Design Studio

Late June we received an email from the Toll Brothers Design Studio congratulating us on our new home. They wanted us to contact them within the coming weeks to schedule an appointment. They encouraged us to visit the design studio before our initial appointment to pick our selections so the meeting can be more efficient. It usually takes about a month to get into the design studio but I was able to schedule an appointment two weeks later because they had a few cancellations. The design studio appointments are far from convenient.  The design studio does NOT have weekend hours for appointments. So yea, people have to take off work or work half a day to make the appointment. Whatever, what can we do about it?

I visited the design center a few times back in May.  I pretty much knew what I wanted and have already discussed the prices/options with my husband. I wanted to make sure Toll offered options that I liked and the cost. I did not want to purchase a half a million dollar home with a bunch of basic construction grade materials.

Major Key: Visit the design studio before signing your agreement. Knowing the cost of certain upgrades and options really helped me pick what I liked and helped determine how much to budget. I also took plenty of notes and pictures of pairings so I could easily remember what I selected. This helped expedite the initial design center consultation as well.

The email highlighted the Design Studio’s process and broke down what we would be doing during the initial appointment. Here’s the email in summary:

Your Initial Appointment:

Your initial appointment at the Design Studio will be scheduled with me on a week day and will take approximately 3 hours.  The more selections you’ve made in advance by browsing on the weekends, the more efficient your initial appointment will be.

During this appointment, we will select your:

*Cabinets

*Faucets

*Ceramic Tile

*Countertops

*Decorative Lighting

*Appliances

*Flooring Selections (Hardwood/Carpet)

*Decorative Backsplashes and Listello Borders

After the initial appointment you will then schedule your final appointment. At the final appointment you will sign off on all of your final selections and provide a check for your deposit. Toll requires a percentage of the total value of your selections upfront. You can chose to pay the percentage, pay in full or roll the total into your mortgage. I LOVE the flexibility that Toll provides. For people who do not want to roll any additional items into the mortgage this is a good thing.

Our assigned design center rep was amazing. She took time out to thoroughly explain the options we selected while also providing cheaper options that were similar in style. She never pressured us to select higher priced options and really listened to what we wanted, and the amount of money we wanted to spend. We were given a packet that listed the pricings of flooring, cabinets, countertops, tile, lighting, sinks and accessories. Each pricing matrix included the levels from standard to level 8 depending on the option.  Since I was so organized and knew my decisions in advance, we didn’t need to schedule a final appointment. We signed the options package and turned over our deposit. Well… I was a bit unprepared. I thought the final meeting was mandatory so we did not have the checkbook with us. The rep allowed us to drop the check off at the model sales center at a later date. Whew! No need for us to drive back to the design center just to drop off a check.

Toll Brothers have their own regional Design Studios. I know that other builders send their clients to local privately owned design centers to make selections. Not that this made too much of a difference, but I can assume that it makes for a more streamlined process. Everything is in one database. This helped us because later when I decided to upgrade my hardwood flooring to level 2 (I love the 5 inch planks). Because the permits (another story) were taking so long I was able to change my flooring option at the last minute. I’m not sure if they do this all of the time but I was able to (praise dance 💃💃) .

Major Key: I would budget $10-15k for design center options. Some do more, some do less but having a budget in mind will really help drive your decisions unless you can afford to “ball out of control”.