The House Bit
Readers of the Oct 2019 Trippy will know that trip ended with us purchasing some land in Palm Coast
and that we had spent some time looking at a number of show homes.
We had narrowed down the list of potential builders that we were interested in and the run up to Christmas was mainly spent looking at house plans and sorting out the official paperwork for the land purchase.
By Christmas - we had decided to go with Holiday Builders - both for their build quality (not a timber frame house) and their incentive deal.
We had initially decided on a house style called the Payten - it had a great floor plan and the high vaulted ceilings.
As we started to look at the interior options and the sorts of upgrades that we would be interested in , it became clear that choosing their Kings Bay model would give us more of what we wanted for an inclusive price - basically it is the Payten floor plan (but with lower ceilings)and a different set of upgraded finishes
Our next challenge was which house style to choose
A, B, or C
Wow, close run thing with everyone in the family preferring a different style and no clear winner.
A was knocked out relatively quickly
but B and C were neck and neck right to the wire. Some liked the triple roof feature and pillars on C, others preferred the windows and pillars on B ...
What we learned is there is no mix and match - so for example you can’t take the windows from B and have them on C.
After much toing and froing B won the day - and when we saw the styles up close, we were pleased as the roof on C had a finish to it that wasn’t really to our taste.
So, style B it was. It looks like this when finished ...
We weren’t planning to do any more with the house and it was quiet for a few weeks but then we had news that the house prices may rise in March plus the incentives package could be reduced.
In order to secure what we had seen; we would need to get over and sign a contract before the end of March.
And to make things go a bit quicker, it would help to have as much sorted and into a draft contract before we got there.
Evenings were devoted to going over the very lengthy list of options and quite quickly we could see what we definitely wanted and didn't want - but there was a big pile of “maybe’s” in between.
Not least whether to go for the covered lanai at the back - which had to be decided up front as it affected the shape of the roof build.
That suddenly meant looking at the garden options, where the pool will go and what flexibility we wanted. Having a pre built back porch and lanai would also eat up almost all the cash incentive and we felt would be limiting for the future garden plans - which we were nowhere near ready to sort out. So that became a no in the end. We will have some temporary shade for a while and then will get something built as part of the pool and deck going in.
We also had to work out where the house would be positioned and how much of the land would be cleared - only a certain amount would be cleared within the base price and with it being a pie shaped lot, there would be some restrictions on house placement due to border and fence regs - cue lots of drawings and more evenings spent with long tape measures working out boundaries until we came up with ...
Yes we will still have a sizeable wood at the bottom of the garden - plenty of scope then to keep Andy occupied and lots of potential for me to wonder about snakes, raccoons, spiders and other Florida Beasties that might be living in there . Better be a good fence and gate in place
We also have two uncleared plots either side of the house - lets hope they are quiet neighbours
Then on to choose the structural interior layout - which meant looking at the options on the kitchen and bathroom and the 4th bed/office/den choice at the front of the house.
The bathroom was pretty straightforward and the gourmet kitchen mainly had upgraded appliances which we felt we could source cheaper ourselves.
We opted for the 4th bed/Office for the front - the choice here was predominantly about the doors - retaining as per plan meant an arch and having a bedroom came with a wardrobe and single door
Going for the office gave double doors which we felt would be better - and its rarely going to be needed as a 4th bedroom so most of the time the doors will be open which will make it really light in the entrance.
There were tons and tons of other options but we reviewed those over the week that we were there and most of them changed so I won’t put them all here but everything from power cabling, tiles, door handles, ceiling finishes … to help us we did find this video of a show house
And that was great for some of the styling decisions.
A few screen stills though if you can’t be bothered with all the video - am not keen on all the colourways or some of the furniture but it helped us get a feel for the finished item!
And there we are at the start of March - with a draft contract and are jetting over to see all the options in person and make the final choices.
Next Stop Gatwick...