New home - What would you do?

[ida homer]

SLC, UT

Don’t forget a room for food storage then

 

[mxracer317]

Don’t forget a room for food storage then

Hahahahahahaha

 

[waygoner]

Don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but insulate the interior walls for sound deadening.

 

[Western Traveler1]

Don’t forget a room for food storage then

Not necessarily a bad thing...though I get the reference.

 

[Gellar]

We have been in our new home for 14 months. It is only 1900 ft.² and has a fully finished basement. I honestly don’t know what we would do with a bigger house. Like other people have said put everything on one floor that you need to live as you age. Somethings I would say that I did not see would be to be on the job site as much as possible even if you are not the general contractor. No doubt stuff will come up as they are building and will need decisions ASAP to continue. Start talking to your wife now about the construction process and schedule. There are times when work is getting done will be very obvious like when they are framing it up and there will be times when the work is getting done is very slow and you cannot see progress as easily if you do not know what you were looking for. As soon as they had our house framed up My wife just assumed that the majority of the work was done and she would be moving in in a few weeks. when in reality it had not even begun.

 

[kansasdad]

Tons of good advice regarding interior aspects of new construction. I’m going to mention some things I think about in positioning a home and exterior issues.

Outdoor spaces (decks, patios, fire pits) work better in the east side of a house to allow for shade and sun protection in the afternoons/evenings.

If you are a gardener, get sunny areas for food gardening with attention to soil compositions and drainage issues.

Driveways will clear off snow faster if on a western (and better yet south western exposure, with no trees shading the driveway. Take advantage of Mr. Sun when you can. I’m not familiar enough with SLC enough to know what the regular snowfall is like (it did host a Winter Olympics) but natural snowfence can help driveways stay clearer as well.

Explore the option of well water for watering outside, or even using inside.

Privacy concerns include nosey neighbors and road lookie-lews. Fencing, berms, and screening vegetation (@1pointer used some high growing cane/grass which I thought was genius) can induce serenity and privacy.

Does your state or local community have assistance in installing solar systems? We had a system to heat the house, hot water and dump heat into a pool which on cloudless days in the depth of winter would heat the house to 85-90 degrees, requiring us to open windows to quit sweating.

External water supply points so that you don’t need to drag hoses everywhere. Underground sprinklers if desired, or consider larger areas of xeriscaping......drought in the west is a constant. Consider volume storage of snowmelt/rain. (Could become a water source in cause of emergency outages).

Storage locations for firewood, yard tools, machines and gardening stuff if not stored in a garage.

And speaking of garages, I’ve never had a space that was too large for my needs or desires. Good bigger than you think.

 

[BenInMT]

If I ever build- in floor heat, steam shower. I would only build the footage I could afford to have done quality. No MDF trim. No cheap fixtures, flooring, doors, windows. I’d rather have 1500 SF of quality than 6000’ builder grade stuff.

 

[88man]

some of these homes are gonna cost > than $500 sqft

 

[hank4elk]

Recent cost per sqft I heard in NM was $350. Guesstimate

I used to build custom homes for $150 sqft,in an expensive place to build. Average was $65-80sqft for a simple one.

 

[hank4elk]

.....that was 20 years ago,last home I built.