House Design Choices!

About 10 days ago I went to the design center for the company that's building our house and I got to pick out all our house details!  And by "pick out" I mean "desperately try to stay within the confines of my husband's pre-determined budget but maybe go over just a little in hopes he'll up the number."  And, thankfully, after me talking a lot and him being over me talking a lot, he shut me up by agreeing to a slightly higher budget.  Yay.  Thank you, honey.  And thank you for the ass that you have lost due to working it off so that we can afford to build such a great house.  I love you!

Ok, moving on from the spousal ass kissing to the good stuff...MY CHOICES!  And, yes, I do say MY choices instead of OUR choices because I went to the design center solo due to Tom's insane schedule and his lack of desire to sit around while I'm all OH, THIS COLOR WOULD BE GREAT BUT DO YOU THINK IT REFLECTS LIGHT FUNNY MAYBE WE SHOULD GO BACK TO THE CHOICE I MADE 30 MINUTES AGO AND DECIDED I HATED BECAUSE I THINK I MIGHT LIKE IT BEST.

Although I did make the majority of the decisions, we were pretty much on the same page about what we wanted for the outside.  The house is mostly brick with stone on the garage (it's side entry, so from the front you see this kinda thing on the right - this is our neighbor's house, but the right layout will pretty much be the same):

Our colors will look like this, though:

I'm not much a warm color person.  I like greyish clay colors in blues, greens and grey - very stone-like.  The middle section stone will be on the right/garage side.  The brick will be everywhere else except for a small piece at the top that'll have the siding.  The red circle is pointing out our shingle/roofing color (black) and we'll have black shutters like that mini one there with a black door.  I think it's gonna be awesome.

The house comes with hardwood in the first foyer (it's got a kind of double foyer thing, one right after the other and the second one is carpet and it was kind of a ridiculous amount of money to hardwood the second foyer so we're going to stick with carpet there), hardwood in the kitchen/breakfast area and hardwood in the half bath downstairs.  We did an upgraded hardwood because I lurved it, but didn't add hardwood anywhere it wasn't automatically going.  I'm a carpet lady.  For me, it's super cozy.  And it's easier for Sailor to move around on and it's easier for Sampson and his nails.  I know hardwood is THE THING, but the thing was also the subject of a horror movie.  THINK ABOUT THAT.

Ok, here's my favorite.  This is our cabinet / granite / hardwood combo:

I will say that there weren't as many choices all around as I thought there were going to be - including the highest levels of upgrades - but I found some combos that I'm really excited about.  I thinking seeing this flooring right when you walk in will be great.  If you can't tell from the pic, it's got a distressed look.

And then here it is with the carpet:

The cabinets go in the kitchen and all the bathrooms.  We also choose granite on our snackbar, so that's awesome.  And, something we never knew about, we're doing staggered cabinets of 36" and 42" with black appliances.  I know stainless steel is THE THING, but it's a pain the ass to clean and looks smudgy all the time.  And you know what I said earlier about THE THING.

OH! We're also doing a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace that Tom HAD to have (that was his big thing) with a stained mantle and stone hearth.  The stone will be the same that's on our house.  But I'm more excited about our covered deck.  Yay.

OK, on to bathrooms.  I decided to skip tile and save that upgrade for down the road when I can add a heated floor.  My folks have tile with a heated floor and if you're going to do tile it's the only way to go.

So, these were my top two laminate choices for the upstairs bathrooms (master and Sailor's), and I went with the one on the left because it looks more like stone tiles.

Those are the only pics I have so far!  I've been bugging our contact guy for a "ground breaking" date.  They said "three weeks, three days" since singing the contract.  We signed on February 13th so we're on three weeks and ONE day.  I don't see it happening in the next two days, but I'd like it to be soon!!

Feel free to share design ideas, what you would do with a new place to design and what your "design style" is!!