Building a Custom Home????

[silvercrayon]

We are in the beginning stages of planning our new home.  This is our first time to build. We have always bought existing homes.  We are building an accessible house with a MIL suite.

It will be 1 level with 3 beds and 3.5 baths and the MIL apartment will be in the basement.

If you were building right now, what are some must haves that you would want? I've got the basics covered, but I don't want to forget something big that I just didn't think of.  Give me your ideas! 

[macmars45]

I just bought a new construction house in September 2020 & moved in Dec 2020.

No pedestal sinks. They are dumb and pointless.

Front door and door from garage to house be close together. (My garage to house door is on one side of my house, front door on the other.)

ETA:

The things in my house I love:

-huge pantry

-lots of storage in my kitchen

-lots of windows for natural light

-master bedroom is on the opposite side of the house from other bedrooms

[nicolewi]

I agree about the pedestal sinks. We have one and I wish I would have done even a small vanity. If you DO a pedestal sink, definitely tile behind the sink!

Really good lighting in the kitchen. Lots of outlets all over. Think about switched outlets.

[InBetweenDays]

Congratulations! We did a custom build just over 12 years ago and are so happy with it. A few things we love:

• Lots of storage (a friend recommended we do a narrow closet for vacuum, cleaning supplies, etc. and I'm so glad we did)
• Easy connection to the outdoors (other than the front door). We are outside a ton so I love that our house has three ways to get outdoors from the main floor. Including French doors that open to a deck. We leave those open much of the summer.
• Sitting area near the kitchen. We have a loveseat and a swivel rocker near the kitchen and French doors. When the architect recommended the area I thought it was excess since we have a big couch in the living/family room. But that is probably where we sit the most.
• Big windows with lots of natural light.
• Lots of can/pot lights.
• Wireless smart speakers in the ceiling in the kitchen, living room, sitting area, etc. Each area can be turned on/off separately.
• More outlets than you'll think you'll need. If you know the layout of your furniture and you'll have a couch floating in the living room, put an outlet under the couch (that way you can do lamps on the end tables without cords going across the floor)
• More drawers than cabinets in the kitchen. And two of our cabinets have pull out drawers.

One thing we didn't have the space/layout to do that I'm bummed about is put in a mud room. I'd love to have a better space to store the kids backpacks and sports bags (our garage is detached).

Keep us update on the progress!

[laterz]

We live in the midwest, and the best decision we made was using foam insulation instead of fiberglass. Middle of January, temps in single digits, and my house is perfectly comfortable (and our gas bills are entirely reasonable.)

Lots of outlets. Inside and outside. And in the garage.
Our bathrooms also have outlets with a little nightlight built in.
Undercabinet lighting in the kitchen.
We have a small window in our master bath shower - i wish it opened. But I do like the sunlight.

[penguingrrl]

Find a good interior designer who specializes in special planning instead of counting on the architect for that. I’ve worked for an with architects before and they’re excellent at the structure and exterior stuff, but often don’t have an expertise in interior special planning. Someone who has that expertise can ensure that everything ends up exactly how you want it for function, even in ways you can’t envision right now.

[heygrey]

My friend has a thing in the kitchen attached to the central vac so she can just sweep stuff to it and it sucks it in. I feel like this one thing would change my life so much for the better.

[macmars45]

I thought of some more things I wish my house had/did better:

-door in the garage to outside so I don't have to open the car garage door for everything

-fence gate on both sides of the house, not just one

-good lighting over the dining area

-closet/bathroom placement for sound buffer between bedrooms and/or living areas (the rental we lived in before we bought this house utilized closets and bathrooms really well that way)

-more closets (the design layout had two more than what we got in reality... we plan on adding one of them eventually)

[origami]

ditto the PPs. These are random but they're things we didn't do when we built (and bought) but wish we did:
- electric for fans in every bedroom and family room
- NOT putting the doorwall to the back yard right behind the kitchen table (the table is always in the way)
- a mudroom off the garage or side entrance
- Thoroughly labeling the electrical box
- if you're hanging a tv on the wall, then electrical in that wall behind where the will go
- planning where the modem/routers will go so the jacks/cords aren't in a bad spot
- if it's possible, an extra-deep basement, esp since it'll be a living space.

[InBetweenDays]

Oh, origami made me think of another one. If you know where you may want to hang shelves or other heavy items in the future, put blocking in those areas behind the drywall. Then you don't have to rely on studs. And also take photos of all walls before you drywall so you know where electrical and plumbing run, where you put blocking, etc.

[atarianna]

I have grown up in the building industry and built my custom home recently.

Right now, lumber costs are exorbitant. Even PVC supply costs are priced daily, meaning the price literally is subject to change every day/when contractors and subs go to pick up supplies.

For example, the hard cost of our lumber was approximately $45,000 in 2019. At the time, this was very high. The lumber for a home about 500sf smaller than mine was priced a week ago at $127,000 for JUST the wood itself. No installation. Also, this price is not locked or able to be locked because of how volatile and highly sought after everything is right now.

