacing the siding and deck.  And then there’s the fireplace that I’d gotten used to having in Atlanta, and since I used it regularly in Atlanta, I’d definitely miss it in DC’s much more wintery winter!  And originally, the backyard was a project for the future, but turns out it’ll be cheaper and just a better idea to go ahead and do it now.

Render of what the new backyard will look like when it's done.  I wasn't going to do the backyard until later, but the current jungle of a yard needs be torn up anyway, so it just makes more sense to do it now.

So there are a lot of things to do!  And what I didn’t really appreciate at the start of it all is just how many decisions need to be made for each and every item on the list!  Take the kitchen…  There are cabinets to choose, which requires picking a cabinet vendor, color, style, finish, and layout!  There are way too many options for all of them, and I think in all it took about 4-5 weeks to come to any sort of consensus on the first four, and another two weeks to figure out the layout.  And then it takes 4-8 weeks for them to arrive.  And of course, the cabinets have to go with the tile, the counter, and the backsplash!  There was another two weeks of visiting tile and granite showrooms to get an idea on that.  Oh, and don’t forget the appliances and sink with fixtures…  I actually still haven’t decided on a sink or faucet, but that’s probably the only unknown in the kitchen, yet.

Chosen kitchen cabinet design with the current front runners in tile and granite

Cabinets come in gigantic boxes!!!

A room full of cabinets waiting to be installed in the kitchen...

Now the kitchen was actually fairly simple compared to the bathrooms.  The kitchen was pre-existing, and I’m just updating it.  The bathrooms, however, are not!  There is one bathroom, which is being torn out completely, and replaced with two new ones.  So in addition to figuring out layout, tiles, backsplash, fixtures, and cabinets, there’s also the floor plan to decide on!  And in drawing up a floor plan, there’s building codes to consider…  Turns out you need almost 3’ of space for a toilet that’s only about 18” wide…  Who knew?  But finally, after 3 or 4 totally different floor plans, all the tiles for the master bath are chosen and most of the other details are figured out, too.
But you know what’s hardest about all of this?  Picking colors!  I generally am not too picky about colors.  I had an idea that I wanted dark cabinets, because for some reason I like darker wood, so I picked a nice cherry with a darker finish.  But what color tile or counter goes well with that is far beyond me!  Even more so, what color siding do I want?  I honestly really don’t have enough of a preference to be picky, let alone what color deck and patio stone would match.  And I still have things to decide on with regards to what color the wood floors should be, what color to paint the walls, etc.

Left: Original upstairs floor plan; Center: 2nd iteration (the first iteration isn't shown); Right: 3rd (and final) iteration

There are way too many decisions that go into designing a house.  But thankfully, I’ve had plenty of help.  Being an engineer who likes to play with CAD, I naturally took some measurements and put together a model of the house to help with planning.  While some might call it a little obsessive, I now have a very accurate SketchUp model of the house, what has been invaluable in the whole process, because I can toy with things fairly easily, including sizes and shapes, colors and tiles, and pulling models from the internet just to try out!  Also, it makes it much easier to communicate what I want to the builder and the architect when I can just send them the model!

But more than the computer model, the biggest help has been friends and family.  My mom, despite building a house of her own right now, has always been more than willing to take random phone calls asking seemingly ridiculous or minor questions about anything and everything!  And Betsy has been more than happy to go along and look at tiles or granite or whatever the item of the day is, and provide her interests and opinions!  This is such a massive task, that there’s no way I could do it myself, so I’m extremely grateful for all the help!