Visiting Beazer's "Design Studio"

We have been searching for a house in earnest since about February 2007. Our search began at the Home Show in Bloomington, where we met with Linda from Beazer Homes. After looking at a number of different options in Bloomington, we were learning towards Beazer's development, The Highlands. We visited the development a couple of times to look at the model homes, and to talk to Linda, but we were still undecided about what we wanted to do.

On Saturday, April 28, we made our way up to Indianapolis to visit Beazer's “Design Studio,” which is sort of like a miniature hardware store. They have samples of counters, carpets, doorknobs, and so forth. Their real function is to sell you on upgrades. Basic carpet and so forth is included in the price of the home, but they make their profit on upgraded accessories. We managed to hold off on the upgrades, mostly. We haven’t finalized our choices yet, but here is what we are thinking of.

The carpet color we liked is called “Brown Sugar” and it really is the color of light brown sugar. Mmmmmm. We plan to upgrade to a thicker pad to make the carpet feel plusher and last longer. The walls could be either white or cream, so we picked cream. There are all these choices of things, but NO, you can’t choose the colors for your walls. Honestly, isn’t that the one thing everybody wants when they finally buy a home and get out of renting: to paint their walls? I was really hoping for a pink bathroom! (Big sigh of relief here from Derek.)

The kitchen and bathroom cabinets will be sort of a basic, medium-toned oak (well, oak-stained pine, I think.) The counters will be laminate (that’s the normal countertop material, unless you get something fancy like Corian or Avonite or granite) with a little raised lip to contain spills. The color is sort of a stone-look beige with a little bit of gray. The kitchen floor will be vinyl that imitates tile in a beige and cream color. The bathroom will also be vinyl imitating stone in a gray and beige pattern. I know that vinyl isn’t the coolest choice, but it was the cheapest. And it is a lot softer to stand on than tile or stone. This is the kind of vinyl that comes in one big sheet, rather than in squares, so it will be easier to keep clean than most floors. And cheap is always good.

The basic faucets are shiny chrome with a single lever in the middle. Very easy on my hands. There were fancier choices, but they were all very elaborate. I could just picture hours of scrubbing all the cute little designs with a toothbrush. Not a pretty picture!

We may have to buy our own doorknobs from an outside source, because we didn’t really see any lever-type door knobs (as opposed to knob-shaped ones.) I often can’t open doorknobs, so we will have to see if they have levers available. If not, we can always install our own. The house comes with a doorbell. It is very funny to me what is included and what costs extra. A door bell is included, and so is a fancy closet system of bars and shelves. But the water heater just sits out there for everyone to see with no door hiding it. Very odd.

I am sure this is the least exciting but most used design choice: toilets. We couldn’t see paying extra for colored toilets. At least with white ones you can tell if it they’re clean or not. But I think we will pay more for an extra large toilet. No, not for people with big posteriors. It is two inches taller, for people with bad knees, backs, hips, etc. I really liked the new extra-tall toilets at my parents’ house.