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

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Master closet connects to laundry which also has a hallway door

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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.

Hot and cold water faucets by my driveway and back porch.

Outdoor shower behind carport to rinse off the dirt before heading inside from doing yard work.

Media Closet/Network hub with return air vents. All my connections in one place with easy access

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Had a stone restoration expert come out to price cleaning stone an resealing.

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Mind sharing who did the work? Need the same thing.

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Anything you've done to keep it looking new?

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Had to use peroxide and baking soda paste, cover with Saran Wrap for 48 hrs, wipe off and let dry for a few days to remove stains. Otherwise, I seal it every 8-12 months. Honestly bc it’s so porous I should seal it more often.

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I had Paul Stewart with marble life come out. Was gonna be 1500$ to strip and seal island only (4x9) but I could tell he really didn’t wanna do it bc it’s a PITA. I bought maybe 5 boxes of baking soda and it covered less than 2 sq ft. Not a one visit and done job. Would’ve required multiple trips out. Anyway, the bathrooms, laundry room, and kitchen other than the island are in good shape and sealed. The island is a mess and I gave up. I’d rather replace it than spend 6 months stripping it.

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Wow.

Did you learn the process online somewhere?

Ours has started to took like it's got stretch marks in it.

People who come over love it, but I see a million flaws every day and it's frustrating.

I don't understand how this rock can sit outside in La weather for months (or in a warehouse) and be beautiful the day it's put in, THEN start absorbing moisture once in a home. Grrr

When in the plan development stage, get a set of 1/4" scale plans and print and cut out a set of 1/4" scale furniture (you can google templates for this). cut out the furniture and lay it out on the plans. see how close stuff will be together, does it flow, are there dead areas, does it make sense, are there door conflicts? We did this and it helped a lot with layout.

In addition, on some smaller rooms were we were trying to see how the layout would work, i actually laid out the room on the floor in our old garage with blue painters tape and walked through the room.

it's SOOOO easy to catch things on paper instead of waiting until it's built.

Also, study your plans, learn them, read them, know what every thing means. Because there might me something that you assume will be one way when in reality it will be another way. Case in point, my cousin built a house and thought they had discussed steps up to the front porch. They didn't look at the pans one bit, and when everything was poured they realized there was maybe a 1 brick single step. It's not what they had in mind but now it's set in stone.

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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.

I had this on my old house. It seemed like it put a lot more dust in the closet from the drier. Maybe it was just my junky drier.

Solid core interior doors feel nicer to open/close and block more of the sound.

Shop and understand your window selection.

Review Every dimension on your plans. A slight adjustment can make life better.

Review every door opening AND size. Larger is better.

Taller doors and ceilings make the room feel larger.

Really consider your microwave oven height. For us, counter level seemed perfect. Obviously, some people like it higher or lower.

Enjoy the process.

Microwave height is my wife's biggest pet peeve. she's about 5'-3. When I measured, I looked at the distance from top of counter to the MW shelf at my parents and at work. That was the distance I told the cab maker. For whatever reason our kitchen counters are higher than those so now the MW is too high for shorter folks.

Manabloc and PEX plumbing. Will never own a house without it.