Well, hopefully by now you have seen on Facebook or Twitter that we did indeed have a big night at the Parade of Homes Banquet on April 11th.  But just in case you didn’t know, our Parade Home entry won several awards including the coveted BEST of the BEST Award.

Trying not to brag too much, but we won so many awards that night we asked our Realtor, Katherine Ray,  to come up with us for the picture to help hold some awards.  (I am the one in the yellow jacket.)  We were pretty excited, to say the least.  Here’s the breakdown:

• The home itself won Gold (each home was judged on certain criteria, so we scored enough points to win Gold)
• The home then won Platinum for it’s price category (had the highest score for all homes in our price category)
• We won the Special Feature Award for our Custom Pantry Cabinet (picture is below)
• We won BEST of the BEST (scored the highest out of ALL homes in the Parade)
• And the home is SOLD, which is an award in itself.

Winning Awards is always an honor we don’t take lightly.   There were many winners that night and I feel privledged to be a part of the Johnston County Building Industry and the Parade of Homes.  I have been visiting Parade Homes for over 15 years all over the state and I can honestly say I think Johnston County, in comparison, has some of the finest quality custom home builders, neighborhoods, and amenities as any other county I have visited.  You can personally view 20 beautiful homes in one day of touring within a five mile radius.  “Parading” is a great way to see the area’s finest builders or simply to get ideas for your own home.  You can go straight to the JC Parade of Homes website , download the app, or simply grab a book in any of the home entries.  We still have two weekends of open houses left, Saturdays and Sundays 12pm-5pm.  Hope you can come by and tour our home located at 28 Donatella Drive, Clayton, NC 27527. But if you can’t make it or want a sneak peak check out our Virtual Tour. 

When we submit our home as a Parade of Homes entry, we are asked to also submit what we feel is the Best Feature of the Home.  I found it difficult to pick just one special feature.  Neil and I disagreed on what we thought we should submit.  As we were talking through our opinions, Neil suggested I have my blog readers chose.  I loved the idea but unfortunately I had to submit it weeks ago so didn’t have time to run with the idea.  But in the spirit on that concept, I created a “voting” table in the home.  I have set up several glass jars labeled with 8 different possible Best Feature candidates.  Once you tour the home, chose a colored stone and put in the glass jar of your favorite feature.

Based on the first day of open house last weekend, the clear forerunner was the feature Neil wanted to submit.  So many people voted for that feature, by Sunday, I had to get a bigger jar to hold all the stones.  But thankfully, the special feature that I did submit, won anyway.

After personally talking with visitors this past weekend I realized men, women, and children were all voting for different things.  I found it interesting to hear what different ages and gender liked the most and why.  So this weekend I have decided to change it up a bit.  I have purchased two different colored stones- Blue for the men and Pink for the ladies.  This will now give me a clearer understanding of the differences in how the men verses women vote.

I love manning the home myself because it gives me the chance to hear peoples’ comments about what they like or what they would do different if it were their home.  I learn so much and appreciate the compliments and suggestions.

Since we have two more weekends of Open House, I will hold the final voting results til then.  But for now, if you haven’t had the chance to vote in the house, you can vote on the blog or Facebook.  Here are the options:

1. Custom Pantry Cabinet: This is the one I submitted and we actually won. I love it because Bryant Herring created it from my sketch.   I didn’t know how it was going to turn out but it turned out absolutely beautiful and is such a great use of space.
   

   
2. Wetbar in Media Room: Neil’s suggestion and the clear forerunner in the vote so far.  Don’t get me wrong, I love it too, but I could only pick one.
   

   
3.  Master Bath: Although it’s considered more of a room than a feature, it is getting a lot of votes for all the “details”.
   

   

   
4. Master Closet: No doubt, it’s a “wow” closet. 
5. Breakfast Nook Built-in Bench: I would love eating breakfast here every morning.
   

   

   6. Front Porch: I love a wrap around porch, this porch gives this home so much curb appeal.

   

   

   7. Rear Screen Porch & Paver Patio with Firepit: A great place for entertaining and spending time enjoying your beautiful surroundings.

   

   

   

   8. Other:  Vote for something that wasn’t already listed.  We had several people vote for the “Kitchen”, Built-ins in Bedroom 2, Pantry door, Laundry room and others.

   

   

   

   Which Feature do you vote for??