Working with the Design Center: Final steps

The day has finally come. You’ve waded through scads of upgrade selections for every room and system of your brand new home. You’ve worked painstakingly with your buying partner, your family and the Design Center professional to arrive at decisions that will optimize livability.

You may by now have decided on paint color, stair styles, shower and bath surrounds, backsplashes. At last, you’re down to the final one or two meetings, to choose your appliances, countertops and flooring.

Whether you have reached this point after two or three meetings or as many as eight,

you might almost feel like you’re graduating from the process. (Or ordeal, depending on how you look at it!)

So what are the final steps in the Design Center process? How does it all draw to a close?

Having worked through the menu of selections for your entire home, you may want to take a breath. You will not necessarily be expected to finalize your choices while you’re in the room with the designer.

“We send (buyers off) with their notes and their pricing, and a couple of different budget scenarios,” explains Lisa Perlman, design studio manager at Taylor Morrison.

Before buyers leave the office, “We always encourage them to take pictures” of their selections. Photos help bolster memory when it’s time to finalize decisions at home.

“(The buyers) go home, they digest it,” continues Perlman. “And if they have trouble (finalizing) or get decision paralysis, we say, ‘We’ll note this down and then if you choose not to go with it, you can fall back to the standard.’ ”

Notes Perlman, “(Often, buyers will) end up with a follow-up appointment sometime during the week. We’ll let them come back in, mill around, and look at things on their own.”

Ideally, a fresh, onsite look at your selections can rally confidence, allowing you to feel comfortable arriving at a final decision.

After having had a chance to review their photos and notes, and take a last, in-person look at their choices, comments Perlman, most buyers “can usually sign up pretty quickly.”

Signing up means literally committing with your signature to the choices you’ve made. But don’t fret. While the handholding process may have come to an end, you won’t be leaving the Design Center empty-handed. You should receive a complete set of plans or drawings to illustrate everything from electrical and plumbing to flooring, appliances and backsplashes. The drawings are typically comprehensive and easy to read.

“We do really nice elevation drawings on the (signed) paperwork,” instructs Perlman. “(Buyers) can see where the tile is going, where the hardware is going . ... We also (include) electrical,” illustrating exactly where, for example, can lights and wall plug-ins will be.

Some builders insist on a deposit for the upgrades when you sign the paperwork. That deposit is added to your escrow account. Others structure the process so that the sum for upgrades will be added to your monthly mortgage amount.

The Design Center process requires commitment, even grit, some might say. In the end, when you consider you are developing a home to serve the needs (and wants) of you and your family for years to come, you have to conclude the time and energy are well spent.