Designing Our Home - A Female and a Male Perspective

Julie, an Ideal Homes employee, is sharing her experience of building a new Ideal Home. You can read her first post here. During the selections process, I thought it would be fun to get both a female and male perspective. Here were my thoughts from a woman's point-of view: Last night, we had our first experiencein the Design Center with the Preview Meeting. We met with Melody who is going to bewalking us through the entire selections process. She told us what we could expect in our next two meetings and gave us a tour of the Ideal Homes Design Center. It was fun getting our first look at all the decisions we'll be making - lighting, flooring, brick, stone, counter tops, cabinets, the list goes on and on. The sheer number of choices is dizzying and exciting. Melody assured us that she would walk us through every single decision and that it was her job to let us know what all our options are. I'm counting on her to help me figure out how to get all the ideas floating around in my head into our new home. She also gave us a list of homework, including driving through some of the neighborhoods to start thinking about what brick and stone we might like and going through a list of options to start making a list of the things we want in our home. Overall, I'm incredibly excited and a little nervous for our next meeting, but I'm so thankful that we'll have someone there with us to guide us along the way.  My husband, Kevin, agreed to share his thoughts about the whole experience: Going into the housing buying adventure, I really don't know what to expect. This is our first time to go through building a house so this is all new. Julie has great taste and has what I think is my pulse when it comes to what I would type of decorating I would enjoy. So, my job is pretty easy. I get to sit back and watch my wife pick out a litany of options with the helpful staff at Ideal Homes. Preview night. This is a night when you get to walk through and look at all the different choices available. I don't recall what I enjoyed most about preview night? Maybe it was seeing my wife walk in the door beaming with confidence or her slow demise into doubt and uncertainty as she was given the task of literally selecting from thousands of options.Since we decided to purchase an Ideal Home, she has been pinning over the interwebs to see what she wants our new home to look like. After preview night, she started second, third and even fourth guessing what she had envisioned. I think she is back to her original ideas, but by the time this is read she may be on her fifth choice. The entire night went smooth. Melody walked us through the selection center without overwhelming us. The great news for my wife is that Melody has been walking new home designers through this process for three years. She is there to help us make the right decisions. This is an exciting time for our family, and the home buying experience has been an easy one for me. I'm there to listen and to bounce ideas off of when needed. My wife, on the other hand, has her work cut out for her as we approach our second meeting with Melody in the coming weeks.  Overall, it has been a fun experience so far. Wish us luck on Tuesday when we start really digging down into all of our home decisions.