The Hornet Standard.
Built with intention. Finished with quality. The complete specification for every Hornet home in the Triangle — the floor, not the ceiling.
Everything below is included in the base build price — not an upsell sheet.
Every Hornet home is built to the same standard package: the materials, finishes, and craftspeople we’d use on our own families’ homes. Production builders run a base-plus-upgrades ladder; we publish the floor.
Site costs are typically included in the construction scope, but every lot is different — final sitework inclusions are confirmed with a site visit. Everything else below is what comes standard on every plan, in every county we build.
And the price you see already carries it: our published plans run from $283,000 to just over $1 million, every one with its real number on the floor plans page.
Walk the standard the way you’d walk the home.
The included products, grouped by room and called by name — kitchen to garage. The listing people ask us for, on one page.
Structural Construction
The structural spec is what holds the home together for the next thirty years. It’s also where production builders quietly cut corners that you don’t see until something goes wrong.
- 10-year structural home warranty
- Crawl space foundation with rebar-reinforced footings
- Bora-Care termite treatment
- Pressure-treated sill plate
- Engineered I-joists supporting the first floor
- Open-web floor trusses above the first floor (where there’s living space above)
- 3/4" tongue-and-groove OSB subfloor system
- 2×4 exterior walls, 16" on center (per plan)
- 9-foot minimum ceiling height on all floors
- OSB exterior sheathing
- Weather-resistant house wrap with sealed window and door openings
- Engineered roof system (per plan)
- OSB roof sheathing with clips
A lot of production homes give you 9 feet on the main floor and drop to 8 feet upstairs. We hold 9 feet on every floor of every plan — and where a plan has a tray ceiling, we frame the tray up to 10 feet to add a foot of height, instead of dropping it down and shortening the room the way most builders do.
We engineer the floor system instead of stick-framing it — I-joists carry the first floor, and open-web trusses span the floors above. Both are stiffer and more stable than basic dimensional lumber, so you feel less bounce and fewer squeaks underfoot over twenty years. The open-web trusses also leave clean channels for HVAC and plumbing runs.
A 10-year structural warranty is included at base, not sold as an upgrade, and Hornet Homes backs it ourselves — alongside a one-year workmanship and materials warranty on the whole home. It’s our skin-in-the-game commitment to the framing we just described.
Interior Finishes
What you see and touch every day. The finish spec is where the contrast with a typical production build reads most clearly — cabinets, trim, tile, and paint.
- Smooth-finish walls and ceilings
- Sherwin-Williams paint throughout
- Three-tone color scheme (walls / ceiling / trim)
- Whole-home Mohawk PureTech LVP flooring
- Quartz or granite countertops in kitchen and all bathrooms (4" backsplash included)
- Aristokraft full or partial-overlay cabinetry options with soft-close doors throughout
- 42" upper kitchen cabinets including crown molding
- 1×6 baseboards throughout
- 1×4 primed door casing throughout
- Schlage door hardware
- Primary bedroom tray ceiling, framed up to 10 feet (per plan)
- Heatilator Novus gas fireplace with a solid timber mantel (per plan)
- Custom built-in painted shelving in primary closet and pantry
- Vinyl-coated wire shelving in other closets
- Bathroom hardware in selectable finish (satin nickel or black)
- Full tile shower and tub surrounds in all full bathrooms
- Tile shower pan in primary bathroom
- Polished-edge frameless mirrors
- Gerber Maxwell elongated toilets
- Fully drywalled and painted garage walls
Most production base specs use hollow cabinet doors with no soft-close and shorter uppers with no crown. Name-brand Aristokraft boxes with soft-close doors throughout and 42" uppers wrapped in crown molding come standard here — quieter daily use, and hinges that don’t beat themselves apart over time.
Smooth-finish walls instead of the textured “orange peel” finish you see in most production homes. A small detail that changes how a finished home reads — cleaner light, easier to repaint, more editorial feel.
Production base typically means fiberglass tub surrounds. Full tile in every full bath — with a tile shower pan in the primary — is a meaningfully nicer finish that doesn’t yellow or crack over time.
Energy Efficiency & Comfort
R-15 walls and an R-38 attic, name-brand HVAC, and window and door specs designed to hold conditioned air. You feel this in the energy bill and on the coldest morning of January.
- Energy-efficient PlyGem windows with limited lifetime warranty
- All operable windows include screens
- Therma-Tru insulated fiberglass entry doors
- R-15 exterior wall insulation
- R-38 blown-in attic insulation
- R-19 garage insulation where applicable
- 50-gallon Rheem electric water heater
- High-efficiency Lennox HVAC system
- Ceiling fan in primary bedroom and living area
- Pre-wired fans in all bedrooms
R-15 walls and R-38 attic are the full North Carolina energy-code values for the Triangle, installed and inspected on every home. You feel this in the energy bill, not in the brochure.
Name-brand HVAC is a quiet but real differentiator. Lennox is what we’d put in our own homes — reliable, well-supported, and built to last past the warranty period.
Smart Features
The right amount of smart, not gimmicks. Two pieces that get used every day and improve how the home actually functions.
- Honeywell TH2320 Wi-Fi-enabled thermostat
- LiftMaster 6580L belt-drive Wi-Fi garage opener with a built-in camera
The LiftMaster 6580L lets you check the garage and let someone in from your phone. Practical, not gimmicky — we hear about it being the most-used smart feature in the house.
Electrical
Lighting, appliances, safety devices, and the connection points the home actually needs to function.
