Building a House - What would you do?Follow

As some know, the hubby's going to be retiring from his military career next year and we are relocating to Southern California. We are looking at an area that is about 1.5 hours away from San Diego (close enough to my family to visit, but far away enough to discourage relatives from just "dropping by"). We found a city and area that we like and a subdivision that's being built right now with floorplans that we really like. It can be built up to 6 bedrooms/4.5 baths. What I need for 6 bedrooms, not sure, but hubby really likes the floorplan.

Which begs the question from those that have built their homes/own their homes and have renovated. What would you have done differently if you could go at it all over again? Are there somethings that you wish you just didn't do, for instance, some of the upgrades? What do you wish that you knew then that you do now?

I'm just trying to think of questions to ask the builder/realtor when I go down next month to look at everything. Can anyone give me some pointers?

Edited, Feb 22nd 2012 8:36am by Thumbelyna

I like the room simply marked "Bonus"

Judging from the 3car garage, I would have to say that the size of the livingroom/kitchen/diningrooms are rather large. If it were me though, I'd flip flop the kitchen and the dining room, and have that whole corner of the house as one big room.

When my parents built the house that I grew up in, their main complaint was that they had too many walled off rooms, and it made the whole house seem kinda mazelike and boxed in. They wish that they had just done away with the wall between the living/dining room, and went with a column support or something instead.

Close enough. Not quite into Riverside, but close enough.

Hubby said he doesn't want to live in Los Angeles and anything North of Oceanside to the Grapevine is Los Angeles to him. I tried to explain that Riverside and San Bernardino Counties are totally different but he won't listen to me. So actually anything North of Escondido is Los Angeles to him too, even if it's along the 15 instead of the 5.

Edit: Smileys mock me.

Edited, Sep 29th 2006 at 2:31pm PDT by Thumbelyna

I like the idea of an open floorplan with column supports or something like that to denote the room divisions, but the hubby's really compartamental (I blame the military for that) and wants walls.

The bonus room upstairs would be the kids' playroom where the TV, DVD, VCR and game systems would be (I refuse to let the kids have TVs in each of their own rooms) and they could hang out with their friends.

I like the 6th bedroom off the garage as the gameroom for the hubby and his friends. The 5th bedroom would be the office. And the bonus room and these 2 bedrooms would also work a guestrooms too.

The courtyard is a big selling point. I really like that.

Already enjoying the 100 degree heat in the summer, the dust storms from the cattle drives and the lack of anything to do because there is nothing in this area. That's why we would need a nice 6 bedroom house for almost nothing.

Yeah it seems like a dozen but it's only a quarter of that ya know. But hubby said right before he left that he's been thinking about another one.

Avoid cheaply built houses and cheap materials. IE....Quadrant Homes and their ilk are to be avoided. Pretty houses with crap materials are crap houses in 5 years. When you're dumping $25k-$50k a year for repairs into a $500k house life gets really ******. Make sure the house is well insulated in the ceiling, walls and the floor. If you see something like "R-12 insulation is standard throughout the house"....RUN THE OTHER DIRECTION! Look at the piping and make sure it's quality piping. Did they use the 25 cents a linear foot Home Depot pvc piping or nice quality copper piping? Also look into the hot water tank(s) and make sure you have enough capacity to do everything you'll need. Can it hold enough water for all 4 showers to run at the same time for at least 15 minutes?

Electrical stuff.....plug in and run several appliances at once to see if fuses blow. Some house builders cut corners and put in the cheapest fuse boxes they can get away with. Others will run as much crap on one circuit as possible. If you can't turn on all major kitchen appliances at the same time be wary. Same goes for bathrooms/garage/living room/etc. I had a friend that had to rewire half their house because it didn't have the juice to allow him to turn his tv on (60ish" bigscreen), make microwave popcorn and keep his lights on all at the same time.

Look over your home owners association contract and make sure you can deal with it. A girl I dated years ago had some expensive things in her association agreement. Stuff like "You must maintain a cedar shake roof for 20 years" gets ungodly expensive. Some subdivisions also have color scheme restrictions and landscaping rules. There's places that have restrictions as to how many vehicles can be parked in the driveway or on the street in frot of the house. It might be kinda awkward if you have to tell family members to park half a mile down the road due to vehicle restrictions.

Also look into the local building codes and at least know the general parts of what you can and can't do.....you may be surprised what you find. Granted all towns have something weird but some towns are weirder than others. For instance, we could put a shed anywhere on our property as long as there's no electricity running to it. However we have a rechargable battery operated lawn mower so a shed with no electricity kinda defeats the purpose of a shed. If we run electricity to the shed it would then be considered a permanant strcuture and we'll have to follow the setback guidelines the city has laid out and pour a permanant foundation for it as well.

Somehow I think I managed to have triplets and missed the memo.

Nexa

First, I'd make sure that there are enough electrical outlets available. Sure you could add more later, but it would probably be easier to have them all added when the place is being built.

Since you're gonna be in SoCal - how about a solar water heating system? I'd also look into a solar powered attic fan.

If I were building a house, I'd definitly run speaker cable, at least 2 strands of Category 6 network cable, Coaxial cable, And a central Vacume line to each room in the house. At the same time, i'd probably run lines for a few ceiling mounted projector units

I would throw stones first, install glass second.

Bullet + Asylum rate-down proof glass.

Edited, Oct 1st 2006 at 1:31am PDT by MonxDoT

The Living Room and Dining Room seem a bit small compared to the other rooms. Though overall I like the layout. I usually expect those rooms to be bigger than a bedroom, and in the kind of house you are looking at, alot bigger was my expectation. Also make sure the basement has a high ceiling, or will this be a slab on grade? Slab on grade is alot cheaper to build, and usually not a problem if you have plently of land to build on and make the house wider to compensate, you just won't have a basement.

I don't like the two walkin closets connecting to the master bathroom. Would perfer them connecting to the master bedroom. Steam from the showers and last nights toaco smells should not be that close to my wardrobe.

Will they change the layout around to suit you?

Make sure you have proper locks installed for your S&M dungeon or boy will you face be red when the nosey neighbours sumble across it.