The ONE tip that saved me while picking finishes for our house

What is the ONE tip that saved me while picking finishes for our house?…

Visualizing.

Maybe that is a no brainer – but how?!? I can’t go into a showroom and look at 2700 samples and pick what is going to look good all over my floors and walls. And I can’t look at flat floor plans and grasp what it will look like when built. So these 3 things helped me visualize things a little better.

There are probably computer programs and an app or 10 to help you do this – but I will share the 3 I used…

1. Draw..or find someone who can.

I have no talent or ability to draw. But luckily my builder’s wife was fantastic at it. When I was having a hard time visualizing and deciding between a few different options for certain parts of our house, she would draw it out for me. This picture below is one of the options for our fireplace. She drew it right on the wall next to where it would go so I could look at the drawing and then the space and try my best to visualize what it would look like. 

My sister is not an artist, but her renditions of the front of our home with all the different options helped a TON to know what combination of brick, siding and shake to do. Here are two of them so you can see what I mean… It helped a ton!

2. Lay out or hold up all the different options and take pictures.

Seeing options right next to each other in a picture, makes the decision easy which one you like better.

For handles that I needed to order online, I used masking tape cut to the 2 sizes I was contemplating since I couldn’t physically hold them up for pictures.

3. Pay attention to  the details of all the pictures you have saved/pinned.

Why do you like that bathroom?

Function? Style? I didn’t think I needed special faucets, but when it came time to pick them out, I realized they were a make it or break it for all the pictures I had pinned and know I loved.

I had no idea when we built our house how many decisions we would be faced with. Never. Ending. and quite literally, overwhelming. I remember the first time I broke down was in the plumbing store. We were there to pick out our faucets, toilets, bathtubs, etc. and I walked around and looked at all the options available and I couldn’t take it.  I shut down and couldn’t make a single decision. Not a productive meeting. I went home and started researching options. I read reviews and looked through the pictures I had gathered of ideas that I liked. Then I found a common theme….Kohler. This was a name that stood out in design, function and price point. Once I zeroed in on the brand, picking out what I wanted was fun again.

They were the company that made the adorable sink that I knew I wanted to put somewhere ever since I first saw it in a Pottery Barn Kids catalog. It ended up in my half bath…

They were the company behind the master bath fixtures I loved…

…and kitchen sink / faucet I wanted.

It was easy to find facets and fixtures to fit the looks I liked for the rest of the house on their website.

If I had not already visualized my spaces with the help of Pinterest and Houzz (a home builder’s best friends), I wouldn’t have found the common thread to the look I was after.

A couple bonus tips for fun:

If your kids (or you) are fans of Minecraft, you could do this too – my boys actually took the plans of our house and scaled it for Minecraft. I was able to walk through our virtual house, as Steve, while they were still breaking ground on our real house! It actually had us change a few things because we could visualize the space so much easier!  And quick side note while I have all you Minecraft fans’ attention, my boys have loved learning to program using Minecraft with CodaKid – it really is FABULOUS!

When your house is in the framing stage, go write on the walls! We each wrote our favorite scripture on the entrance into our rooms. I stole this idea from Shawni, HERE: 

For our front entrance we picked one from Joshua 24:15 “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”. It helped us visualize the kind of home we wanted to make this new house we were building for our family.

Ok that’s it. Just know that picking your finishes doesn’t have to be stressful – it can be fun! Just don’t let yourself get overwhelmed. Take it room by room and try to visualize everything!

*This is a post written by me, featuring my own thoughts and opinions. Thank you to Kohler for providing product for review.

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by Missy via Home And Garden