- 6" LED flush mount lights throughout the house (per plan)
- Light fixtures in satin nickel or black finish
- Pendant lights over kitchen island (per plan)
- Stainless steel Frigidaire electric range, microwave, and dishwasher
- Cooktop venting (real exhaust, not recirculating)
- Electrical smoke detectors with battery back-up
- Carbon monoxide detectors
- Exhaust fans in all bathrooms
- Vanity lighting at bathroom sinks
- Washer and dryer connections
- LED lighting in garage
- Garage door coach lights (per plan)
Real venting to outside — not a recirculating hood that just blows the cooking air around. Important for indoor air quality and getting cooking steam and grease out of the house.
Exterior Features
The envelope that keeps weather out and the curb appeal that holds up over a decade in Carolina humidity.
- Assa Abloy Liberty 1000 steel garage door(s)
- CertainTeed Landmark architectural shingles
- Roof overhangs with ventilated soffits
- Ridge vent for attic ventilation
- Therma-Tru S220 two-panel fiberglass front door with transom window (per plan)
- Covered porch and/or patio (per plan)
- Sliding vinyl patio doors (per plan)
- CertainTeed MainStreet vinyl siding and/or board & batten (per plan)
- 5" seamless aluminum gutters
CertainTeed Landmark architectural shingles are a real upgrade over standard 3-tab. Better look, longer warranty, and they hold up better in Carolina storms.
Sitework & Lot Preparation
We manage the entire process from raw lot to ready-to-build. Site costs are typically included in the construction scope — because every lot is different, a site visit confirms the final inclusions for your build.
- Survey & plot plan design
- Soil compaction testing & septic design layout
- Well drilling (up to 300 ft)
- Conventional septic installation
- Connection to local utilities (public sewer & water where available)
- Clearing and grading for the home site
- Landscaping package (straw, seed, shrubs/trees)
- Building permits and inspections — it’s a turn-key contract, so we pull and pay for them
Every lot has its own perc, topography, and utility picture. The sitework scope above is the typical inclusions; we confirm the final scope after walking your specific lot. For more on what makes a lot work, see what to actually look for in a buildable lot. For the septic side specifically, see our drain field deep-dive.
How does this compare to a typical production build?
Without naming names. Most production base specs include the items on the left; our standard package starts at what’s on the right. These are the seven most dramatic deltas buyers see when they put the two spec sheets side by side.
“It was easy to trust them with this process — we were informed about things all throughout the different phases. Even when I doubted it would become a reality, they knew we would figure it out. We are absolutely in love with our home.”
Tiya ShieldsHornet Homes Owner · ★★★★★ on GoogleRead our companion post: What’s the Real Difference Between Builder-Grade and Custom? — where the cost differences actually live, broken out across cabinets, trim, structural, energy, and the freedom to modify a plan around your lot. For the whole-home numbers — every published price and what’s inside them — see the full cost guide.
Quick answers about the standard
What does a home built to this standard cost?
Published home-only prices currently run from $283,000 to just over $1 million across 23 priced plans — and the site-work scope described on this page is typically already in those numbers, confirmed for your lot with a site visit. Every priced plan shows its real price on the floor plans page, and the full breakdown of what’s in the number lives in our cost guide.
What’s included in the base price of a Hornet home?
Every Hornet home includes the same standard package: a 10-year structural warranty, Aristokraft full or partial-overlay cabinetry options with soft-close doors, quartz or granite countertops in the kitchen and every bathroom, whole-home Mohawk PureTech LVP flooring, full tile shower and tub surrounds in every full bath, smooth-finish walls with Sherwin-Williams three-tone paint, R-15 wall / R-38 attic insulation, high-efficiency Lennox HVAC, and stainless Frigidaire appliances. The full category-by-category list is on this page, and every included item is shown room by room, with the products.
Is sitework included in the construction scope?
Typically, yes. Sitework — survey, soil testing, septic design and installation, well drilling up to 300 feet, utility connections, lot clearing, and a starter landscaping package — is typically included in the construction scope, and the building permits always are. Because every lot is different, we confirm the final inclusions for your build with a site visit before you commit.
Do I have to take everything as-spec’d, or can I customize?
The standard spec is the floor, not the ceiling. You can upgrade or modify from there — fully custom cabinetry, engineered hardwood instead of LVP, fiber-cement siding, a screened porch, a custom primary closet — whatever matches how you actually live. Custom builders optimize for fit; production builders optimize for repeatability.
What’s the structural warranty?
Every Hornet home comes with a 10-year structural warranty backed by Hornet Homes, included at base, plus a one-year workmanship and materials warranty on the work of our team and our trade partners. Equipment such as the HVAC, the water heater and the appliances carries its own manufacturer warranty — PlyGem windows carry a limited lifetime warranty, for example. The plain-English terms are on our warranty page.
Which counties does Hornet build in?
We build across eight North Carolina counties — Wake, Durham, Chatham, Johnston, Wilson, Nash, Franklin, and Granville — and the towns inside them, including Raleigh, Cary, Apex, Holly Springs, Wake Forest, Fuquay-Varina, Clayton, Wilson, and more.
How does the included spec compare to a production builder?
Most production base specs include hollow-door cabinets with no soft-close, 3-1/4″ baseboards, fiberglass tub surrounds, textured walls, and 9-foot ceilings on the main floor only. Our included spec starts at Aristokraft full or partial-overlay cabinetry with soft-close doors, 1×6 baseboards, full tile in every full bath, smooth-finish walls, and 9 feet on every floor. Our companion blog post breaks down the cost differences in detail.
What’s the timeline from contract to keys?
Typically 9-12 months end to end. Roughly 6 months of that is the actual construction once permits are in hand; the rest is pre-construction, and every selection is made before we break ground. Our timeline post walks through the full path.
One standard, thirteen towns
Ready to talk about your build?
If you want to know what’s in your future kitchen, your future bath, or your future garage — just ask. We’re an open book on what goes into our homes.