Building a new home- "Must Have" Upgrades?

[Madman]

Originally Posted by Eagle Eye

I think must have upgrades are things that are tougher to do after the house is built, wether it is phyiscally harder, or it looks better.

Things like:
raising ceilings on main and basement
widening garage
speaker wiring
extra exterior outlets/switches for lighting
outlet on island
rough in for garborator with switch on counter
drain in garage
finished basement stairs (that way they do a better job of the rough in)
upgrade railing (if you have stub walls)
vaulted ceilings
3 way switches where they do not exist
upgrade windows to more energy effiecient ones

Yep, we did all of those things and everyone who comes over always comments on at least one.

The other one is to upgrade insulation and to sound proof areas of the house.

[habernac]

gas fireplaces, meh. The pilot light in mine isn't even lit, I haven't used it in the 3+ years we've lived in our home. If it was a wood fireplace, I would defnitely use it.

[krazycanuck]

before you sign off on appliance upgrades from your builder, make sure you double check the market rates for them. My sister and her husband are building right now, they wanted a high efficiency washer+dryer. They found that they could purchase those separately at an appliance store, for cheaper than the price of the upgrade. Plus, they'll basically get the standard set for free which they can sell to help offset the cost.

[Jedi Ninja]

1. Location.
2. Structure (9' ceilings, 9' basement, garage width, etc.)



The above two are the only things that can't be fixed later. Don't sacrifice these two things, buying a smaller home in a less desireable area just so you can have the granite and the fancy appliances. Just my $0.02.

[photon]

Oh yeah, we did a 9' basement too.. made a HUGE difference when it came time to finish it.

[sclitheroe]

I would get an upgraded humidifier on the furnace out of the gate if I had a choice...I guess they are probably easy to install later, but it would be nice to have a home about 30% humidity in the winter.

An instant hot water heater would be nice too.

[Winsor_Pilates]

The main thing is good structural specs. Atleast 9' ceiling heights, building materials, a good layout, room sizes etc.
Good kitchens and bathrooms will always be valued in a home as well, so don't cheep out there. I would recommend at least granite, if not quartz countertops, undermount sinks, undercabinet lighting and good spacing for a large fridge with waterline.

Bathrooms should have at least soaker tubs and I would recommend having both a standing shower and tub in the master ensuite. As well as 2 sinks.

Natural gas lines for your bbq are great too. Not a must for resale, but very nice for your own use.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

An instant hot water heater would be nice too.

Expensive, but I love mine.

[automaton 3]

Some really good advice in this thread, here's the things that we're glad we did:

9 foot ceilings
expanded garage to 22x24 and added a window and a man-door
2 fireplaces - we use them all the time. Make sure they are pre-wired for the fan.
maple capping/ metal railing
upgraded cabinets, pots& pans drawers
flat island...we find the extra space to be very handy. Make sure you get a plug on the island, and check the plug locations in general, you may need to add (we did)
extra phone/cable jacks and speaker wires run
water line to fridge
garberator
kick sweeps for the central vac
upgraded tile & carpet
upgraded baseboards and moldings - made a huge difference
pot lights
oversized walk in closet - we didn't do a jetted tub this time, the last one we had we used only a handful of times
central air
walk-through pantry

Things we didn't do but should have:

hot water on demand
if you have a satellite, see if they'll build a mount on your side wall and have them run all the cable lines
dual sinks in the master bathroom
finish the basement...although the builder straight up refused at the time unless we paid a premium (built during the boom)
rough in basement in-floor heating

[yads]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

I would get an upgraded humidifier on the furnace out of the gate if I had a choice...I guess they are probably easy to install later, but it would be nice to have a home about 30% humidity in the winter.

An instant hot water heater would be nice too.

Humidifiers are dead simple to install after the fact. Tankless water heaters are much harder. I'd upgrade the latter, but not the former.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by yads

Humidifiers are dead simple to install after the fact. Tankless water heaters are much harder. I'd upgrade the latter, but not the former.

The other thing with tankless water heaters, is that if you also have a high efficiency furnace, your house may not need a vertical chimney at all, and whatever space goes up through the main floor and second floor for the chimney could be reclaimed into regular rooms, and that makes the spaces more flexible.

High efficiency furnaces and tankless water heaters can both exhaust out the side wall.

[Dentoman]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Unfortunately getting better windows makes little difference. I've never seen a window better than R4 (yours are probably R2). Apply window film instead.

I have 3 floors of large south facing windows as well. We have the "low e" windows from Gienow that were builders standard 3 years ago and they do make a big difference.
9' foot ceilings in the basement and main floor are a great idea. If doing hardwood, upgrade to the hardest one you can afford (it does make a difference).
Lots of other good suggestions .... as probably was already stated, upgrade the kitchen and bathrooms as much as you can.

