stay with your budget. no one keeps their original home design forever...

when your lifestyle changes and budget allows you will want to make changes.

Stay on budget.

Conceive of the look for your home as a whole. Have a solid vision. It is so easy to get enticed by individual upgrades, but if you have a vision for the overall look, you can pick standard options that help complete that look instead of being swayed by each upgrade.

@Lyn Nielson and @Kendrah Thanks a lot.

Any decision tips on how to make selections when you dont have a clear image in mind of the room you want? What are some big ticket design selections to get right (while others are more easily repaceable or wont have much impact)?

One tact to take is to not do any. Learn from this one the things you should have done and the things you are glad you did not do and apply your well founded wisdom on your next house(s).

Your question is too general for anyone to answer. What specific upgrades are you considering? If you really want the upgrade, and can afford the price, then do it. You also have to consider whether doing the upgrade after you move in is more cost effective. For example, if you're considering upgrading to a better faucet, that would be easy to do after you move in. It's not particularly disruptive and you probably will have a lot more selection than what the builder is offering.

However, if you're talking about flooring, that would be a major disruption after you move in. Compare the quality and appearance of the standard flooring to what the upgrade is. If the builder's standard is a gray LVP, but genuine hardwood is the upgrade, that would be worth it to me. It's really about your budget and aesthetics, as well as the specific upgrade.

^^ agree - can also help to think about:

"if I hate this down the road, how hard will it be to change?" and

"If I want to change it - can I deal with just 1 pro (like a countertop fabricator) or would I need a GC who brings in subs etc..:?" Changes can create downstream problems so think about how discrete a change would be

good luck! :)

Also factor in how well you handle upheaval. If you're thinking you want site finished hardwood floors (for example), it is approximately a million times easier to get that done before the house is finished and you're living there with all your stuff in the way.

Counters? Easier to change than flooring, but again, what is the upcharge to get what you want? If you put in a cheap laminate now and upgrade to granite/quartz/quartzite later, do you know how much (approximately) those upgraded counters cost?

I've had 2 homes built for me so I have some insight into this, but I need to know what you're considering. Otherwise I'm just writing a book here and hoping something resonates.....

Well, I've experienced a couple home builds and probably will never get to do a 3rd one to "get it right"; so, I'll share that you should make upgrade decisions based on whether it's considered a Foundation or a Lipstick.

Foundation changes you should consider, such as any additional electrical/outlets, plumbing needs, outdoor electrical & water accesses, an extra powder room, extending a porch, larger closet, two sinks in master or one, laundry sink, upgraded flooring and cabinetry and windows.

Lipstick stuff like trim work, interior paint, lighting, door and cabinet hardware, faucets, etc. you can do yourself down the road.

Best of luck to you!

In addition to upgrading to hardwood, I would also upgrade showers/tub surrounds to tile if the standard for those are acrylic surrounds. You could still have a nice solid shower pan installed instead of a custom built shower pan if it's less expensive, but a shower with tile is so much nicer than one of those cheaper white acrylic shower/tub surrounds.

I know that there are more expensive solid surface surface surrounds (not sure what they are made out of - I don't mean corian type because those are expensive)- there is a woman here who installed one in the last 3 or 4 years. It looked much nicer than the plain white acrylic ones I've seen. But a tiled shower/tub surround makes your bathroom look much nicer - and it's expensive to have someone rip out an acrylic surround and so all the prep work in order to install tile.

If you listed upgrades that you are interested in having done + include the builder's charge for them, we would be able to provide better advice as to whether you should do it now or simply wait and do it later.

Also - I would take some time to figure out paint colors. It's very easy to select the wrong colors (interior and exterior) for your home - and repainting the entire interior/exterior is expensive - so, you don't want to make a mistake re: paint colors.

The floors and windows are the two things I’d think you’d absolutely want to get right the first time while building.

FWIW, we did cultured marble for our tub and shower enclosures. I loathe cleaning grout, and these were nicer than acrylic, but cheaper than corian.

