About Clayton's Portofino

It's Always The Little Things That Make The Best Impression!

We did a walk through of 60 Persano lane in Portofino with Buddy from JordanBuilt Homes on Tuesday. JordanBuilt Homes is a custom builder on the builder team at Portofino and is building some beautiful homes in the Churchill Section. We sold this one while it was still under construction and the buyers John and Tom are thrilled with their new home.

As we walked around with our blue tape, Tom mentioned that he would at a later date switch out the chalkboard which JordanBuilt installs in the mudroom of all their homes with a cork board.

On our final walk through yesterday, Tom was floored when he walked into the mudroom and saw that Buddy had replaced the chalkboard with a cork board!!! Both Nicole, their buyers agent and I were so impressed, it showed us that the buyers had made a great decision in purchasing their new home from JordanBuilt Homes.

Because the devil is in the details!! Go the extra mile!! This one act which could so easily have gone unnoticed,hey I didn't even notice it, just proved that this is a builder who cares about the buyers of their homes.

We are thrilled with the homes that JordanBuilt Homes are building at Portofino, and the reaction has been tremendous. There are many reasons for this mainly the quality of construction, the standard features and the size of the lots at Portofino.

If you want to find quality custom homes built on large lots, the Churchill Section of Portofino where JordanBuilt Homes are building homes that are in the low $300's is the place.

How Important Is The Direction Your House Faces

It depends! What are your interests? Where do you like to spend your time and doing what?
Do you like to garden, grow vegetables,flowers,grass? Do you have sensitive rugs, paintings. Do you read a lot, paint, draw.Do you have a Plasma TV, or watch a lot of TV?
Well unless you are buying or building a mansion, you won’t be able to cure all these nor would you want to spend the time figuring it out, but with a little planning and a good builder you can maximize your homes potential.

The first question is where in the world are you building, we’ll just deal with the US for today. North, South, East, West, or a combination of them. Being in the South-East we have mild winters and warm summers so shade in the afternoon is important to keep the house from heating up too much. I started this post after being in two houses yesterday, both had three season rooms. The first house which faces East-South East, has a fantastic three/four season room with tile floor, Eze-Breeze windows, bead-board vaulted ceiling and it was frigid cold in there. Now the builder could probably add a vent to take the chill off. The next house we went to faces North North - West, same four season room, tile, Eze-Breeze windows and this one was toasty, in fact you could have opened the windows and let a breeze in.

Quite a remarkable difference, which got me thinking. If you live in a colder climate that gets a lot of snow there might be an advantage to having your driveway face towards the sun to melt the snow, I’ve seen streets where one side is cleared completely and the other side is still dealing with frozen snow and ice.

This is a fascinating subject and there is a lot of opinion out there on it, there is one issue that is common and that is using the suns rays in the winter but shielding the house from them in the summer. This can be done with proper placement and also the correct overhangs. Vital to have the correct insulation also. Getting the sun into the kitchen, bedrooms in the morning is another favourite, the placement of the garage can make a difference, trees, and the type of trees, deciduous trees look and act a whole lot different in the summer time versus the winter, (they loose their leaves, silly!)

Many a patio goes unused in the summer because it gets too hot, and many a lawn suffers through life with no sun. I have seen many amateur gardeners start their vegetable garden in the shade only to curse their lack of edible vegetables...no I haven’t! That was me!!
So building your dream house just got harder, well not really, better to find this stuff out before you build rather than after you move in, and with the technology available today, and the advances in building materials there is a lot of help out there, start by getting a compass app on your phone!

A Second Set of Eyes.
How true that a second opinion, a second look, a second glance, a second set of eyes can make a big difference in opening our own eyes to what we are missing. I think, and I speak from personal experience that humans (not all) are prone to seeing things the way they are and if there is nothing wrong to moving on to finding the obvious fault or the easier correction to make.

Let me explain, my builder Neil Jarman and I walked through his custom built energy star home last week together, and while I am in the house multiple times a week and he is there from time to time, this is the first time we were both there together since he finished it.
So we have a buyer that has expressed an interest in the house and as we walked through the house I explained to Neil what it was they liked and didn't like about the house. There were only some easily changed items that were a concern to them, like switching out the carpet in the master bedroom with hardwoods. We stopped in the living room which has soaring cathedral ceilings and wooden beams across the length of the room and a wall of windows on one wall. Neil is looking at the ceiling and notices that something is just not right. The beams while beautiful to look at, seem somewhat detached from the rest of the features in the room, the stone fireplace or the Brazilian Cherry hardwood floors, the built in shelving unit. So he starts to plan a way of adding beams perpendicular to bring everything together. As soon as he said it I realised that I have been looking at those beams for months and in the back of my mind thought something was missing, but because they were functional and beautiful I moved on.

The stone fireplace has a space cut out for someone to install a flat screen if they wish and if not then Neil will fill in the space, now I tell people this and it is obvious to me and the builder and to a lot of people, but as we are standing there looking at it …....it becomes a big black hole and to some people that is what they see and that is what they remember. Not everyone will know that the wires are behind the wood panel and the builder can easily add the stone to finish it if they so desire. Some folks might even think they would have to do it themselves!! So now we will get a nice picture to cover the gap in the stone and explain what is behind in a note card.

The great thing about a walk through a property like this is when Neil will say “what needs to be done with the master suite or the bonus room or theater or kitchen?” and the answer is a resounding NOTHING!! They are about as good as it gets.

These trails are amazing and have been compared to Umstead State Park in Raleigh and The Biltmore, imagine all you have to do is walk to the end of your yard in a lot of cases and you are on the seven miles of trails Portofino has to offer.

New Homes Started in Portofino, Clayton, NC 27527.

Finally the homes in Churchill have been started, we have footings dug for three new homes, we have the crawl built for one, so it won't be long before they start to take shape. The interest in these homes in Portofino has been remarkable, and understandbly so, when you consider the size of the lots (smallest is a half an acre), the price, high $200's to high $300's and the quality custom home that Jordan Built Homes is building.

Churchill in Portofino is a neighborhood of about sixty homes that offers a wonderful variety of lots. The homes will be a selection from Jordan Built designs that will include a number of ranch plans with master bedrooms down, open floor plans, optional bonus and bedroom upstairs.

We have already sold and reserved two lots in Churchill, which is a sure sign of the interest in this beautiful section of Portofino, North Carolina's "Community of the Year". The amenities that Portofino offers, the miles of walking/hiking trails, the saltwater, zero entry pool, the magnificent clubhouse, the fishing pond, canoe launch. Not to mention the state of the art horse complex which has just had one of the rings fenced and they are building a viewing stand this week.

For more information about this remarkable community in Clayton,NC call David at (919) 601-2268