At this point we received the floor plans for the house. After reviewing them and thinking about how we live, there were some changes that were needed. We just took a red pen, redrew some of the walls, crossed out what we didn’t want, and made notes for any other changes that would be best solved by the architect. This is one of the key benefits to working a custom builder like Freedom. We were able to use classic proven designs plus customizations that fit us now and in the future.

The redlining meeting with Mike and Jeff is to go over changes we would like so that the architect can build them into the final plans. Some of our concerns about the floorplan were in the kitchen, master bedroom, and garage. Thinking about furniture and how we would set them up, the master bedroom length was a little short. Our first thought was to extend the back of the house to make the room bigger. However, this would also add to the foundation, upstairs room, roof, insulation, and else everything in between the floors. This method would increase the cost noticeably for only a couple feet. Mike and Jeff recommended a much more budget friendly solution. By putting a cantilevered window, we could add a couple extra feet to the room, couple windows for ventilation, and the cost increase was minimal.

For the kitchen, we wanted a peninsula counter top (instead of an island) that was similar to what we saw in a few model homes. In order to fit this into the kitchen, and get rid of an extra closet, we requested a pretty significant change to the walls from the kitchen to the laundry room. The best solution wasn’t apparent at the time of the meeting, so we outlined what we’d like to have changed and leave the rest up to the architect to design. What he came back with was a great solution to our request. It incorporated all of the changes and even improved on a few we didn’t think of.

The last change was the garage. Be VERY aware of the garage size. While looking at other builders, some of the garages would be about 19ft by 20ft. That would seem like a reasonable size, but it’s not even close. When parking two cars in the garage, 19 feet might not even allow you to open the doors. An average SUV is a little over 6 feet wide. Make that two cars and that’s 12 feet with 7 feet to spare, but you need space to open doors on either side of the car. A 19 foot garage will only allow for about 2 feet on each side to open the door. This is why we asked Mike and Jeff about having an oversized garage. We could fit a 23 foot wide garage and still leave plenty of space for a side yard. This additional space did increase the cost along with the size of the room above the garage, but being able to open the car doors and allow for storage was worth it.

The rest of the floorplan fit nicely into what we wanted in a home. The only changes that increased the price was the cantilevered window in the master bedroom, garage, and bonus room above the garage. The rest of the internal walls were already factored into the costs. We just moved them around a bit. One thing Mike and Jeff did mention is that the increased wall space in the kitchen would allow for more cabinets, which would increase our costs when we pick them out.