If you have ever build a home and you DON'T have anything you would change after the fact...TEACH ME YOUR WAYS! Haha!
Many of our decisions we made were MERELY due to the budget, and we are happy that we stuck to our plan and kept our mortgage low. We put most of our money into the size of our house knowing that additional square footage would be the hardest thing to add later on. We know we will slowly upgrade the finishes over the years and add things that simply were not in the budget at the time.
Things we will be adding in the next few years: custom cabinetry/built-ins throughout, plantation shutters, shiplap walls, outdoor grilling area, entry fence and gate.
For now, here are the things we wish we would have done differently when we built our home. (In no particular order).
1. CEILING HEIGHT
We knew from living in our previous home that ceiling height makes a HUGE difference! Tall ceilings can make even a tiny room feel big! We did tall ceilings throughout the entire downstairs of our home, but we decided to go with a shorter ceiling height upstairs. We wish we would have done a foot higher on the upstairs ceilings. They are 8ft ceilings and we wish they were 9tf now. I think if you are used to very tall ceilings, it is hard to go back to something shorter. For this reason, we wish we would have spent the extra money to add some height upstairs as well.
2. WATER LINE FOR COFFEE MAKER
If you are big coffee drinkers, definitely have your builder add a waterline for your coffee maker! We are so mad we didn't think of this for our coffee bar! It would have been very inexpensive to add and would've saved us a lot of time considering we make coffee 3 times a day!!
3. LAUNDRY CHUTE
We went back and forth on this and ultimately decided not to have a laundry chute, but now we wish we had one! If you have kids and a two story home, you should absolutely have a laundry chute! If you plan around it, the cost isn't very much. We definitely chose wrong here!
4. INSULATION IN GARAGE
I'm not sure what the exact cost was to include spray foam insulation in the garage like we did in the rest of the house, but I'm sure it wasn't very much! We opted out of this to save money, but we find that we use the garage a TON during the summer and wish it was insulated like the rest of our home. The garage gets HOT in the Texas heat!!! The rest of our home stays so nice and cool even without blasting the AC so this would have been money well spent.
5. LIVING ROOM FLOOR PLUG
This is purely a personal opinion. We added a floor plug in our foundations to use in the middle of our living room and to this day have NEVER used it. We have plenty of plugs on the walls and really have no desire to run a cord underneath our living room rug. So, for that reason we wish we would have saved the couple of hundred dollars it cost to include the floor plus in our foundation.
6. MUDROOM SINK
We SO wish we would have added a very small 1/2 bath with a sink in our mudroom so we could have the kids wash hand right as they walk in from outside. The cost of the toilet and sink would have been very little and we have plenty of space in our mudroom for a small closet size 1/2 bath. Many people add sinks in their laundry room, but we feel we would use a sink by the back door MUCH more. We totally wish we had thought of that!
7. IN-SET BACK PORCH
I'm not exactly sure what else to call this and can't really find a specific name...so I am calling it "in-set". This is where the house comes on either side of the back porch and surrounds it. This creates a little blocked off area for the back porch. We recently noticed many of the new homes being built have used this design and we really wish we would have thought of it! It provides a nicer back porch that is more sheltered from the elements and can be used more times of the day. To do this, we simply would have needed to expand two of our rooms by a few feet and incorporate it into our layout. We think the extra cost would have totally been worth it considering it would be very difficult and expensive to add now.
8. OUTDOOR WATER FAUCETS
We did not specify where we wanted water faucets outside or how many we wanted. We ended up with one on the front of the house and one on the side of the house. We have NO water facet in our backyard! Though we can reach the one of the east side of our house, it is a pain and we wish we would have specified where we wanted them and how many.
9. EXTERIOR LIGHTS
We don't very many exterior lights on the front of our house and wish we would have added a few more considering where we live is very dark at night!
10. COMMERCIAL-GRADE GARBAGE DISPOSAL
When we built our house, our builder installed a very low-grade garbage disposal. It stopped working (even with very light and proper use) after a little over a year. When we replaced it, we upgraded to a commercial grade disposal that should last "forever" (we were told). I wish we would have just installed a nice one from the beginning. They actually aren't very expensive and it works like a CHAMP!
For the most part, I think we did a good job balancing our wants and our budget when we built our home. I'm sure there are a few other small things I am not thinking of here, but these are the major things we wish we would have done differently!
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