Anyone who has ever built a house, especially from a company building whole subdivisions, knows that there are amazing models to show off their upgrades and features. You walk through and oooh and aaahh that all of this could be yours! Things to remember.... A. The furniture will not come with the house so remember that as you think of how awesome it looks and B. Upgrades are just that. Most of what you see form lighting and trim is an upgrade. While yes, this could all be yours, don't be fooled into thinking it comes with this fabulous house! So on to what we chose.
The most important things to us were the space and any structural issues that we would have a hard time adding in later. With almost 9 kids we were going to need LOTS of bedrooms. The Rome offers a wonderful number of upgrades to accomplish this. We first started by adding in a full finished basement. This included a finished "media" room that could be used as a bedroom at a later date. We also opted for the full bathroom in the basement to accompany said bedroom. In addition to the four bedrooms on the second above ground floor we also chose to add a finished attic with an additional attic bedroom, common area and full bath. This bring our total to six bedrooms, two common areas within those bedroom areas and 4 bathrooms (not including the 1/2 bath on the main floor). While our kids will never all have their own rooms there is plenty of space to go around and we should be able to spread out quite nicely.
Other option we chose were...
Two Car Side Load Garage - Would have loved a three car but it's only available in the front load and can't be done on our lot because of the width.
Upgraded Gourmet Kitchen - This included the larger island, stainless steel wall ovens, side by side, gas cook top, built in microwave, dishwasher and granite counter tops. We were toying with the idea of purchasing our own refrigerator, but with twins due in May we have quite a bit going on and the prices were comparable enough that we just had them do it.
Morning Room
Gas Fireplace with Floor to Ceiling Stone
Carpeted Stairs with Wooden Balusters - This may sound like a standard choice but you can choose wooden stairs or half walls instead of balusters. The balusters really look much better and wooden stairs plus kids in socks equals total disaster and unscheduled ER visits.
Bronze Finish Throughout House - This is just personal preference. We got the darker hardware (includes door handles, hinges, cabinet hardware, faucets, lighting fixtures, etc.) because it matched our colors nicely.
Upgraded Master Bath - This includes separate tub and shower, granite counter tops, and tile floors. This again is personal preference as well as future resale value. Bathrooms and kitchens can really make or break a sale when you go back into the market.
We opted for no deck as this point so that we can design our own later. Their decks were nice composite or wooden but a little pricey for the size in my opinion. With a walkout basement we want to see the final layout on the lot and perhaps do a deck once we have all of that information.
Total square footage is just about 5,000 and the exercise room in the basement is the only other optional room that we did not finish (about 120 square feet). So we maxed out this floor plan to allow for maximum space.
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