Jennifer Coppola At Home
My husband and I submitted an offer for a new construction single-family home in July 2023 and were excited to move in December 2023, which was the date that the builder gave us and stated in our contract. Our December move-in date didn't come to fruition, and we did not move in until the end of May 2024. The big benefit of the delay was that we were able to research and plan out the projects that we wanted to tackle first since the requests we submitted to the builder were denied.
Many people we spoke to assumed that we would have the ability to select finishes and other options for our home since that is what many major home builders allow buyers to do. However, this was not the case with our builder. For example, we requested a different set of kitchen appliances that were all the same standard sizes that would fit in the kitchen, a pot filler for the range, and extra cabinets on an empty wall for more storage. We were willing to pay extra since we knew these were considered change orders because we thought it would be best to request those changes up-front before the electrical, plumbing, and drywall were completed to save money on materials. We were denied all of our kitchen requests along with other requests in the house. This is why we are doing projects in a newly constructed home.
Even though it was disappointing that the builder wouldn't make any modifications, my husband and I started planning out what we wanted to change in each room while we waited for the house to be done. The great thing about our house is that we had the comfort of knowing that the electrical, plumbing, foundation, flooring, and walls were all new and up to code. That's huge since many of those fixes can get costly quickly. It was a brand new house but a blank slate with walls all the same color...but not for long.
Over the last 7 months, we have modified the following rooms in our house, which I will be going into detail further in future posts.
Kitchen: new appliances, new cabinets, moved existing cabinets, new light fixtures, pot filler
Windows: cellular shades from Blinds To Go
Living Room transformed into a Home Office: coffered ceiling, paint, glass door and partition
Home Office: furniture, pictures
Dining Room: coffered ceiling, picture frame molding, paint, new light fixture
Backyard: in-ground pool, paving stones, fence, trees, grass, sprinklers
