Preparation for the Design Appointment

We elected to go the "full custom" option, where we could add / subtract rooms, move walls, and do just about anything we want with our new home. It's not free, but we hope to end up with a house that reflects our living style.

We had about a year from the time we signed the contract until our Design Appointment. Judi and I used this time to plan our home design.

First, we took a base Pringle design, The Stirling model. Our Sales Representative gave us detailed floorplan and elevation prints for this base model. I took these prints (36" x 24") to Kinko's and made several copies so we could mark them up with various design thoughts.

Second, we considered how we lived in our present home, what changes we would like for a retirement home, and our in house traffic patterns.

Third, we spent a lot of time on Mike Kelley's Florida Retirement Forums, http://www.kelleytown.com/forum/flretire/ , talking with others who had retired to Central Florida, particularly in Pringle communities. This sharing of information helped us greatly.

We tried on various ideas and eventually came up with a design that we likes. It basically does the following to the Stirling model:

- Pushes the Master Suite back about eight feet.
- Adds a Study in front of the Master Bath.
- Deletes the hall to the Guest Bedrooms and Bath.
- Moves the Guest Bath to be next to the Laundry Room.
- Adds a Powder Room near the Nook and rear Den.
- Widens the kitchen a bit.

Next I built a tabbed notebook in preparation for the Design Appointment. I included pages for each room, showing the design and dimensions we wanted, where we wanted the doors, windows, lights, fans, outlets, etc. It also included sections for appliances, HVAC, cabinets, closet shelving, electrical, plumbing, flooring, light fixtures, and hardware.

Then, we drew out the home design, first as the Pringle base Stirling model, and then as we wanted to change it. I did this using the computer, but it could also be done with pencil and a ruler. We kept a log of each change, deletion, and addition. The Pringle design center had told us that moving walls inside the building envelope did not add any cost. We also knew the cost per square foot for adding square footage at a given ceiling height, including "under air", "under roof", lanai, and porch. Using this, we estimated the costs of our changes.

We talked with Customer Care and got the specific brands / models of all the appliances, the furnace and A/C compressor, water heater, and cabinets. Then I went to the various brand websites to look at the specifications for these items. We looked at the base appliances and decided which we wanted to keep and which we wanted to upgrade. Judi and I used the same process to plan for our HVAC, cabinets, and other features.

We took all of this pre-work with us to the Design Appointment.

Next post - the actual Design Appointment.

First Things First!

First - some background. In mid-2004, after Cap had been retired for six months, we began thinking about having a retirement home in Florida, either for the winter, or as a primary residence. In December, 2004, we went to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida and also spent some time looking at various developments in the Central Florida region.

We have a good friend who has wintered in Mount Dora for almost ten years and she highly recommended that we consider the City of Mount Dora as a location for a home. After looking at several Pringle Development locations, we liked the descriptions of their planned Lakes of Mount Dora community, and their willingness do allow both semi-custom and full custom design of a home at a minimal design cost. At that time, the cost added for the design work was only $3,000.

After a week back at home, we called to select a lot in the pre-construction phase and sent in a $1,000 deposit. Three months later, in March, 2005, we again vacationed at Disney World in Florida and took time to go to Mount Dora to sign a contract with Pringle Development. Our contract allowed for a two year deferral of home construction and provided for three days with a designer on a CAD system to design our home.

Since we wanted to prepare our existing home in SouthEast Michigan, near Ann Arbor, for sale, we didn't schedule our time with Pringle's designer until more than a year later, in April 2005. However, we had a year to think about home design, learn about Pringle's design process, and talk with other people who had been through the building experience in Central Florida. It was a busy year.

The next post will provide more information about the preparation for design that we did.