Our new home

[sandm]

just wondering if the interior texture on the walls is spray(typical of a tract home) or if it's hand-textured. might ask. if it's not too much, do the common areas(not bedrooms/laundry) in hand. it looks 100% better imo and will differentiate the house at resale time.

look into the concrete stain. head to a concrete supply house when you have some time off. they will fill you in. looks amazing and is easy to put up. only prob is if your concrete guy uses a sealer over the grey concrete, the stain won't take. needs to be unsealed. stain the bands on the driveway and front walk.

my .02 on inwall's and volumes. don't go nuts on prices. ebay is your friend. most of the time, that music is simply background. don't need a real expensive one. I used phoenix gold 8" 2-way's(ebay for under $60/pr) for most of them. your plant shelves in the living room would be an excellent way to get them in and out of the way. hidden sound is golden when you have peeps over

[mmandley]

Ahh ok yes i follow you on the wall texture, you know i don't know if that's as option i get to use. Ill look into it and see. I agree on the hand texture walls. I know the models had spray in but they only put a few options in the models. Most of the model options were no cost upgrades, we have some of the no cost upgrades but we have spent about 30K in physical upgrades but most wouldn't see it as we have carpet, linoleum floors and Formica counters. We opted to take standard feature on this stuff so we have more time to shop and choose what we want. Plus i know enough guys who do those professionally i can have them help me for a little liquid compensation.

I will for sure look into the stained concrete. I ran that by Claudia this morning and she gave me the deer in the headlight look until i said we can make the porch blend in with the house better and then you could see the light bulb go off LOL

[sandm]

be careful on the upgrades that you have the builder do. often times you get into a position where you have too much invested into a house that won't bring the value at selling time. things like upgraded trim, crown, kohler vs moen fixtures won't bring extra cash at resale in the market you are probably going to be in.