good points! I am building my house myself and it's taking a LOONNGG time....which is good in some ways. It gives me time to see possible issues and fix them before it's too late.

Like the outside light switches, for instance. There is a ceiling fan, recessed lighting, a pendent light in my livingroom/foyer area. Plus I wanted porch lights, porch fans, flood lights and street lights in the front yard. So my solution is I am putting a bank of switches for the interior lights where you would espect to see it....on the opening side of the door. I am also installing a second bank of light switches on the hindge side of the door or exterior lighting. I thought about using lighting controllers and decided against it becuse they are expensive and complicated. I am doing the same thing for the back yard lighting.

Love the tips. I hope more will give thier input too.

We're just at texturing stage but I already know of one water faucet I wish was in place. I'm sure other things will arise as time goes by.

Regarding the switches in the garage, I put mine there- and I am the electrician! I also preferred them inside the house at the door leading to the garage. But we made all the main floor level doors 3' wide (senior citizens, all of us) except the door leading to the basement. Due to a closet next to the door to the garage, the switches for the area inside (mud room) and the lights in the garage itself had to be placed one above the other beside the door into the garage. So the 3 switches for exterior lights on the garage are in the garage. One feature sometimes requires doing another feature differently. There are 4 switches adjacent to the front door, leading to the porch. So I put a switch in the garage controlling a receptacle in the porch ceiling to reduce confusion at the front door. A bit less convenient, but the ceiling receptacle is used for lighted decorations. I also have two full-time-live receptacles mounted low on the front wall of the house serving the porch.

We have a small closet type pantry in the kitchen, plus we have about a 9x9 pantry that the freezer is in, in the basement, right at the bottom of the steps. There is cooking/food related stuff packed into both, and I don't know what I'd do if we didn't have them.

A decision-making thing we learned, perhaps even learning it here, was;
When picking out colors, we'd each make a list of our own "possibles". Then we went through each others "possibles", eliminating the ones we didn't like of theirs.
If there was 1 same color from each pile remaining, then the decision was made. If not, then we started shrinking our own choices again by choosing "favorites" and then looking at the others pile again removing your least favorite from theirs.
You can narrow down choices to 1 to 2 colors in a hurry if you do it this way.

Bungeeii that's exactly what my husband and I did when trying to pick the color we wanted for our front door. We wanted it a totally different color so it would stand out but not been an eye sore. I went down to the Big Box stores and picked out about 100 different color samples. I stuck them all around the front door and then when and got my husband. He would pull a color and throw it to the porch...and then I would pull a color and throw it down...it was actually pretty fun. By doing it this way we ended up with a color we both agreed upon and even now are very happy with OUR decision.

Pam

12 x 12 tile is really small. Even in our small pwder rm, it's almost too small. If I could do it again, the smallest I would have gone is 13 x 13. Use larger tiles or a variety of lg. with small.

Don't give up. A few times, DH and I got so frustrated with decision making that we just gave up and picked something that was "good enough." This is what happened in one bathroom. I could not find lights I really liked in the show room, it was getting late, the lighting consultant was tapping her foot, and we wanted to be done with it. We picked a so-so light. I wish we would have waited and gone elsewhere for that light. Ditto for door hardware. Not big things but... see next comment.

Be thankful. As I walked about our almost done house, I realized that when I look at the features of our house - flooring, cabinets, doors, windows, etc. I will be able to say "I totally LOVE this floor (or cabinet or door or paint color)" What a joy to be able to live among your choices and love just about everything!

Thanks for this thread. I'm still in the build process but I'm definitely learning a lot already! Thanks, Jan, for the reminder to be thankful! It reminds me of a wonderful piece of advice I just received last week from a lady I met in my neighborhood who just moved into her new custom home a few months ago. I told her how much fun I'm having seeing the insides of neighbors' homes to get ideas and inspiration.

She said, "While you're building, look as much as you want at other people's homes...but then once you're done and moved in, STOP LOOKING." Basically the message was be thankful and grateful and happy with your choices and stop comparing what you've done with what others did.

I've never liked hose bibs on the house because of dripping onto the siding. This time we have one bib with hot and cold water and the rest are freeze proof hydrants not attached or near the house. Tom

Anyone have some more tips for this thread?

Use 3-way light switches. One of the features I really appreciate about my cabin is the 3-way switches for the staircase. One at the base of the stairs, 1 at the top of the stairs and the 3rd down the upstairs hall outside the master and 2 bedroom door.

Anyone have some more tips for this thread?

Yes, don't use two or three way switches on motion detecting security lights. The people who built our current house did that. It was a big mistake.

