Final Selections & Neighbors too

We had our final selection meeting with our sales rep yesterday afternoon, and I was in agony the entire time.

BF and I sat in the choices room for a good 30 minutes with the floor sample, the cabinets and the countertops, going round and round in circles about colors and laminate v. Corian.

And around, and around and around.

What we finally decided was to upgrade the cabinet from Maple Cognac to Wyoming Cherry Spice.  Neither of us was really thrilled with the way the Maple looked with the cherry floors.  Or any of the floors, actually.  It was an 800 dollar upgrade, which, in the long run I think will be worth it because it will reduce my anxiety that I might not like how it looks.

In the end, we also decided not to upgrade the countertops.  I'd really, really, really like a solid surface countertop, but just can't see spending over $3000 to do it.  3 grand will buy us almost of of the materials we need to build a deck - or a tiny countertops.  I guess its a no-brainer, but...

So, the laminate color we choose was Brazilian Brown.  It was between that and the Jamoca (?) color, which I know a lot of you have picked out.  Anyone have Brazilian Brown?  It looked slightly lighter, and less busy.  But again, how can you tell from a 3" sample?

And finally, <drum roll> we picked the vinyl color.  If we had any stone or brick on the house, this would have been WAY less of an issue for me.  But, the look of the entire house rests on (again) a tiny little piece of vinyl sample.  We choose Delray Sand, with dark green shutters.  The Delray sand looked really yellow in fluorescent light, and more tan in the natural light (obscured by thunderclouds).  I'm still unsure.  In the past couple days, I have been really liking white houses with black shutters.  Boring, traditional and safe.  I think I like it because it looks like my grandma's house.  But BF thinks that the white will get dingy.  And I would like a little color.  I don't know, we'll see.  I don't have any pictures - it was pointless because it looked so different in different lights!

If you are interested, the colors available rom the new vinyl company is here:  http://www.variform.com/VariformCommon.nsf/ColorSiding?OpenForm&Refer=HO.  I think the ones that are available to us are in the Vortex Collection (not all of those colors were in the samples I got at the model house).

And, finally, I met our neighbor at Lot 5 while agonizing over the countertops at the model home.  He is also building a Ravenna, and was showing it off to one of his friends.  Definitely a nice social guy, but much younger than us.   He is getting granite countertops, and a finished basement.  Grrrr.  I had house envy for the first time - even though I don't even WANT those things!

Looking forward to seeing everyone's choices with the new vinyl selections...