Last week I took a tour of the new homes in the Sedgefield neighborhood in West Cary. The builders in the community are some of the most well known custom builders in the Triangle. It is usually pretty easy to recognize who built the home by walking through the homes and noticing some of their signature features. I took the video toward the end of 2014. Now, in 2016 the neighborhood is almost built out. There are a few lots left.
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Quality not Flash
In this price range the builders tend to stick to tried and true plans and features. That is one of the reasons you can walk through one of their homes built 10 or 20 years ago and recognize the good bones. A little updating may be needed but basically the homes are still current because of the classic details.
I like to take a Parade of Homes tour and see something new and exciting. The builders in Sedgefield achieve this by changing up the lighting and decorating. The basics of the new homes don’t vary much and that is good.
Because the Builders are local they are on site often and the homes are like their children. Often their sub contractors have been with them for years and know what is expected of them- attention to detail and quality.
Compare the features
In the video below I walked through the homes and tried to show you what is new in this price range. I didn’t take you through each home in detail because the video would be way too long. The builders have virtual tours on their web sites. As I mentioned before the plans don’t change much, the updates are in colors and lighting.
Here is a transcript of the video
Today I want to take a drive over to West Cary and show you a Cary neighborhood that’s just been started with six houses on the Parade of Homes. This road wasn’t even here a few months ago, it was just like a little tiny country road, and now it’s this huge four-lane highway with developments going up. We’re turning into Sedgefield now. This neighborhood is built by some of the best custom builders in the Triangle. The houses range in price from the six hundreds and go up. Before we take a look at the houses, we’re going to stop by and see Chris Farnleigh, the builder representative.
Chris: Yes, we have 8 custom builders, 73 home sites. Our sites average a .18 to a .38 in size.
Marianne: Well what is the price range?
Chris: It is . . . currently my offerings are from $560,000 to $728,000.
Marianne: It can probably go up from there but probably not down. [laughs]
Chris: It’s not going to go down. We do have basement offerings for first floor master and masters up. If there’s masters up, we do have a guest bedroom on the first floor. In 60 days we have sold 10% of the neighborhood.
Marianne: That’s terrific, well I’m really looking forward to going to see all these houses.
It would take me a long time to go through all six of the houses that are on the Parade of Homes tour, so what I thought I would do is take you through the different houses and show you the major rooms and what I’ve noticed the trends are in houses in this price range. One thing that the houses all seem to have in common is an open floor plan. The kitchens, breakfast room are all open. The kitchens tend to be white. White kitchens seem to be the thing; I didn’t see one house with wood cabinets.
Fireplace elevations vary from stone to this kind of rough tile to a traditional mantel. Here’s another white kitchen, marble counter top, screened porches are still in. This white kitchen is white on white basically. This is kind of the glazed look that we’re not seeing as much any more, they’ve gone pretty much all white. Watson Construction has this beautiful dining room ceiling as their signature feature and all their houses have some kind of feature like that.
Some of the dining rooms have coffered ceilings and are more what I would call handsome. This one sort of has a mixture of styles and I’m not sure about this one. Most of the master baths really weren’t . . . well, they looked like they have for years with the framed shower doors and the typical corner tub. This bathroom’s a little bit different. The tub is good looking. It might be hard to clean around but it looks nice. This is a semi frameless shower door which is good looking too. It has the rain shower and different features like that. Brushed nickel and chrome are still very much in for the fixtures.
White on white again. This is another of the houses oil rubbed bronze hardware so I’m still seeing some of that. This is in a lot of the new houses; this wood grain tile. This is actually a frameless shower door. They’re very expensive but since there’s only one piece of glass in this, they can afford to do it. Something else I’m seeing in all the houses are chandeliers everywhere; bedrooms, family rooms, closets. This is a good looking bath; it’s sort of different with the chevron pattern on the tub, big shower and the marble that is everywhere.
The master bedrooms, really there’s nothing different about them, they’re rectangular rooms, tray ceilings, crown moulding and a ceiling fan. Screened porches are still around. They are ranging from just like an after thought to one with a fireplace like that.
Staircases aren’t grand. Four houses, four different staircases, nothing particularly impressive. The wrought iron pickets are still very much in style, lots of coffered ceilings in the family room and dining rooms but what’s really important is that the builders used quality materials and took great care so these houses will look good for a very very long time. This is Marianne Howell Wright from Sedgefield in Cary, North Carolina.
by Marianne Howell Wright
