I know when I say, "I replaced my builder grade light fixtures, and my builder grade door," I'm not speaking in flattering terms about that which was "builder grade!" Those things were pretty bad. Builders are known to make, shall we say, the "most frugal" selections, which usually = bad selections. I think Tina on the other thread was being more polite and genteel by using the work "lacking." Whether it's just lacking, or truly bad, probably depends on when and where the house was built, to a large degree.

Pal can surely articulate an answer more clearly and further light on this subject!

(I think Pal is a "he". ;-))

I've never considered homes or communities in their entirety to be builder's grade, but more the finishes and details. Cheap, tinny hardware, generic light fixtures and faucets, inexpensive shag carpeting, sheet vinyl, hollow core doors, particleboard cabinets, etc. That's what I consider to be builder's grade.

Our house is almost 40 years old. It has *some* interesting architectural features, and I think when it was built, it was a custom home. But it still has "builder's grade" hardware and a few other features, that apparently no one before me thought enough about to replace. Am I replacing those things with the most expensive top of the line whatevers? No, but I think it's nicer quality stuff than what's there, and to me, sure does look better.

My take on it is that 'I know it when I see it' :) It applies, in my mind, to any house that was built en masse on spec, although there are a few exceptions to that, of course. I stayed in a multi-million dollar beach home on the east coast once, which a member of our party described as "the absolute best that the shelves of Home Depot have to offer". Even that was a high-end builder's grade house, IMO. Of course, usually we think lower on the price scale, e.g. it can be an 800 sf Levittown house, too. Or a Toll Bros. house, or any of those volume-builders who plan entire neighborhoods.

They have a certain 'purchased by the caseload' feel to all the finishes/hardware. I lived in a 1993 vintage one in NC, didn't touch a thing other than putting more hardwoods in and taking wallpaper down in one room because I never really felt 'at home', and am currently in the process of finishing making our '78 builder's grade house here in OR a true Home.
Other characteristics: you can just tell it was built by day labor/inexperienced subs rather than trained permanent employees, shortcuts taken, shiny cruddy hardware, vinyl in the kitchen like rm's...BUT it had wainscoting and crown molding in the dining room, hardwoods in the entry (not the whole floor, just a bit), double height entry, etc. Does that make sense?

I think of builder grade when I think of items that are in stock at places like Home Depot. Not all of them, but materials that lack in architectural detail, are bland, lacking in style and without consideration.

eek! Mea culpa.

I love that we have a few extremely talented decorating men in our midst! :-)

I have tended to associate "builder grade" with the home I moved into in the late 80s. It was built by Centennial Homes and as with all homes in that suburban neighborhood, had the same oak cabinets in kitchen and baths, same grade of laminate countertops in kitchen and cultured marble vanities in baths, hollow-core "panel" doors with brass-plated hardware, etc. I vividly recall visiting the "Design Center" where I selected from a limited offering of tile, carpet and wallpapers.

I lived in that house for about 12 years and then moved into what I've always thought of as a "custom" home. Imagine my surprise when I was watching HGTV's House Hunters just like night and saw a house that was almost identical in a north Dallas suburb among those that the househunting couple was choosing from. Same brick, same cabinets, same doors, same patio, same appliances, almost the exact same layout as the home I had always thought of as my "custom." So now I'm not even sure how to answer this question! Seems like maybe the homes built in this area aren't necessarily all that different from one another in terms of materials used. Maybe just different selections at different price points.

Me? Genteel? Why thank you Stinky (and I say this in my southern drawl LOL)!!

I think too it depends on the builder. I'm thinking of one builder in my area (I've seen several of his houses) who has a bit more upscale. Different builders and different budgets come into play.

tina

Builder grade and cookie cutter homes seem to go hand in hand in my mind. Everyone in the same area has nearly the same floor plan,nearly the same everything and there's no originality in any of the spaces. It's certainly not designer and it certainly isn't high end. It's generic.
If you closed your eyes and took a look at the pics of these homes bare boned you couldn't tell one from another.

I don't mean to denigrate the materials used in a typical house that is spec built (a house in a development). My issue is that some sensibility has been lost in housing design.

A typical builders home in the postwar era was small by todays standards, but if you look at the plan, it tended to have a series of rectangular rooms, with windows in a reasonable place for window treatments and that was that. The open plan was starting, and the idea of multiple (but tiny) bathrooms took shape.

At the beginning of the 80s, the true McMansion boom started and these large houses started to adapt the "amenities" of the large scale custom house or real Mansions...double height rooms, vaulted ceilings, high windows, colonnaded open spaces, etc. And although putting these details in a house that was still pretty much a drywall box with a minimum amount of detailing to carry it off was a bit pretentious , at least they were generally a large enough house to carry most of it off proportion-wise.

