Thanks everyone. I know location is golden. I guess I was just trying to get idea of what people wanted in the actual house. I have a list of what we "need" and a good budget in mind. It's just really going "holy crap, do I want to spend 250K + for house?" I'm really thinking doing a build but then thinking about trying to do a build stresses me about all the decisions where things need be placed like outlets or fixtures. I think I'm just over thinking this as well.
It's perfectly OK to overthink it. Everyone does, and there's a good reason for it. First, take a deep breath and step back. Yeah, it's stressful at times, but it should be exciting stressful, not stressful stressful. We've bought and designed 4 new construction homes...only 3 actually got built, one had the builder go belly up before breaking ground (that's a fun story in and of itself).
As for what you want in the house itself, think structure, don't think fixtures. They are relatively easy to replace. Walls, electrical, flooring, are things to think about. I'll give you some examples for the most recent house we built. These were just done to our taste, so not saying you should do these, but examples of things that would have been hard to do later.
Electrical. Lots of extra outlets. They're fairly cheap for each extra one....I forget the exact amount, but it was minimal. So we added lots of them. Also added additional capacity in our electrical box overall, as well as specifically placed outlets for my outdoor Christmas display. Also put a 220V line in the garage for an electric car.
Master bath tub delete. We turned it into a mega sized dual head shower and added to the linen closet. In place of a master tub, we have a hot tub on our back deck (which is private...it faces the woods).
Integrated a second microwave into our kitchen island. So there's the traditional one above the stove/oven, but now we also have one built into our island. With three kids, we found that there was always a line for the microwave. Having two has been fabulous.
6' double doors in our walkout basement. We have 12' basement ceiling, so I wanted doors wide enough for a small car to fit into the basement (I have plans to put a vehicle lift there).
Added en suite bath to our daughters' bedroom. Didn't want 3 kids fighting over one bath upstairs.
Pushed the entire house back to the very back of the "building envelope". So we have a bigger front yard, longer driveway, slightly shorter back yard.
Wider driveway, with a concrete walkway going all the way down to our basement. We could have done this later, but it looks more uniform to have it all done at once.
These are all things that would have been much harder to do after the house was done. There was more, but just throwing out some examples. So think structure, not "cosmetics". Yes, cosmetics are important too, but if you completely hate them they can be changed.
