Sunday, November 7, 2004

Column: What shape is your commode?

MOVING IN WITH AN OVAL COMMODE
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Greensboro News & Record (NC)-
November 7, 2004
Edition: HIGH POINT
Section: TRIAD
Page: R1
Column: JANET BRINDLE REDDICK  
Hometown High Point

        What shape is your toilet?

        You're not the only one that never thought about it.

        "Round or elongated oval?" the very helpful and patient home design gallery consultant asked me.

        My husband, sensing my frustration after three hours of decision-making about selecting every detail in our new house, stepped in.

        "Do you want to take some of this home and think about it over the weekend?" he asked me.

        Yes. A thousand times yes. Heck, I had to try on my wedding dress four times before I could commit to it. And I was only going to wear it for one day. Cabinets, countertops and faucets had significantly longer staying power, so I needed a little more time to think it over.

        At this point, a hexagon toilet was fine with me. Then it hit me: The joy and fun opportunity of selecting everything in our brand new home meant we had to select everything in our brand new home.

        Know how many light fixtures you have in your house? I know I do in mine. On the first floor alone (only inside the house), we have 12. I know this because I had to pick each one out to match what was in the room. Or the room next to it. In some cases, to the front door. And the basic ones just weren't as pretty as the upgrades.

        Ah, yes, the upgrades. I'm one of those people my mother warned potential boyfriends about. Get out your credit cards, gentleman. I always like the one that costs the most. Our once affordable home was quickly turning into something that had the word "manor" or "estate" after it. Suddenly, I was having visions of supplementing my income by cleaning someone else's round/oval toilets.

        I shouldn't be complaining about it. For the first time since I moved here in 1998, I'll finally truly be able to call myself a Triad resident now that we've bought a house. My husband grew up in Greensboro. His grandparents live here in High Point. But while I've lived and worked in the area for more than six years now, it finally feels good to be putting down roots - or in our case, natural hardwood, a vinyl pattern called slate and an alabaster-colored carpet. If you're wondering, the cabinets are a fawn maple and the countertops are called sunstone.

        In my next life, I'm gonna be the one that gets to pick the names of these colors.

        When we were kids, Crayola made it simple: red, green and white. These days, I have to pick from rustic brick, celery and snowfall.

        When people ask me what color the carpets are, I'm going to say beige. Alabaster sounds like something you get over the counter to deal with a skin condition.

        But thank goodness, after years of paying off debt and lots of help from our generous families, we're finally able to make this dream come true. I just didn't know that to get to our dream, I'd have to see 54 different colors of countertops.

        And now that the hard choices are done, we're watching the house go from a two-story floor plan that I've colored in to an actual foundation, wood and even a roof.

        It wasn't picking everything out that was the fun part - it's watching our two-story floor plan becoming a real-life 3-D structure.

        I'm certain that we'll have other challenges as we go forward, but we're ready to just let it happen. By January, we should officially be homeowners in the Triad.

        By the way, for the record, we went for the oval commode.

        Next, I just need some help with paint colors.

        Contact Janet Brindle Reddick at 883-4422, Ext. 244, at jbrindle@news-record.com, or stalking her new home construction site at least three times a week.

Copyright (c) 2004 Greensboro News & Record