The two single garage doors are so we can both fit our SUVs in the garage. Talking to the neighbors they suggested this. My friend also has the same issues getting two large vehicles in. I only do minor vehicle work so anything major will be left to the professionals.

add a genertator if that hasn't been done already. whenever I build a house (on my 4th) i over engineer all systems. hvac, electrical, plumbing, construction...everything.

Wire up for a sound system. Even if you don't want it, the next buyer will thank you.

Definitely run 220 in your garage.

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:
Central vac is an easy add when constructing and now that I've had one I'd *definitely* include one in any house I build. Benefits include powerful suction yet quiet operation, and most importantly all the fine particulates which are not trapped in the filter exhaust outside rather than inside the house.

Spray foam insulation will pay for itself in comfort as well as energy savings every month and the only time to do it is when building new.

Both of these.

We also put a stackable washer/dryer upstairs. That’s where the dirty clothes end up. Why climb stairs?

quote:

Originally posted by SpinZone:
Add more outlets throughout the entire house and require all outlrs and switches have screwed connections instead of pushed connections.

I would have the outlets in each room serviced by separate lines. I've had the heater on in the master bedroom, the tv, everything else normal, then my wife turns on her hair dryer and the breaker trips.

Look at the model and see where you could use additional lighting. good lighting in the garage. Have the lights in the garage connected to a light inside the house on the other side of the door controlled by switches on either side. This lets you know from the inside if the light is on in the garage.

Additional faucets on the outside of the house along with electrical outlets near the eaves if you hang christmas lights.

Upgrade the toilets. Builder grade toilets suck and swapping them 2 years later is a fools errand.

Living room, office, and every bedroom (even guest) get ceiling fans with on/off and speed control on wall switches. I even had 2 put on my covered patio. I don't regret this for a second.

If you opt to install coax cable, every single one of them needs to have a cat 6 plug with it. In my 2.5 year old house, I didn't realize that my MBR didn't have this. I originally had a cable TV system that needed both so the cable company did MoCA adaptor. I dumped the cable company and ended up having to put an access point in the coax plug on the opposite side of the room because Roku was too unreliable on wifi going through 3 walls.

Think about Christmas decorations now. Adding outdoor electrical switches in the ceilings of porticos, covered porches, etc. now can make Christmas lights much easier.

Tankless water heater. This is my first home with one and I love it. My neighbors didn't spend for the upgrade and they have dual hot water heaters and have much larger natural gas bills than me. Dual heaters isn't cheap to start out with and their much higher gas bills mean that it would've paid for itself already.

If you have a basement, put in a perimeter basement water system on the interior now. Paying someone to jackhammer out the concrete, put one in later, and repour concrete is 3x or 5x more money.

- 2x6 stud walls and better insulation
- shutoff valves on every water take-off service so you don't need to turn the entire house off.
- more outlets in every room

My advice is to ensure that the subcontractors are doing the work properly. If I built a house I would be at that joker at least every three days to inspect what work was done. I had the wool pulled over my eyes when I built my first house. I figured people do quality work without oversight.

Well my non-square and non-plumb walls, along with being shorted 3 inches of blown insulation says otherwise. The insulation guy cut the rulers they stuck in the blown insulation, so that at a glance it appeared it was the full amount.

It’s your house, watch them like a hawk, and if it’s messed up make the builder fix it.

Didn’t see if you mentioned what you’re going with for the exterior. Go brick if you can, or a solid planking if some sort. Don’t cheap out on crap vinyl.

Outlets every six feet, even in the closets
In-floor heating in the bathroom
Thicker exterior walls added insulation
Walk in shower, no step
Hand holds in showers
Tall toilets

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
Do the flooring yourself, flooring is a huge markup for builders, it's something you can do for half of what they charge. Flooring and ceiling fans area huge markups. Maybe have them pre-wire for fans but you provide and install the fans yourself after closing.

quote:

Originally posted by Beanhead:
I question the 2 single garage doors...I like having the larger opening. Now you have 2 openers and 2 doors, springs, etc to maintain.

Agreed with that. Plus, if OP wants to wrench on a car in the garage, how can he pull the car into the middle of the garage?

If going with 2 doors, I suggest at least making them 10 X 10 doors and make the garage ceiling 12 feet high.

quote:

Originally posted by wdsman1:
The two single garage doors are so we can both fit our SUVs in the garage. Talking to the neighbors they suggested this. My friend also has the same issues getting two large vehicles in. I only do minor vehicle work so anything major will be left to the professionals.

Some food for thought. I drive a double cab long bed Tacoma (it has a longer wheel base than a Suburban) and my wife drives a Nissan Armada. We can fit them both in our small garage with one single door. You don’t need two doors for bigger vehicles but they do look nice.

I don’t know about Radon in your area but our builder put a passive system that can had a blower/fan added on if needed. It doesn’t add much in cost and is a nice safety valve so to speak.

I’d make sure your walls, where your TVs are going, have extra studs placed to hold the frames for large TVs. Same with high outlets so you don’t have wires hanging down.

If I'm spending your money....

Outdoor kitchen with mini fridge for cold beer and provisions for both grilling and smoking.

As long as you got that covered, forget about the rest of the house that's wife's job. Concentrate on good media room, extra lighting/circuits for garage, and outdoor kitchen.

