re: New Residential Construction Must-Haves/Nice to Haves

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I am not a fan of my laundry room with noisy machines and dirty clothes next to my clean closet full of clothes.

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I agree; I also don't like this. I see a lot of people mention this these days, but I run my washer/dryer at odd hours of the day and I would never want it within earshot of my bedroom. Mine is on the opposite end of the house. Personal preference though I guess.

I've been in a new construction custom home for almost a year and here are some things I did that I liked and a couple of things I wish I'd done. Note that you are never going to have the perfect house. You will always wish something was different.

1. Hot/cold water spigot at a practical location outside. Very helpful for cleaning boats, tractor, etc. Hot water just does a better job. It's also useful for boiling crawfish.

2. Make your garage bigger than you think you need. I have a huge garage and I love it.

3. Budget for irrigation if you spend any significant amount of money on landscaping. I went back and forth on this because it was expensive, but if I wouldn't have irrigated our landscape, I probably would've lost more than half of it this summer.

4. If you install sliding "barn" doors, get soft close and open functions for the tracks.

5. In line with an earlier poster, if you install quartzite, do your research. Not all quartzite is equal when it comes to durability/stain resistance and a lot of pseudo-marble is branded as quartzite. I have Taj Mahal in my kitchen area and it is fantastic. I have another white type in my master bath and it took some stain removing and extra sealing when we moved in.

6. We have a media closet/safe room under our stairs and it's great to have everything routed to one place. Pre-wire for outdoor cameras even if you don't install on the build.

7. I did Cat 6 drops to every TV location in the house and put two in the office.

8. Wired whole-home audio is great. I included a zone in my garage too and installed a TV so I can watch games while working out there or we can hang out when it's raining during crawfish season.

9. Outlets everywhere. Switched outlets in the eaves are also really useful too for things like string lights, Christmas lights, etc.

10. I second whoever mentioned doing furniture plans. I wish I had done this in my living room. Our fireplace is wood burning and with the hearth it wound up being bigger than I expected. The result is our furniture situation is less than ideal.

11. Don't skimp on insulation.

12. Consider the direction of your house and things like windows, doors, and finishes. I used stain grade fiberglass doors on the parts of my house that get the most sun exposure and used real wood on areas that don't get as much exposure. I can tell the difference, but nobody else really can.

13. Panel front appliances are nice and a lot easier to keep clean than stainless.

14. Outlets on the shelves in your pantry for smaller appliances like toasters, etc.

15. Absolutely put in an under-counter ice maker. I know people talk about them breaking and being such a pain, but after living with one, I don't want to be without it.

16. Whole home surge protectors are really cheap insurance and very easy to install on the front end.

17. Smart switches are really nice to have. I used the Lutron Caseta series and I've been really happy with them.

18. I didn't do spray foam and if I did it over again, I'd spray foam.

19. Pay attention to light color temperatures. I like 3000k in bathrooms/kitchen. 2700k in living areas/bedrooms. Again, something that is really easy to address on the front end.

20. Inset cabinets vs. full overlay. I went full overlay. My parents have inset and the fronts are all dinged up from pots/pans/etc. With full overlay, if you ding the frame because a pot was sticking up when you closed the door, you can't see it when the door is closed.

21. Deck your attic. It's a lot easier to do while building than after the fact.

22. Do not underestimate your landscaping budget. I kept a pretty significant budget for that and I still wound up blowing it up. Landscaping is expensive.