Question for those who have built a new house.

[tkyes]

thanks for all the great words of wisdom everyone! There is sooo much to think about!

We are using a custom builder, my parents actually built a house with them last year and were beyone thrilled with everything they did.

Alexandmaddie - we are building in Champlin with Mega Homes. www.mega-homes.com


We are definately doing hardwood where possible and putting in a big tub. I don't think I'm getting a whirlpool tub, I don't need that, I just want a big soaking tub.

I think we get a couple of interior colors included in the base price of the house. If not it's a minimal price to add more colors, I'm very excited about that. I hate painting!

Our laundry will be on the main level with the kitchen and family room. We can put it with the bedrooms, but I actually want it on that level. As long as it's not in my basement, that's all I care about!

Those of you with wood stairs - do you have small kids? For some reason the thought of wood stairs and little kids scares me, maybe I'm just being silly. I think that's a pretty expensive upgrade, but I'll have to look.


thanks for the tips - keep 'em coming!!

tamie

 

[rbuzzotta]

As a wife of a builder, I suggest you establish an open communication with him/her!! DH talks to all his customers and truly gives them what they want. He has not had many complaints in his 10 years building!!

As for visiting the site every day?!?!? i question that, only because some of his customers did just that and it only added confusion. The contractors were taking orders from the customers and in this case, the cost kept rising (he was upgrading!!). One customer was spending too much time just talking with the contractors, thus slowing down the job!!

DH schedules site visits with his customers and the realtors and himself. He doesn't say that they can't come at any time, he is just honest with them about coming to visit when his contractors are working. But if that is the only time they can come, then so be it.

Make sure you like the plans before you break ground!! Try to see what you will be building before hand. I know it is hard for me to envision the final product, but make sure you get what you want!! (definetly laundry on 2nd floor!! and nice kitchen and masterbath!!).

Good luck and if there are any questions please ask!!

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I have to add that I HATE HATE HATE that Mannington no-shine, tile looking floor in my kitchen. The texture is so deep dirt has lodged in there and it will NOT come out.

 

[CJMickeyMouse]

I think most of this has been mentioned, but.....

We raised the bathroom vanities up to kitchen height. This has brought more compliments than anything else in the house. The builder thought we were nuts, but loved them when they were finished.

Wide, wide, wide. Doorways, hallways, everywhere handicap accessible. You never know. Leave room for a wheelchair to turn around in every bathroom, kitchen, laundry room, etc.

We have no linoleum or pergo anywhere in the house. Hardwood, tile and a little carpet. I wanted the wood stairs, but with teen boys and two big dogs, we decided against it.

Lots of windows - lots of natural light.

Flexibility with lighting. Dimmers, recessed lighting... think of the mood you want in that room.

Instead of a soaking tub, think about a hot tub. The soaking tubs take forever to fill and get cold in a hurry. Your hot tub will always be hot!

Brick if you can afford it.... maintenance free!

Outlets everywhere.... electrical, phone and cable. We have a cable outlet in the garage, on our deck, and on the front porch. It's much easier now that it will be later! DH has outlets every four feet in our three stall garage and he is the envy of all!

I'll think of more.... pm me if you have any questions!

 

[aprincessmom]

As for visiting the site every day?!?!? i question that, only because some of his customers did just that and it only added confusion. The contractors were taking orders from the customers and in this case, the cost kept rising (he was upgrading!!). One customer was

As the daughter of a long-time and well-respected builder, I second rbuzzota's comments. Customers who visit everyday can be very disruptive. Think of it this way...do your customers come into your workspace everyday and interrupt your workflow? Would your boss want that to happen? Would you want that to happen? How do you plan on getting all your work done if someone it there constantly questioning what you do, how you do it and why you are doing it?

Visiting the work site is welcomed by all reputable builders but I don't see a need for daily visits. You are hiring the person because they have a talent or skill, this is their specialty...there is no need to micromange them.

And I agree with many of the comments here...upgrade things that are hard to replace later. If you have small children, spend your money on the carpet pad, not the carpet itself as that will be replaced quickly. And even if you can't afford the entire upgrade, have the prep work done now. For example, I couldn't afford to build the entire 3-season porch when I built my house. The cost to put in the footings, frame and roof it as if I were was much less when built into the cost of building the house than it would have been had I just gone with a standard deck. For a few thousand extra I saved almost $10,000.

I also agree with the neutral palatte for colors. Live in the house for at least a year so you can gauge light patterns in all the rooms. Once you know how the light comes into the house you can make better selections for color.

And if you are getting hardwood floors, do not cheap out on the finish. Get at least 3 coats of finish on the floors. Even the most beautiful and expensive wood looks terrible without the proper finish.