I think lighting never , flooring yes and if there are changes to the kitchen you must have do those . I happen to love acrylic showers and tub surrounds if they are good quality they do not leak they are easy to keep new looking and so a win win for me . Only you can decide what is worth it but often the upgrades form the bulder are more expensive than doing it later. I always tell my clients to do builder lighting since decor style dictates style of lights and can be done one room at a time anytime. Flooring is such a huge hassle to redo later it makes sense to do before move in A pretty bathoom sink can be added later as an example. Do things you really hate as they are and that is it

This is super duper helpful. Thanks a ton everyone. I guess the biggest piece I am struggling with is to be able to visualize how my selections would come together. All they have are small samples of cabinets and countertops and flooring. And I am a visual person so its making it very difficult to see how the sum total of everything I am selecting loks and to play around with different combinations. I can't be the only one struggling with this, for one of the most expensive purchase one makes in life :). So if anyone has encountered any tips to help "see through" the variety of selections come together, please let me know.

If I was in your situation, I’d pay a designer to go with you and co-ordinate the options for you. They will also co-ordinate color and style to flow between rooms in your home and give you choices.

Post photos of your samples here in this thread.. in good neutral lighting please, you will get lots of Houzz folks to help you "see through" for sure.

If you go for LVP floors, make sure they are at least 5mm and waterproof. And NOT dark floors...dark shows too much lint, dust etc.

It would be helpful for us to know/see which upgrades you are referring to.

When my sister moved from her home to an assisted living apartment we were given 4" squares of the choices for flooring, cabinets, countertops and vanitiy finishes. Walls could be any SW color you wanted that had an LRV of 60 or higher (no dark colors that would be difficult to paint over), all trim and doors were SW Extra White.

The little 4 inch squares were not enough material to really see how things would go together and what they would look like with her furnishings. The choices were limited, but you could decide to get something else if you wanted to pay the difference.

We ordered a box of the flooring that we thought she would like (Build,com - 90 day return policy). She decided she did like that flooring. We then went to a cabinet place where they sold the brand she had to select from. We took a plank of the flooring along and signed out a few different door finish samples - they were about the size of the door samples from Home Depot or Lowes - More like 12" square, not the full size of a cabinet door, but not just a little piece. They said we could keep them for 3 days.

We brought those home and placed them with a few flooring planks and picked one that we liked.

The next step was the counter material. Not one of the samples that were in the selection worked for my sister and the flooring/cabinet combination she picked. All the choices were spreckled or had busy veins and this was a really small space with a fair amount of movement in the flooring. We decided to upgrade to Corian and picked a solid off white countertop that worked. We then picked the neutral paint color that was not white and went well with the other things we picked. SW Natural Linen.

Extra White was not the best color trim with Natural Linen, but that was a hard rule for the building. No other choices allowed and in all honesty, it just looked white.

The only way to do this with any level of confidence was by getting larger samples.

While we had the samples of everything we also went to the local higher end furniture store and bought two recliners and picked the upholstery fabric that worked with all the other colors. She was keeping the small sofa she had in her current home so we took one of the cushions from the sofa with us as well.

Getting samples that are large enough to visualize is key. No one can pick a good wall color based on the 1" square in a fan deck and no one can pick flooring based on a 4" square.

It is also good to look at the flooring website to see what a whole room looks like. There were a couple of floorings that had a lot of variance that you didn't see when you just had a 4" square.

When I picked LVP for my home I couldn't decide between 2 colors. Ordered a box of each - no returns allowed, but they gave me an exception - I could trade one of the boxes for a box of the other color once I decided which one I liked.

In addition to the suggestions above (I agree with upgrades to flooring and infrastructure things like electrical and windows) I'd add drawers in the lower kitchen cabinets. Most people find drawers much handier than roll out shelves, and rollouts handier than fixed shelves. To me, that's a functional upgrade, used every day, and would be worth it.

Keep in mind everything comes at a cost; the builders "upgrades' will add up quickly. How much are you OK on adding to house cost? I would do things that are more structural as they are not easier later.

