Building a House: Plan Review

We met with our designer and builder on January 13th to discuss the floor plan we had chosen and the changes we were hoping to make. The builder is Signature Homes and the floor plan we chose was the Manchester 4C. We did have a few changes we wanted to make so my handy engineer of a husband worked up, not exactly to scale, new floor plans. Originally it was a 4 bedroom 3 bath and we made it a 5 bedroom 3 bath with a bonus room and 3rd garage. Note that our home is flipped to what is below. So the living room and kitchen side of  the house will actually be on the left instead of the right. This had to be done because of which side of the house the driveway and garage had to be on. 

The exterior elevation

The left is the original main level and the right is Kevin's updated version with our changes. Primary changes are; extending the garage to 3 cars, extending the master closet and laundry room a foot or two, and removing the counter/cabinet area between the pantry and fridge to make the pantry larger. 

The 2nd Level - Original floor plan is on the left, and our modified floor plan is on the right. The notable changes are the added bonus room and the walled in kid's retreat to create the fifth bedroom.

During the Plan review we just made sure layout was how we were envisioning and we picked where we wanted extra lighting (we added lots of recessed cans) which ways the doors swing, specified certain outlets (which are otherwise just placed to code) and any other upgrades. i.e. insulated garage and tankless water heater. The plan review has been the most stressful for me because most of our money was spent in this meeting with the multiple changes we made. They were all legit changes and Kevin is very smart and we worked very well at making the changes that were a must and best for the future without going overboard and wastefully dumping money into this house. But I am frugal so hearing the price increase gave me mild heart attacks :)