With two and three way switches, you can never be sure whether or not the motion detecting security light has power, since you can't tell by switch position. It is very easy to inadvertently leave the light unpowered.

Save all the instruction sheets, even if the contractor did the installation. Things break.

i have a tip. do not use brazillian cherry hardwood. its beautiful but boy is it high maintenance. it shows every speck of dust on a sunny day.

Here goes,
Take the time to explore and be informed about all of the possibilities of your lot your setbacks and what structures you can place on your lot. We learned after the fact that we could excavate for our driveway all the way to the property line and it didn't have to be ten feet inside the line. It makes a huge diffence to the back of our house and gives us a beautiful courtyard.

We were able to get 4000 sq. ft. of travertine marble for all of our floors from Home Depot at $2.54 /sg ft.instead
of tile and it makes a huge difference to the the look of our home much more luxurious at a similar price.

I have a galley kitchen 16 x 11. I put a Subzero all freezer and Subzero all refrigerator opposite each other in my kitchen and I love not going downstairs or out to the garage to get something from the freezer. Every woman should have at least one Subzero in their life time.

I wish I had put away $50,000 for my landscape budget. At the end money is gone and I live to garden this was really important to me.

Put lights above every shower and ceiling fans in any bathroom with small windows and poor air circulation.

Always ask other members for ideas before you leap as they have a huge knowledge base and mistakes aren't necessary.

When you finally build your retirement home " not necessarily your dream home" build how you live and rooms
you will use not what the architect says you must have. Resale value isn't as much an issue when it is your last home.

Get second opinions on your kitchen design and layout. I was motivated to get a "second opinion" because of cost but when I did the second designer was much more knowledgable and I ended up with a wonderful beautiful functional kitchen that was half the price.

Think about dog food storage and where you will put it.

Consider a dumbwaiter if your laundry or freezer or storage is on a different level. Mine is from kitchen to laundry.

We have a ceiling fan in a sixteen foot ceiling over a beautiful canopy bed with a silk flat canopy top. I didn't want to give up the canopy so I bought a crocheted tablecloth with a very open pattern and weave and replaced the solid silk so the air flow from the ceiling fan wasn't restricted.

Some great ideas! This time I will add an outdoor spigot on the upstairs balcony for cleaning and watering plants. I'll also add several out in the landscaping. I know this might not be practical where there are hard freezes.

Wow! I love the idea for a spigot for a 2nd floor balcony!

Extended piping/spigots for landscaping and gardens is an excellent idea. If you live in a freeze climate, have the plumber design the layout to include a special drywell for draining the lines before frost. It's not a big deal, but best done at the time of plumbing; and an extra faucet to the lines, accessed from indoors is needed.

Never try to get champagne on a beer budget! Seriously, there's nothing wrong with "bargain-hunting," but don't try to get more than you're entitled to for the money. Quality over quantity. We went with a builder who built our house for essentially our budget, but he butchered his way through it,and we are counting the days until the market comes back up and a respectable time passes before we can sell it!!! We won't build again unless we can afford to do it right.

If you can't find a fixture you love, cover the opening with a plate and wait for a lighting sale, or buy a cheap make-do if you have to have light there right now. (This can be dangerous. Our electrician told me he had been living with a bulb on a cord over their kitchen table for over a year! LOL)

Put money into 'behind the walls' stuff; you can replace the shower faucets, but it would be a major job to rip out and re-tile to replace valves. BTW, those 'lifetime' warranties on faucets means the company will send you replacement parts, but...you have to pay the plumber to install them. (Why did I go with the 'prettier' American Standard faucets in our master bathroom?) Also, don't get carried away with shower so huge that you dread cleaning it. Do you *really* want multiple shower heads? You'll need more water heater capacity and a very good water supply.

Hoard 'extras' -- extra roofing, tile, granite, whatever!

A 'bar sink' isn't big enough for anything but drawing water. You can't even wash your hands in one.

If you place your windows too low on the wall you can't put any furniture under them.

You may not need a steam unit in a fully enclosed shower; ours gets plenty steamy without turning the heater on.

'Try on' a bathtub for size.

Yes, think about potted plants and cleaning needs when you place your hose bibs.

Examine the *entire* house blueprints after the architect makes revisions. Many times the 'new' revision was made but a prior one on some other part of the house was dropped. That's how I ended up jury-rigging undercabinet lights in our kitchen. I hadn't noticed they'd been wiped off the plans, and there was no wiring in place for them!

Hire a GC who has built YOUR type of house before. Ours had built a lot of houses, but not quite to our level of finish. Fortunately, he employed an ace carpenter who saved the day.