Darren and I have been looking at new home floor plans for a few weeks now! It all started when Darren got an email from a new master plan community for an “Open House.” Since it was the end of our wedding season and we have our Saturdays back, we signed up and decided to go check out some new construction houses just to get a feel of what’s out there in the market and what the prices are.
Within 3 weeks, we have looked at 9 different brand new construction home communities and 25 total floor plans altogether. We enjoyed looking at all the options and it’s always fun checking out new homes and all the possibilities that come with building a dream home. Although they are not custom homes designed from scratch, they are however personalized to how we’d like them based on our lifestyle.
After looking at all the new construction homes in our price range, we kept coming back to this one community in the Sonoma Wine Country. They actually have 3 different builders offering 10 models/floor plans, and we selected this particular one:
It is very similar to the first home that we bought on Maui: 3-bedroom 2-1/2-bath + 2-car garage, but it’s almost twice the livable size at 2,507 square feet! Our Maui house was only 1,521 square feet, which was still a pretty good size house for us. With only the 2 of us and our 3 furbabies, we certainly don’t need all that space but some of the other brand new and older resale homes in the area that we have looked at were way smaller and also asking more than what we are paying for this brand new house, so Darren and I looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders like – why not?
This particular builder has 3 different floor plans to choose from:
PLAN A: 2,430 square feet
PLAN B: 2,507 square feet
PLAN C: 2,832 square feet
Although we like the main floor of the smaller plan, this middle plan has the best overall living spaces on both floors. We love how open this plan is with the great room, dining room and kitchen all integrated together. The study is tucked away from the main living area, and other families can opt for a 4th bedroom instead of a study and change the powder room to a 3rd bathroom.
This plan also has the biggest walk-in pantry right by the owner’s entry (mud room) from the garage and behind the kitchen! It’s so convenient for grocery storage. We opted for the extended island because we love having lots of counter space for food prepping. We also upgraded to the gourmet kitchen because that is the only kitchen configuration if we want to have a separate vent hood instead of the microwave hood. And with the gourmet kitchen, it also comes with upgraded cooktop, dishwasher and double microwave and oven with GE Cafe Series. I am not a huge fan of GE products, but since they come with the upgraded kitchen, might as well use it for a few years until we are ready for a remodel someday. We still have to get a refrigerator though, so hopefully, I can get the Samsung one that I like!
For the upstairs, we are going to make the loft space as another living/family room with a 2nd TV and our 2nd set of sleeper sofa/chaise. It’s nice to have that option in case we don’t feel like staying downstairs late at night and just want to stream a quick Netflix movie right before bed.
I love how the master suite takes up 1/4 of the house and having 2 sinks and 2 vanities in the master bath is a MUST! We upgraded to the deluxe master bath ‘cuz Darren wants a bigger shower! 🙂 Originally, we wanted to turn bedroom 2 into a master’s retreat (aka another walk-in closet), but after reading a few articles online about how the house value will drop if we eliminate existing bedrooms, we decided to keep the bedroom as is. We may still use the 2nd bedroom as another walk-in closet since we have these shelvings that we are currently using in our live/work space, but if those shelvings fit in our master walk-in closet, then I may turn that 2nd bedroom into my study… but we’ll see once we move in. The 3rd bedroom will be a guest room.
Technically, our floor plan can be expanded from a 3-bedroom 2-1/2-bath house to a 5-bedroom 3-bath house. It’s very flexible but we just don’t need all those bedrooms since we don’t have kids and not plan on having any.
The above layout is for all of the high-voltage electrical wirings for the house. At first, it looks very confusing, but once we figured out how to read it, it just all makes sense. I have been looking at this floor plan so many times now that I feel like I know the house inside and out, especially every light switch and electrical outlet! 🙂
I am so glad Darren and I are on the same page in terms of both the living space and the design style. This floor plan really feels right and we could totally imagine ourselves living in this house, so yesterday we signed the contract and in a few weeks, we get to visit the Home Gallery to personalize our new home for construction. Super excited… stay tuned!