[Resolute 14]

You need a 50 calibre machine gun mounted on the roof in order to keep the kids off your lawn.

[CrusaderPi]

Originally Posted by Bertuzzied

Sorry off topic but awesome avatar.

I used that avatar as my facebook pick for a while. Got sick of explaining it to people.

[photon]

I didn't think that'd be a problem here.

[CrusaderPi]

Word. As a plus Daisy, is waaaaay hotter then Peach, whose been fugging up a number of avatars lately.

[burn_baby_burn]

Roughed in underfloor heating in the basement is a must for me. Looking at houses recently, I wouldn't even consider a newer house without it. Appliances, flooring, etc. etc. can be replaced at a later date. You can't go back and rough in underfloor heating. Not without a huge mess and expense.

[4X4]

Ethaniel made three really good points. First, and most important, is the basement rough-in. Also, the mechanical room. I've seen way too many crappy layouts for basements. All it takes is a few minutes of logical thinking, but alot of builders just don't do it. Look at it yourself.

Plus he mentioned a couple of exterior things that will come in really handy down the line. Exterior plugs, particularly in the soffit with a switch for xmas lights, and an extra hose bib. Another thing builders tend to do is put just one hose bib outside, so you're stuck running hoses all the way down the side of the house for either front or back watering. Check to make sure there's at least two.

Something else to consider is cable and power up on the wall in the master bedroom for a wall mounted TV. They're popular and cheap these days, and it's reasonable to assume that you'll have one or that future buyers will have one. If you're really on the ball, you'll request a bit of extra backing for added support where you mount the TV.

Avoid pocket doors entirely, if possible, but especially on the main floor of a two story home. They're a major bitch because the weight of the house eventually causes them to not work properly, and they're quite expensive to fix (tearing up the wall, re-drywalling, taping, painting).

Be careful with the his and hers sinks in the master ensuite. If there's not enough room for two people to do their thing simultaneously (don't wanna be bumping elbows), then there's no point. It'll take away from counter space and your wife will not be pleased if she has to put her hair dryer on the toilet because there's no room on the counter.

If you get a 5 piece ensuite, make sure there's a light in the shower.

You may want to have security system and central vac rough in.

French doors in the great room often destroy what could be a great furniture layout. I'd probably go for a regular man door. And if your garage is in the back, and you plan on parking in the garage, you may want to try to get the rear door oversized. Think about all the times you're going to come home with groceries or hockey equipment.
In case you do that, try to replace the french doors with an oversized window. They look great.

A skylight in the master ensuite is awesome. I have no idea what kind of spec you're going for, but if that's within the budget, it really does help sell the home. If not in the master ensuite, then above the stairs.

If you're getting hardwood floors, get flush mounted vent covers. They look way better than the plastic or metal ones that protrude from the floor, and they're not very expensive.

Again, depending on your spec, a couple more things to consider for the kitchen... Undermount lights on the cabinets and an automatic light in the pantry. You'll love the undermount lights at night. Just a perfect amount of light eminating from the kitchen. You leave them on all evening and don't really feel like you're wasting electricity.

Vaulted ceilings in the master bedroom is another big selling feature. Expensive, though.

Be sure that any built-ins have logical electrical and cable outlets. Nothing worse than an ugly cable running across a nice built-in because you wanted the TV on the other side.

If you get a jetted tub, make bloody sure that the builder puts in an access panel. Trust me.

If you decide to get granite, start with kitchen, then do powder room (main floor 2 piece washroom), and if you've got the cash, go for the ensuite last. Reason being, guests will be using the main floor powder room. And afterall, we're all trying to show off, right?

[ken0042]

Thanks guys- some great insight here; and I especially like getting some advice from people who aren't on commission.

I think Bobblehead nailed it:

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

And as far as the Cat5e, I'm betting that most people think the world will become more wireless. So even though I think I would like my future homes to be wired, I'm guessing John Q. Public could be convinced that it is a non-issue.

Yep, your average person would say "why run wires when there is wireless." But I think the geekiness factor of CP would agree that wired where possible is just better. Just in the last couple of months I was questioned by my fiancee about running Cat5 to the bedroom in the basement and to the living room. Now we have an IPTV box that doesn't lag like her friends', and her cousin who's wireless card crapped out on him is happy to have hard wired internet.

So here comes the next question- I'm going to assume they want some silly amount for cat5/RG6 cable runs. Anybody have any luck in convincing the builer to let them do it themselves before the drywall goes up?

[photon]

Agree about pocket doors.

Also avoid bi-fold doors, we had normal doors put on all our closets, so much nicer.