I had allocated $10-15k in my head but have a feeling I will surpass that unless I am very clear on staying focused on big ticket items. This thread has helped a lot though.

Unfortunately, it won't go as far as you think. Builder upgrades are very expensive for what you get; it's the business model. And. you're still stuck to their "design" choices.

I helped a friend with her new house build. She had a list of upgrades she was considering and how much they were. We then sat down and looked up pricing for items we could change ourselves or have done after the fact.

The items she did upgrade : Having ceiling fan boxes ( but no fans installed ) , wood stained stairs with a nicer railing ( vs carpet ) , nice front door, tiled showers instead of fiberglass.

We researched a patio for the back yard and it turned out to be less expensive and they got a larger one than what the builder was offering.

They left all the light fixtures basic - we replaced them for a fraction of the cost. She did not do a backsplash tile either which made it easy to pick something fun.

It takes some work to think through it but don't upgrade stuff that is easy enough to do at another time.

Congrats on the new house!

I would spend my upgrade money *now* on things that will otherwise cause more disruption *later.* This could range from better insulation & windows, multi-zoned HVAC, and solar pre-wiring to extra outlets, pre-wired fan boxes and lights (any kind of wired lighting), full HW stair treads, and kitchen choices (like wide drawers on the bottom or under-cabinet lighting).

Thanks @D Michael. This is incredible and your house looks beautiful. Very valuable advice. Can you tell me how did you go about the 3D rendering journey. Very curious because I am a very usual person.

Thanks! I was self taught with Sketchup. It was expensive at $400/year I think, but it was well worth it to test out ideas. Im actually have a hard time of letting go of the annual subscription with our basement coming up or future projects.. I could even use real product images of potential wood grains or flooring or paint colors and test it out in the house! I didn’t have much going on when I learned how to use sketchup, so I can’t imagine relearning it now 🤣 I think I was just that desperate to test out designs when pencil and paper were no longer cutting it. It’s worth a shot! The free courses it came with were actually super helpful. I was probably up and running with rendering our house in 8 hours max?

Here’s some samples of what we rendered vs how it turned out. The fireplace, we were trying to determine size/scale and also see if our surround idea would look fine. We definitely also planned out what size TV to buy through rendering too LOL. The pantry, we were playing around with what color/material for the pantry. Landed on stain matching the floors (although it didn’t really end up matching..) and a laminate top. Just some ideas of how you can test out ideas before deciding.

But you can also do mood boards like this to see if things go together as you’d like (note: how you like may be different than how Houzz designers like 🤣). You can use a website called remove.bg to remove the background on screenshots of real products (all of these are real life things you can buy/order) and paste them on a document. I personally use google slides. Hope that helps! Good luck!!

You may want to do something a bit less expensive. I have Cheif Architect Home Designer Pro. Bought it over 10 years ago and have been happy with it. I don't really need the pro version, but it is what I have. (I do not have the premier - that is more expensive than sketch up).

https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/#products

https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/products/product-chooser.html

Love this. Has heard about chief architect but seemed daunting at a quick glance. Will give it a second look. Thank you

All good advice above, especially going with foundation vs lipstick upgrades. Builders will over charge for many upgrades that you can switch out immediately or later at a far better price. Years after our build we have added multiple outlets which was a pain but we didn't think that through during the planning stage. Not sure if this is your first home or first build but there are always projects and upgrades, it's inevitable.

Before signing a contract ask for a listing of all options/upgrades with pricing. If they won't give that to you then walk away.

Better yet, figure it out before signing and have what you want included so that you know the exact cost.

Understand what's expensive to fix later and what not. For example:

• Electrical outlets - get 'em immediately. A lot of them.
• Pre-wire for car chargers and solar (you can install the actual chargers and solar later if the builder wants to gouge)

Keep in mind that scuzzier builders make a gob of their profit by offering a low, sometimes impossibly low, price up front and then gouging for upgrades. It's the American way.

I don't think any builder will give you a listing of all possible upgrades with prices.

But there is an advantage to planning very carefully and avoiding change orders, which yes, builders will charge you for.