de Jong Dream House: Open House (not ours)

One of the (many) reasons we chose Charis as our builder is that we were able to see many, many of the homes they built during open houses they hold before the owners move in. They are a small custom builder so they build about 20 houses a year, maybe less. They don't have a big showroom, so often the "office" is a home they've built for a home owner, which they might rent as a model while the owners' house sells. Everybody wins.

As fun as it is to see the completed homes, because everyone can see and appreciate fixtures and finishes, Charis also hosts "dusty shoe" open houses, which take place before the drywall stage. These were really informative for us as we were more concerned about the structural bones of our house then the finishes that can easily be changed or upgraded later.

Last night we visited Charis' newest completed home. A few highlights:

This is the niche design our house had originally. Very nice, but I love the functionality of our bench. Future home owners will be able to choose either, or something else. That's the beauty of a custom builder.

This floor plan is called the Cooper. My mom says it's the perfect floor plan, and the one she would get if she was building with Charis. Builders can design their own plan--like we did--or customize plans that Charis has already built. These open stairs are so pretty with the stone.

More pretty stone on the kitchen bar.

This is the current model of the Jenn Air floor model oven we bought.

I really like the way their tile is finished with this nickel band.

We chose to use fiberglass inserts for our showers, but if we ever upgrade to til, I would love a design like this.

The entry would work well for a wheelchair.

This is the standard style of closet shelving. I like that it's solid shelves, not wire. Our closets will be going be going in this coming week. Ours will have pull out baskets instead of shelves on the bottom half of the tower.

It's interesting to us that as we look at different homes, we focus on whatever decision we're making. Since we are deciding on our mudroom hooks, their cubbies caught our eye.

We're putting an ironing board drawer in our laundry room upstairs, and putting a regular ironing board in the in-law suite. But, we might add something like this in the in-law closet at some point.

This is another upgrade take away. Maybe when D is older, we'll put a tub base in his shower and tile the top.

We put off finishing the basement for now (sigh), but seeing their finished basement led us to an inspired hour in our basement today talking about how we might lay it out.

The multi-zone HVAC controller. We have 4 zones, one for each floor with a separate zone for the main-level in-law suite.

We LOVE this idea for our mudroom closet! The little ledge is perfect for putting Niels' laptop bag, D's school bag, our shopping bags, etc. Hopefully it won't be too hard to add this to our closet plan.