Our next appointment was at the appliance distributor, where we discussed our selections. We had a pretty good idea of what we were interested in and Dave came prepared with a list of the model numbers which made it very straight forward. The sales associate took the information and committed to get an estimate over to Dennis for our meeting the next day. Now for lunch!
We spent the early part of the afternoon with a decorator who will help us pull the whole place together and make sure we do not do anything "too" outlandish. As the weather was not conducive to outdoors activities we headed to the fitness center for a quick workout before dinner in Charleston. Our dinner reservation was at McCradys, a popular haunt that more than met our expectations with a delightful atmosphere.
Thursday we woke to a cool (70's) but sunny day, and after a quick breakfast we grabbed our Starbucks and headed to the lighting store where we met with "Crystal Lovelady", a lighting specialist. Crystal had done her homework and walked us through the house plans room by room. We made decisions about pocket lights and placement of the switches - who would have thought there were so many decisions to be made around light placements. This totally sapped my brain cells so we headed for the mall to pass some time and grab a quick lunch before our afternoon meeting wth Dennis.
Back at RobertMorgan Fine Homes, Dennis was waiting for us to run through the designs once more, and discuss changes since our last visit. He also had the estimates from the appliance distibutor - and what a surprise! We are suppose to get builder discounted prices, however the prices were higher than the retail prices David had off of the internet. Catherine, Bob's (the Robert part of RobertMorgan) wife, immediately called another distributor for a second quote that came in at a much better price point. Lesson learned - get more than one quote and do your homework.
Thursday night we headed into town to FIG (Food is Good), another restaurant on our list that we wanted to try. While it was an acceptable meal, it did not meet the same standard as many of the other restaurants we have come to know. Also, we were astonished at the high number of elderly folks (it looked like an early bird special night). This was a first for us, as most of the city restuarants seem to be full of a younger trendy set of patrons (much like ourselves!).
Friday - the cabinet day! Terry our kitchen designer, and a chef prior to getting into kitchen design, did an awesome job of taking the concept we discussed on our last visit, translating it into a kitchen. The cabinetry will be two colors - "espresso and late" (I really am a Starbucks fan!) with fairly straight lines. We still have to decide on counter tops but that can wait to another time. Once we had settled on the kitchen, which took a lot of negotiation (Donna and David), we moved on to the bathrooms. For the master bath, which will have a modern look with an open glass brick shower, we choose suspended cabinetry resting on glass bricks - a great concept that left our designer and Terry very excited. We chose a "Tommy Bahama" theme for the FROG (Room Over the Garage) with a touch of rattan. The other two bathrooms will have a more traditional look, one white and the other a wood shade.
Three hours later, completely sapped, we decided to head to the airport to see if we could catch an early flight home. Unfortunately we could - the reason for the unfortunate part is that we didn't have time to refuel the rental car, and let me tell you, rental car gas is VERY expensive. But it was good to get home for now, as we will return to Charleston in June once the house is framed. Stay tuned.