As for non-cost related items:

- think long term. If you intend for this house to be your forever home, make sure you make doorways handicap accessible, and have low threshold showers.
- don’t blow the budget, but get what you want. There is no reason to pay $500 for a light fixture you’re going to replace in a year with an $800 fixture. You’ve now paid $1300 instead of $800. My big hang up was wanting solid doors; I nearly cheaped out because they were $35 more per door and it added up to a LOT, but am so happy I didn’t. I loove my solid doors.
- do vertical storage in kitchen. A 6-9” wide cabinet for cutting boards beside the stove. Vertical dividers in the cabinet above a built-in oven for sheet pans and muffin tins; this was the best decision ever!
- drawers!! We lived in several houses with minimal drawer space in kitchen and bathrooms. It made it so hard to organize. Drawers for plates and bowls next to the dishwasher. Drawer stacks in bathrooms.
- whatever your budget, add 10% for costs that will inevitably come up
- whatever your timeline, add 2 months
- decide which areas you’re willing to compromise on and which you’re not. Both with the builder and your SO.
- try to go with the flow because the process will be hard and frustrating at times.

[aprilsails]

On the topic of insulation, if you are in a cold climate and building a basement, ask to have foam board put down before the foundation is poured. Our builder had to do it because he poured our foundation in November, but our neighbours house was built the following summer. In the winter, our unfinished basement floor is decent, and their finished basement floors are cold, and we keep our house at the same temperature. Not something we would have known to ask for but it has made a big difference.

Also do some research on R Values, insulation types and find out what your builder uses. If you have rooms over a garage, get the garage insulated. This is helpful for both the summer and winter.

[simpsongal]

If you can add in a screened porch do so. Also, if you can design the garage so it's not protruding from the front of the house, all the better (sideloading garage even better if your lot allows it). I know big garages in the front of a home are becoming the norm, and often necessitated by the lot size/orientation. But I think it's a slight shame to have cars in driveways that essentially hide the home or for the garage to practically be the main focal point of the home.

[trissie18]

We just did a new build two years ago and absolutely love our house! I agree with the above pps (some we didn't do and wish we had).

I definitely agree with the pp who recommended a specific cleaning supply closet. It is one of my favorite features of our house (especially now that we added baskets and hooks to organize everything). We also LOVE our 16 x 20 mudroom between the house and garage. We haven't finished it completely yet because we wanted to live in the space for a couple years to get an idea of how we use the space and what makes the most sense for built-ins and storage. We plan to do this next year as we are getting closer to making a final decision on what we want. We also used attic trusses in the garage to give us lots of upstairs storage. We spray foam insulated our basement, mudroom, and garage last year - it makes a huge difference.

I think the biggest things we wish we had done that weren't captured above is:

• lights in the smaller closets (the most ideal are the ones where the switch is built into the door jamb so when you open the door the light automatically comes on)
• make sure there are light switches at every doorway into a room. We changed the design of our master closet and bathroom. In the original floor plan there used to only be access to the closet from the bathroom but now there is a second door from the bedroom. However, no one (us or the builder) thought to put a closet light switch by the bedroom access door, or a bathroom light switch by the bathroom access door. And even though those light switches have never been there, DH and I will still reach for them because naturally there should be switches there. lol
• Know where the return for your furnace will be and make sure it doesn't put your furnace in an awkward place. Ours ended up being in the middle of the basement...

[ssmjlm]

We did a custom build and I wish we would have insulated the interior more. It just wasn't even on our radar, but around some of the pipes from 2nd floor to 1st floor and between bedrooms.

Take pictures when the wiring is done, but before drywall. We have referenced the photos A LOT over the years.

[dr.girlfriend]

Here's some things we did that we love:

Plugs in eaves for Christmas lights
Tankless water heater for unlimited hot water
Built-in bookcases everywhere
Wired bedside lamps
Extra plugs in closet for charging vacuum, etc.
Spare fridge/freezer in laundry room (we moved our old fridge there when we bought a new one)
Nice jute roman shades throughout lower level
Added crown molding in certain rooms, and the builder chose a nice tall baseboard
Instant hot water faucet in kitchen

[bhnumbers]

lots of good ideas here. one more is bathroom fans on a timer. I didn't know this was a thing, but I stayed at a rental house this summer and the bathroom fans all ran on timers which is great so you never have to go back and turn it off after and, uh, extended fan use is necessary (or just after a shower!)

[macmars45]

Mar 19, 2021 12:51:24 GMT -5 bhnumbers said:

lots of good ideas here. one more is bathroom fans on a timer. I didn't know this was a thing, but I stayed at a rental house this summer and the bathroom fans all ran on timers which is great so you never have to go back and turn it off after and, uh, extended fan use is necessary (or just after a shower!)

The second rental H and I lived in had fan timers in both bathrooms. It was amazing! It's on our list of things to change/add eventually. We just bought our new construction house (all the finishes had already chosen by the builder) so in a few years we'll get rid of the pedestal sink, add a closet and add fan timers.... I'm sure some other stuff too.