Then, since we live in a democratic society, someone decided that any house, no matter how small (with small getting bigger all the time) deserved these "features" So my sister, who lives in a house that is not large square footage wise, lives behind a facade that stands way out of the landscape but is "flat" front to back and is 40% garage.
It has a double height entry hall but the door barely clears the bottom step and they rise as steeply as permitted to the open hall. It is all so tight, its impossible to maneuver the ladder to the fixture to change the bulb. The large arched window is not over the front door, but inside the optional "bonus" walk in closet with clothes jammed against it. The master bath has the cheapest of everything but is larger than the two other bedrooms. None of it makes sense. Her house looks almost as big as the one I grew up in, which is three times the size but sits nicely in its environment.

I've often associated builder grade as very tiny orangey-oak trim and hollow core doors.

I agree that builder grade may mean different things to different builders. Don't forget times and era's too though.

That old farmhouse that I grew up in that was built in the late 1800's was probably considered builders grade for the time. It was a Sears Home kit and the next door neighbors farm house was the mirror recerse version of ours.

The definition doesn't make it seem very desirable.....

In construction, the term builder-grade is a phrase meant to make inexpensive materials sound more desirable. Builder-grade materials, in actual usage in construction, are more or less a well-known euphemism for the least expensive materials currently available on the market.

Here is a link that might be useful: what is builders grade?

When we built, my builder was also building some spec homes which I didn't care for the kitchen cabinets so asked for white. The cabinets were a dead give away to me..they were also a streaked stained look as opposed to a furniture look. My husband said it was the type of wood they used that made them look like that. I asked for stair stepped cabinets white cabinets and a couple with glass doors and a plate rack. I was pleased in the end. I tried to have in hand pictures when I explained what I wanted to the builders as they seem to understand better if you can actually show they what you have in mind. Builders are frugal and keep budget in mind . Bonnie

Builder grade, to me, is plain and simply mass produced building materials. They buy things (flooring, light fixtures, appliances and bathroom fixtures among other things) in quantity to cut their costs. Some builders buy higher quality than others (granite verses Formica) depending on what type of homes they build. That being said, you can't really say all "builder grade" is low quality, though the term generally does mean lower quality. Hopefully it's not below code though.

Dead giveaway: odd or random placement and sizing of windows all through----- no unifying principle, just a load of what look like leftovers from different houses. No thought given to symmetry at all.

no kswl, this would be custom, through and through LOL

Another dead giveaway: simple wear and tear will cause ruin rather than patina.

Lol, puna, I said on that Other Thread that my friend who insisted on a high rectangular window in her kitchen above a hutch was very sorry indeed that she had made an architectural decision based on a piece of (not very nice ) furniture. Her "design/build" guy was only too happy to let her do it. He didn't know any better, either.

Builder grade homes of yesteryear were like school cafeteria food choices where everyone gets the same overcooked underwhelming inexpensive food (like sloppyjoes), just maybe in different tray slots and either chocolate or white milk. And that's it. You ate that, or you brought your own lunch from home. (custom)

Today's builder grade is like cheap Chinese menu "food". You choose one from column A, another from column B, and for $1 "upgrade" you can choose one from column C. You're getting faux "custom" choices to make it sound better, but you're still talking mass produced already made choices that sit around ready to be combined together in into a dish at the last minute rather than cooked fresh from scratch.

That's not to say that for an additional "upgrade" charge you can't get something "custom" that's not on the menu, but, you're not talking about creating something like Birds Nest Soup from a noodle take out place. You're talking making Chicken Lo Mein instead of Beef Lo Mein when only beef is offered on the menu but chicken is available because Moo Goo Gai Pan is on the menu. It will require something out of the builder's comfort zone, and he'll charge for it, and you'll have something that no one else who ordered lunch there will, but it won't be like ordering from a 4 star restaurant in Taipei.

That's what many of the "custom" home plans from the internet have become. They're builder grade too in a different way. It's the production oriented "mill" sameness. Just because the house next door isn't exactly the same as yours, doesn't mean that one a neighborhood or city away isn't. And just because you're using a higher grade of finish material doesn't mean that the home is truly a custom home. It's just a cookie cutter of a different variety.

Even folks who engage an architect often fall into the popularity architecture game of the current age. It takes a lot of skill and creativity to not fall into the mediocre blandness of today's homebuilding where if you add enough gables and corners to a home, you've got something "custom". Even a one-off house can be "builder grade" if it pays too much attention to current trends and not enough to the intrinsic quality of materials (NOT just finishes!) and grace of proportion and site planning.