 

[KiminChicago]

When we built our house, we added a lot of extra electrical outlets, as many as the building codes would allow. It's so much nicer to have outlets where we need them, and not have a lot of extension cords. Basically, try to think of anything with cords or cabling and try and have it done before the walls are finished. We had the wiring for our surround sound speakers run through the walls, and the wiring for a local area network, since my husband and I are both computer professionals. I love being able to sit in our master bedroom and send stuff down to the printer in the den. We regret that we didn't have overhead lights but in the kids' bedrooms, but we're running the electrical in the attic so it shouldn't be a big deal.

 

[Bob Slydell]

One more thing I forgot -- if it's not done as standard, do the upgrade to get your garage walls finished (e.g. textured, primed and painted). We didn't do this and now it's going to cost us more to do it ourselves than it would have cost us to upgrade it when we built. Not to mention that we haven't been able to hang stuff or organize our garage until it's done (otherwise we'd have to pull everything back off the walls when we do finish it).

 

[MosMom]

I would have prewired the house for networking (we actually THOUGHT we were doing this as the sales woman said what we needed was "smart home wiring". Turns out, we spent an extra $125 on nothing.

I would have a coat closet. Since we opted for a basement, we lost our coat closet and have no place to put coats, shoes, junk, etc. I am considering buying one of those bead board wall bench things so we have a place to hang coats and shoes.

Some things I'm glad we did...

A screened in porch (with a ceiling fan outlet)
Extra electrical outlets (one in our walk in closet)
Upgraded carpets & flooring

 

[JayCT]

This Thread is giving me the itch to build. Lots of great suggestions. A couple of things to add:

Electric outlets in hallways. We did not have any and always had a problem vacumning. Added one in our upstairs hallway and have a night light for the kids and a humidifier plugged into it.

Light fixtures in closets - Hate dark closets

Mud room with coat hooks, cubbys for gloves/boots/shoes, bench to sit on, stone/tile floor - definite with kids

Upstairs laundry with soaking sink, counter top for folding clothes and a spot for the ironing board (hate setting it up and taking it down all the time)

White (or very light) tile. - colors go in and out of style too often

Walkup attic with stairs - so much space that is wasted

Compartment for toilet in Master Bath - hate having a toilet sitting out in the middle of a large bathroom

Brick or stone patio rather than wood decks. Wood decks are maintenance nightmare as they get older.

Once you have a plan you like, go through it and layout your furniture. Make sure you have enough wall space for all your pieces.

Also, when they are framing, check to make sure the windows are in the right locations. I helped my aunt build her house and found that the framer had put a window in the wrong location. It was suppose to be in the corner to give her more wall space for her bed. If I did not catch the error, her bed would have been in front of a window.

 

[Patabel]

Hi Tamie! CONGRATULATIONS! Building a home can be so exciting! We've done it twice now, and learned alot along the way.

Everyone here has offered wonderful suggestions, so not much there that I could add to. However, I did want to concur with FINFAN (Pam) about lot exposure. Our first home was built with the primary living space facing north...and as much as I loved the house, I hated having to turn lights on all the time..even at noon!
So, when we moved here and selected our lot, we were once again faced with a northern exposure. So, we had the contractor flip the blueprints over. So now the bedrooms face north, but the main living spaces have sun all day, from early morning to sunset. Ours is the only house on our cul-de-saq with the garage on the "other" side of the house, and every time one of our neighbors come over, they always comment about how they wish they had done that! Of course, the contractor charged us extra for flipping the prints, but it was well worth it.

Be happy to answer any questions you might have!
Pat

 

[alexandmaddie]

Tamie, I checked out the website, that looks like a great neighborhood and I love all the built-ins the builder uses!

Kind of OT, but my DH's uncle and aunt live on French Lake Road. They own Bauer Berry Farm. Very nice area. I grew up in Fridley, and my brother and his wife live off Round Lake Blvd, so I am up in your neck of the woods fairly often!!

Krista

 

[The Mystery Machine]

More stuff...

We absolutely hate the TV placement, well dh does. He wants to be able to look straight at the tv and most designs these days have the TV placement in the corner. We thought we had that figured out.

We do not like the 5 bay window. It justs eats up space and turned out to be awkward to decorate. Would have had erased the "Bay" and just had the windows.

I would have put a GAS fireplace instead of wood.

 

[tkyes]

The house would face East.

alexandmaddie - That's so cool. We drive by the Berry farm all the time, but we've never stopped in before.

The builder does use great products and is very detail oriented. My parent's have had absolutely no problems getting things "fixed" or getting questions answered even after being in their house over a year.