A lot of good suggestions so far. My wife and I are designing our new home now and will begin building this time next year. Here are some things I haven't seen mentioned yet:

An extra foot of height in the basement ceiling. It doesn't cost that much, and makes a huge difference if you finish your basement. Make sure the builder and subs know you want it done so you can finish it later. You don't want stupid/lazy duct runs leading to low ceilings down the road.

Also, if you don't have a walkout, spend the money to have some nice egress wells put it. They can be landscaped nicely and provide natural light in the basement. The obvious benefit of egress could save a life in case of a fire.

A hose connection with both hot and cold water in the garage. Washing cars in the fall/spring when it's cold, washing down the garage floors, washing the dog...regular water is too cold in cold months.

Great drains and sloping of your garage floor done right. I hate when the snow/ice melts off the cars and pools in the low spots in the garage floor. Each car bay will have its own French drain with the concrete sloped properly to it. Combined with the hot/cold water hose connection in the garage, I can spray down the floors easily when the salt and road junk makes my floors sloppy.

Walk in gun vault under the front porch. you already have the concrete cap, you just need to excavate all the way down instead of a few feet like most porches.

Use engineered floor joists, not 2xwhatevers for your floor joists. No one likes squeaky floors years down the road.

Lots of plugs and hose connections around the perimeter.

Our home will not have a formal dinning room in it. We have used ours about 3-4 times in the 10 years we've been in the house. We're doing a much bigger kitchen with a big table in there.

We have a 6x8 closet on the fist floor that is just for "stuff." Not coats and the like, but the vacuum, Swiffer, extra paper towels/toilet paper (Costco family here) winter boots in the summer, etc... Essentially, I hate stuffing crap in my coat closets that aren't coats. This closet will be for all that overflow crap that doesn't have a place and allow the other areas to stay organized. They'll be shelves and whatnot in there. I don't care what my wife puts in there, so long as the other areas are neat. Such a closet doesn't need to be this big, but I really like the idea of one.

No inside corners in the tile showers. Those are always the areas where the mold grows no matter how hard I work to keep my showers clean. We haven't picked the tile yet, but think something like this https://www.build.com/daltile-...8958?displayPLA=true I want all the "inside" corners to be like this so we have no black shit!

We're doing the master on the first floor and kids' rooms upstairs. There is a play room up there for them too. Keep the mess contained and out of my TV/man cave in the basement.

The garage is currently 23' 6" deep and I might still add to it. You mentioned big SUV's, most builders make the garages way too shallow to park big trucks in there and have shelving in front of them. As mentioned, make your garage doors wider than standard too.

It is a 3.5 car garage and there is nothing above it. It's semi finished (dry walled walls and ceiling with indoor/outdoor carpet) with a 4' wide set of stairs going up there. Each member of the family will get one of those big Gladiator cabinets for their stuff. What doesn't fit in the cabinets goes upstairs. I hate cluttered and messy garages. It can look like a bomb went off upstairs, I don't care, but when I pull in from work every day, I want to see 5 cabinets, the bikes and the lawnmower, that's it...not shit hanging on the walls, shelves stuffed with crap...nope, cleeeeeeeean!

Kind of like my area above the garage, we have a semi finished area that has hvac to it that is accessible from a door at the end of the hallway upstairs for storage of certain things. My wife doesn't like luggage getting dusty down in the normal basement storage room. same with her seasonal decorations, etc. So we have a 10x10 room for that kind of stuff.

If you can't tell, I'm a bit of a neat freak and want this house to have space to put everything so I don't have to see shit stored all over. I think one extra large closet on each floor of a house changes the game dramatically for keeping the areas organized.

These are the things that I think are somewhat unique that we came up with and like that I didn't see mentioned.

PS, I've heard horror stories of couples fighting when building a house. Don't stress it and have fun together, congrats on the new home!

I'll echo what a few others have said: A utility sink in the garage, or at least in an adjoining "mudroom" or laundry room if you're in an area where the garage gets too cold in winter, is essential.

As mentioned pre-wire for cable/networking.

Additonally, have your dmarc strategically located to run the wires, install any equipment or devices and to be able to work on in.

I have had to stand on washer/driers and work on network runs in home before.

Additionally, if a large home or high ceilings run cables for ceiling mounted equipment if you will be using > cameras or wi-fi access points.
Mesh (Wi-Fi) is all the rage but is a significant performance hit, Mesh was created when conventional installation is not feasible.

Running cable for any exterior IP cams (or legacy CCTV) as well.

quote:

Originally posted by esdunbar:

No inside corners in the tile showers. Those are always the areas where the mold grows no matter how hard I work to keep my showers clean.....

Another option is do away with all the grout joints in the showers all together. New construction gives the option of building in a one piece shower/tub with NO joints or or grout to clean or eventually leak. Not cheap fiberglass stuff look at some of the high end acrylic units.

quote:

Walk-in Safe (Gun room).

Just about every builder I have seen attempt this screws it up.

quote:

Walk in gun vault under the front porch.

Worst place to put one. Ideally you'll want your vault walls isolated from the soil.

a1abdj, I know a few guys who put them under the porch as it was cost effective. All the concrete is basically there already, so it's a minimal increase for a lot of gain. They haven't had any issues, but seeing your comment, long term, I could see moisture coming through the foundation as an issue.

You're in St. Louis, so it's not really practical to have you build mine for me, but would you consult on it for a fee? I plan on staying in this house for 30 years or so, and I don't want to screw it up.