But, most of us live in builder grade homes of one variety of another. Economics dictate our lives, and we can't all afford something unique that really reflects our personality. So we have to make do with using our creativity in the interior or exterior finish choices of our home. And, too many people "beige out" when confronted with that reality. "Satin nickel is popular right now? OK, I'll choose that because it's safe and it won't be too jarring. It'll go perfectly with that Baby Turtle wall color that everyone is using." And so, restricted in our choices in choosing creative housing, we further restrict our choices in choosing how we furnish our houses. Choosing the safe and non creative choice makes our builder's grade homes even more builder's grade. They don't reflect us, they reflect the popular choice of others. That's the sad part of "builder's grade" that we all can change a little if we choose too.

Excellent post, live wire oak.

Well said, live wire.

LOL So true LWO! Love your analogy.

I've found out builders grade is different depending on the area you live. In CA, builders grade would be linoleum in a $300K house, whereas tile is standard in a $150K home in TX, or possibly engineered wood flooring. Builders here will also allow you to change out light fixtures in a spec home, and choose carpeting or other flooring if it isn't installed yet.

Almost anything is allowed in TX(Austin)if you want to spend the money to take your home from builders grade to custom. You build what you can afford~~it shouldn't be a competition with anyone. ;o)

Going through a custom build right now. And honestly you should have seen the look on my builders face when I asked why there was no broom closet in my laundry/utility room. That man looked at me like I was speaking japanese!

To me a "builder grade" home is one that is focused more on form than function. The kitchen might look pretty but the configuration makes no sense. Sure looks nice, but try living in a house with zero storage!

Don't even get me started on the streets that have only 3 different houses on them, just varied colors of brick, siding etc.......

Would love to build custom home, just not a financial reality. Here in Oakville (just outside of TO), you'd likely need min. $1.5m+ to even start talking about custom homes.

Most neighborhoods here are builder developments with few choices in finishes and cookie-cutter homes...just need to find a way to find your own style to decorate.

I always hoped to own day own a custom built home, yet never expected to own a new house. I can tell pretty quickly which houses were built custom and which were by a mass builder, even if there is only 1 example on the block and the houses are all 60-80 years old. There is a difference between the ones built for profit prior to the buyers input and ones designed for a buyer and whose materials were chosen individually.
In a perfect world, I'd be in a 1930-40's custom built home with true architectural details that were not messed with too much in the 70-80s. Spot built homes usually have so much more character and as mentioned above, things age gracefully with patina rather than get ratty with age.

We live in a cookie cutter neighborhood - a couple a different floorplans but even those are variations. The best part is that you never have to tell the neighborhood kids were the bathroom is!

Perfectly said Livewire.

In NJ custom homes come at a very large premium. Not only in cost but taxes since NJ has the highest property taxes in the nation.

We live in a cookie cutter 2300 sq. ft. TH that we bought new 4 yrs old. Let's talk about the builder options and costs. We were sent to a design studio to pick our options. They were overpriced junk. The builder wanted $12,000 for hardwoods just on the first floor. The kitchen cab upgrades were $2500 and $4500 and not worth it. The master bath upgrade (tile) started at $2500. This one we could not figure out. There is not enough tile nor was the guality good enough to justify the cost. Recessed ceiling lights were $200 ea.

We put in our own upgrades and started after settlement with very high quality kitchen cabs, my great Franke Orka sink and faucet,and HW throughout most of the house which includes most of the second floor and closets and upgraded much more with better quality and less money than the builders stuff would have cost.

Our cookie cutter has the same floor plans but our home is our own.

These things in our NH condo scream builder grade to me. We are only there weekends and vacations, so it hasn't made me nuts yet, but it is coming. If we do relocate to this house, we will change a lot of things. I'd like to start by at least upgrading the bathroom fixtures this year. We did change out the cheap towel racks in all the rooms. I hate those things!

This tile is in the kitchen and all 3.5 baths...not sealed right so all the red dye from my PB bath rugs kind of "soaked in". Project this winter to fix that.

The same cheapo carpet throughout the house. We have hardwood in the living dining room, but this stuff is in all the bedrooms and the downstairs living room.

Awful faucets....and the counters aren't nice at all.

Because it is what it is, I certainly didn't expect any architectural details, though some care would have been nice. There's a huge seam in the granite that makes my skin crawl.

Beth P.

"In construction, the term builder-grade is a phrase meant to make inexpensive materials sound more desirable. Builder-grade materials, in actual usage in construction, are more or less a well-known euphemism for the least expensive materials currently available on the market."

well, they lose on that first line... they're houses built mostly alike with the cheapest (or almost) products they can find and get a price break by buying it by the ton load.
Even at a tad higher scale (hardly 1 step) it would be mass building with the 2nd level of cheap product. They've built a town of them to the east of me.

good post LWO!

what i think of in a custom home is what my sister has. her dh designed it, had it drawn up by an architect and they hired their own builder - not a mass producing builder. It is rather simple tho - a Santa Fe style desert house. They picked out most everything. It all turned out beautiful.