- Hardwood in the dining/living room
- Hardwood on the stairs (this will be freakin' expensive to get through the builder, but my research tells me that it's freakin' expensive anyway, and a pain in the ass to do afterwards)
- Ceramic tile in the kitchen and bathrooms
- Upgraded underpad in all carpeted areas
- Upgraded cabinets in the kitchen (this is one we don't actually want to spend the money on, per se, but we don't really like any of the standard cabinets)
- At least a Roman tub (I will be upset if I can't have a tub bigger than the glorified soap dish that is a standard tub. Mark thinks I'm being foolish to worry about this, but the floor plan makes it look like only a standard tub will fit. We'll see.)
- Glass shower door (the fact that this is an upgrade seems ridiculous to me, but there you have it)
Upgrades we have thought about, but whether we get them will depend on how expensive they are and how exhausted our budget is by the time we get through the above list:
- Tile backsplash in the kitchen
- Some sort of upgraded kitchen; I know Mattamy offers several kitchen "packages", but I'll have to see what's included and how expensive they are before deciding
- A window seat in the master bedroom (I don't even know if this is a possibility with our model, but one of the model homes has one and I loved it)
I'm sure there're other things we're not thinking about, but those are the ones we've considered so far. We got a $5000 credit for the Design Center as a purchase incentive, but we'll blow through that pretty quickly (probably on one of the hardwood options alone). We do have a budget in mind beyond that, and I'm hoping to stay within that amount if at all possible.
Speaking of purchase incentives, another one that we got was three free appliances (fridge, stove and dishwasher) from The Brick. They're pretty standard white appliances, but hey! Free appliance! If we decide to stay with those they'll be delivered and installed when we close, but if we choose to upgrade we'll have to arrange delivery and installation after closing (and pay a delivery fee, I believe). We are pretty seriously thinking about upgrading. We don't want anything too fancy (did you know you can get fridges with TVs in them now?!), but ideally we'd like something a little nicer. We're thinking stainless steel or black, flat top stove and a bottom freezer fridge. As for washer and dryer, I don't want to spend a whole lot but definitely want front loaders. Luckily, we have a separate budget for appliances!