 

[BedKnobbery2]

My ex's family owns and operates a lumber yard, so we ended up getting a lot of "top of the line" stuff we would not have been able to afford otherwise because we could get them at cost. There is more I love about my house than I dislike, but there are a few things I would change. Some of them are small, but a pain to change, like light switch locations, phone jacks, etc. The biggest thing I would change is I would not have gotten built-in bureaus and a built-in desk/vanity in my bed room. It really limits how I can use the space. I think I would also have made my bedroom smaller; there is a lot of wasted space in there, and I'd prefer to have an additional bed room.

One thing I love is my laundry chute--it goes directly down into the laundry room closet downstairs.

Agreed with all re: ease of hardwood/tile flooring on all 1st floor surfaces. I think I'd prefer it for the entire house, upstairs and down.

I love having an attached garage. It is marvelous in the colder months.

One thing I'd change is the direction my house is facing. We decided to have it face south, which means lots of sun in the front of the house, but unfortunately the back of my house literally gets no sun at all. I actually have moss growing up the back of my house now! If we'd turned it just a bit, both the front and back of the house would get some sun.

 

[CJMickeyMouse]

I forgot a biggie and I can't believe nobody has mentioned it.....

CENTRAL VACUUM!!!!!!!

This was another of the best decisions we made. We have the canister in the garage... vented outside. The difference is AMAZING..... less dust and much less noise when it's running.

 

[Kermit]

This is a great thread. We're planning on building our dream house in the next year or two, and I've gotten a lot of good ideas.

As for hardwood stairs with young kids, I don't blame you for being afraid. They are very slippery. What we've decided on is a ranch style house. I know they aren't as impressive looking as a two-story, and it does cost more to build one with the same square footage, but it's important to us because our family is so young. We will probably have a bonus room over the garage for DH's office and a guestroom. We'll also have a full walk-out basement. That staircase to the basement will be one of the only areas with carpet. Since guests won't use that staircase much (the only rooms in the basement will be the play room, my sewing room, and the homeschool room), the accumulation of dog hair won't be noticed much. We're going to have a good ceramic tile in the main rooms of the house, with either hardwood or a laminate in the bedrooms. The basement will probably just be left with concrete or have a cheap, schoolhouse-type tile. I'm tired of carpet. It retains all kinds of nasty things and never gets really clean.

 

[Tiger Lily 03]

All this great advice! It is hard to believe that I have anything else to add, but I do.

The house we lived in first (a very small starter) had very small windows. Now I am most pleased that we have many windows and they are crank out with the ability to open all windows throughout the house (not just the middle two as in picture window and side openings), so the feeling of open air is definitely a plus here. We put together 4 crank-out windows and placed them through the house and master bedroom with traditional center window and 2 crank out in the other bedrooms. Also, sometimes it is more convenient to open the middle two instead of the outer and I totally love it. We have larger windows in all rooms but the kids bedrooms and they wish they had the larger ones too.

Overhead light fixtures in all rooms or the ability to put them in or ceiling fans--Even if you don’t want them now.

DH is glad about sink and water in his garage. (Hot/cold) is the best as well as gas line in garage and a gas line hook up wherever you might want to put your outdoor grill.

We have basement and we went with extra course of brick to add height to the basement. I would have gone one better and put in another to allow for door/window access in case we want to make it a “living” area. Code does not allow that without door/windows.

Plan how you might be able to rearrange furniture if that is something you might want to do for “change of pace” so if something is needed to be nudged over it can be done now.

As has already been said, you can never have too many outlets.

Have fun! I wish you no stress.

 

[CJMickeyMouse]

I agree with the high ceilings, even in the basement. We have 9'ceilings throughout the house.

 

[Poorman]

For you people that want a second floor laundry,don't forget a copper pan and floor drain in the laundry room for that one time the hose or the washing machine leaks. It could get real wet in your living room!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[stinkerbelle]

one thing about a laundry shoot...I made mention to my builder that "Wow - our closet is right above the laundry room - let's put a shoot in" He said with a dead straight face "absolutley not"

I guess they are a huge fire hazard...the fire could get to the second floor all the quicker with this.

Our builder actually encouraged us to come to the house as much as possible. He got to be really good friends with my DH, and we felt we had more of a say in the building of our home. Even the builder said "You are giving me alot of money to build this for you - I want you to be happy with it and with me." DH visited often during the week - strapping on a tool belt along side the guy. And I showed up on the weekends with coffee/donuts. (Also - being on the builders good side allowed us to do things like wire the house while it was still in the "framing" mode and the electrician was on site to sign off...helped us out in the end)