Taupe, taupe everywhere...

Today we had our meetings with the electrician and design center to pick out any and everything for our new home. I let Brad meet with the electrician without me mainly because they were meeting at 11 a.m. and I had a photoshoot scheduled at work. But also because I could care less about wires and light switches. (Or so I thought...)

Of course, without me Brad got convinced to upgrade to the top home theater package. Pretty sure it's the most expensive electrical upgrade. But it is something we intended to do on our own. So, we'll have 5 surround sound speakers in our ceiling, a receiver, subwoofer, Blu-Ray DVD player, iPod dock and who knows what else...

Then this afternoon we went to the design center to pick out everything else! It is nerve racking to try to pick out all of the most minor details and envision how they will look once inside a home and all together. I think picking the kitchen granite was the hardest part for me. Picking all of the various shades of taupe for the carpet, wall paint, bathroom floors, etc. was just hilarious to me because there are so many choices and they ALL look the same!

For the exterior of the home we ended up choosing a lighter grey color called Monorail Silver for the siding, a darker grey called Wall Street for the shakes and accents and white trim. Our shingles will be black and the back and sides of the home will be sided in a dark grey color called Granite. It will look somewhat like this only this photo is a different elevation and I have no clue what's up with the random blue door...

Other items that we added today were a maple wine rack, cultured granite in the half bath and main bath (I had already added that to the master bath), garage door openers with keypad, and an upgraded kitchen faucet. We built in a lot of our other upgrades during negotiation and some things were already upgraded since the home was ready to be built as a spec home.

Those upgrades include maple floors, cabinets and trim throughout the house, granite countertops and island in kitchen, stainless steel appliances, pendant lights over island, front load washer and dryer, upgraded carpet on the main level, fireplace with granite surround and recessed lights, 6 recessed lights throughout the home, upgraded paint throughout the entire house, cultured granite in master bath, upgraded mission stair railing, ceiling fans, tray vault ceiling in master bedroom, garage door windows, irrigation system and I think that's about it.

Other things we plan to do ourselves are landscaping, install a wine fridge, build a deck, finish the basement, install dimmer switches, and possibly install a tile backsplash and ceramic tile in the bathrooms.

Whew. That's my update for now! We have the weekend to change any of the upgrades and then everything will be finalized on Monday and we'll find out next steps. Stay tuned!