The Minimalist Style

The whole point of this blog site was to keep everyone apace of what's going on with our future home. I thought it best to share some photos of what our home currently looks like. Ok, ok... these were taken a week ago... but I don't think it has changed much!

This one is the view if you were standing in front of the house, and looking across the street. As you can see, there's a nice break between the homes across the street, providing us a with a nice view of the retention area just beyond.

These next two shots are of the view from the rear of the house. As you can see, there is a conservation area just beyond our property line.

There is also the back-end of a community called, "The Estates." The homes here all look to begin at $750,000 and go up in price from there. Some very large homes and plots of land. Thankfully, I believe there is only one more home to be built in the back at the cul-de-sac.

This house is to the left, if you were facing our home. Its over 3,000 sq ft. The owner is a lady from New York, but that's all we know. Sabrina isn't allowed, by law, to tell us anything else about our future neighbor. This house is almost complete and the neighbor should be moving in some time in mid-May.

This is the view off the right side of the house. There are two lots (I think, maybe three) between us and the next house down. KB has not sold them yet, but will begin construction on them soon... and just sell them as inventory homes. Hopefully, they will be completed about the same time our home is done.

And finally, below, is the view of our home. I'm not convinced that Noel and I enjoy this minimalist design style. So I think we'll at least ask them to put up some walls and a roof... at the very least. :)

Look ma! No hands!

Here's a fun anecdote... Last Wednesday Noel and I went to the KB Home office to sign the Sales Agreement. We were a bit confused going in to the meeting. We were handed an estimated 3,798,493 pages of legalese to read in two days. Now we were expected to sign it. I think we were both feeling a bit overwhelmed. So we brought along her parents.

The office wa a small niche carved out of what will soon be a garage for the model home. In this niche 5 of us sat: Sabrina (our friendly KB Home sales lady), Noel, me, my in-laws: Vito and Anna. Each one of us with a different agenda. Noel was a bit eager to just sign the paperwork, and ensure that the 'Den' is really a '4th bedroom'. I wanted to be sure I understood some of the legal clauses of the contract correctly. Sabrina was telling us about the HOA's and using language to make sure we stayed emotional and excited. Anna wanted to know a lot about the community ("What's the quality of water like?" and other questions that never occurred to us to ask). And then my father-in-law, Vito... his agenda.

Before I tell you, you should know a bit about him. If you've met him, you probably have already witnessed his immense talent for conversation. And if you've met him, you like him. Because there is no way that anyone has met him, and doesn't like him. He's a lot like my Pop-pop in that regard. Now Vito spent most of his professional career in sales. He was a chemist/sales rep for AGFA for 20+ years. Even though I've seen this happen many times now, I'm still not sure how he does it, but my father-in-law was able to work his magic on Sabrina.

The house came included with quite a few upgrades and additional features, but it did not come with an automatic garage door opener. As we're reviewing the upgrades page to the sales agreement, Vito leans over and says, "Where's the garage door opener?" With a pleasant smile, Sabrina lets him know that this isn't included. Vito responds. "What?! There's no wedding gift for them in there? Why don't you just write it in... 'garage door opener'?" Again, with a smile and a laugh, Sabrina declines. At this moment we receive a visit from a member of the HOA. Very nice gentleman named Paul. Paul is nice, but apparently has the reputation of being the enforcer of the CCR's. He's the guy riding around leaving notices in mailboxes for the lawn not being mowed. Noel and I start talking with Paul, and asking some questions. After about a 5 minute conversation, Paul takes his leave. We turn around and Sabrina and Vito are shaking hands, as she agreed to give us an automatic garage door opener.

I don't get it. I missed the whole thing... again. Now, she said she can't include it in the paperwork... but that it should be in the house when all is said and done.

I guess Noel and I won't have to get out of the car to open the door! And each time we pull into the driveway, as its raining, we'll thank my father-in-law for working that bit of magic!

Our House... Its a very, very, very fine house!

I've tried this whole blog thing in the past, and I usually get bored or busy. This has caused me to not post. We'll see if that happens again. And it might.

But for now, I thought it would be great to have an online place for Noel and I to share our thoughts on the house we just purchased. But now I'm getting ahead of myself...

Noel and I purchased our first home!!!

We bought a new home from KB Homes. It is in a community called Stevens Plantation in St. Cloud, Florida. The house is going to be great, too!

Some basic information:

• 1 story


• 4 Bedrooms/2 Bath


• 2,159 sq ft


• 2 car garage


• Expected Completion: September 2007

We signed the purchase agreement two days ago (Wed. April 18th) and today we have our appointment at the KB Design Studio to finalize the remaining options!

I am going to find a way to setup an online photo gallery for the rest of the images. I'll post an update when I have that going.

Thanks for stopping in, and please leave us comments!