re: Learnings for the next time you build a house

Make sure your light switches are exactly where you want them or where common sense says they should be. Same with electrical outlets.

The electrician that wired my house was a f#%ing idiot. I never paid much attention to it until after we moved in and have moved some where they should have been in the first place.

Also returns in rooms that may stay closed often.

Make sure laundry room is sized for current sized appliances and put deep cabinets in that room…not the shallow kitchen ones. Consider whether you will use under appliance storage for cabinet height AND to ensure lid can open without hitting cabinet doors.

For god sakes center chandeliers and lights over what might be below them.

Two switches for any ceiling fans.

Get the quieter garage door openers..I prefer the belt drives.

Wired home so motion sensor by door into house turns on all the garage lights.

Go with accent lighting in eaves versus in ground.

Put conduit for landscaping lighting and sprinklers under walkways even if you don’t use them.

Mud rooms you can hose out are amazing.

Put lips in driveway to divert water off them.

IF the water is hard, put a water softener in from beginning.

Plan a spot for kitchen garbage.

Hose bib locations
Outlet locations
Switch locations
Real Fireplace
Frame out above garage for future possible growth
When designing make sure there is room for a future stair landing
220 in garage
Prewire for a generator
If you plan on wood do the entire house
Think through pantry space, cabinet space, counter space
Gas stove that also has a griddle

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Have a outside hose hookup with hot water and mixing valve for things like washing dogs when the weather is cold. Don’t put electrical receptacles in the floor. No matter haw carefully you think you have determined the future position of your sofa/etc. You will never get it right, and end up with a outlet 2 feet in front or 2 feed behind where it actually should be.

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Added a 5th full bath to my build that is my pool bath with walk-in shower. We use it to wash the dogs in the winter time.

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On a related note, I've noticed that a lot of the new houses are using red and blue plastic piping for water. Seems like someone told me these don't handle freezing temperatures very well. Anybody have recommendations on whether or not to avoid this type of plumbing?

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As mentioned the fittings at the end can burst but it’s made to expand with freezing temps.

We remodeled and redid 95% of our plumbing in 2020-21 with Pex. We moved in in February right before the freeze. The only plumbing we didn’t redo was a 10 foot run from the water heater to the washing machine. And it was the lone burst in 4 days without power.

One thing that CAN suck is that it can be chewed. We used some rat poison at times and it dehydrates and starves the rats and they started chewing through some sections and caused a leak.

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I purchased an existing home in a fairly nice neighborhood here in Baton Rouge and then discovered it had exactly one electrical outlet in the garage.

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When we bought our house the previous owners had daisy-chained the outlets in the garage (three all together) so when a shop vac we plugged in tripped the outlet it tripped ALL of them. We also had a second fridge out there.

Had someone come out and separate the outlets while making sure the outlet the fridge and freezer was on would have a higher threshold to trip (I forget what kind of outlet called it).

Some things we're planning to change post-build that we wish would've been built with the house (built two owners ago):

- Nice deck on the back with shade cover.
- More storage. They previous did alright utilizing some nooks and crannies for it (like under the stairs).
- A bigger pantry. There's never enough room for cans and non-perishables.


Our water heater is in our laundry room. And the laundry room is on an outside wall (with a large drain in the floor as well as a drain to outside). When our water heater went out and leaked (not terribly) having that drain was super helpful.

ETA: I also won't do less than two bathrooms. I'm spoiled.

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Bidet!!

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I think this guy agrees!!

We’re not sure if it’s going to work or not. We’ve only been on the air for 32 years. ...

I framed houses for many years. I learned lots of good tricks so that when I built my own I had a lot less head aches later. One good one is to install 2X12 "blocks" in the walls everywhere there will be toilet paper dispensers, towel racks, curtain rods etc. so that you always hit wood, not just sheet rock with out that "dead wood" backing. I have many other suggestions. I'll comment again as I think of some you may take into consideration.