New House

[chasineyes]

Quote:

How deep of garage are you going to have

You might want to check into your city "setback' rules and limits. My garage couldn't be something like no more than 30 feet from the road. Not sure why but this did limit the depth.

[DREZLER]

Anyone have any opinions on using steel studs for the framing in the basement?

Not a good idea

[jjohnson5150]

I just built a little under two years ago. A few things that come to mind.

Basement - Run the tubing (wisboro/pex?) for in-floor heating in the basement. We didn't, but I wish we would have.

Basement - Rough in plumbing for all future plans. We had a drain/vent placed in the wall where I plan to build the bar. Also did two other bathrooms.

Garage - 18' door. I knew this and still didn't do it. Kick myself every day. I went with a 10' on the third stall, would have been much better to have the 18' on the main door.

Floor joists - Ask your builder about this one if you plan to do hard wood floors upstairs. I personally would request 16' OC spacing, no more. My builder did 24" OC and based on the national hardwood floor asc guidelines I should have put down more playwood. The 24" OC spacing also created issues when it came time to install the granite floor tile as it did not meet the recommendations for installing natural stone tile. Also verify the thickness of the subfloor they plan on putting down and reference both the national hardwood floor and the tile association to make sure you get it right the first time. I didn't know to ask about this stuff. If your builder says you don't need it (and you plan on using these materials), call around yourself to flooring installers to see what they say. I did and learned some stuff after it was too late.

Garage - Have them run the gas line and power if you plan to put a heater in the garage. I did and it made things much easier.

Garage - Request storage trusses, not basic attic trusses. You are very limited on what you can hang from normal attic trusses, wish I would have upgraded.

Yard -Consider including the sprinkler system with the house if possible. I spent $10-12k if I remember correctly on all lanscaping stuff after the build (sprinkler system, black dirt, hydroseed, retaining wall block, etc).

This is a good summary

I'm going to add that you will want to run network cable and speaker wire ahead of the finishing. With all the streaming and smart devices in the audio video world these days, it's just about critical (at least for us cord cutters) to have a hard wire network cable plugged into the entertainment center.

[leechlake]

Some in general things we whiffed on when we built our house, we designed it with the help of an architect so we could basically do what we wanted:

1. scrap the "dining room" concept. Our is used just a few times a year and basically just houses my wifes china. Most unused room in the house. Instead make a bigger dining area in the kitchen area.

2. as said, mudroom is a huge feature. If you can, have lockers and benches and make it big enough where multiple people can be in there at a time without stepping on each other.

3. heated floors in bathrooms that have tile. My in laws have it it's great.

4. Landscaping- scrap bark in landscape areas. Every other year you need to buy $500 plus of the stuff to make it look decent. Put rock in

[huntnfish]

My garage will be 28x34. I planned to have the 3rd stall go back an extra 15 feet but the city wouldn't allow it because it put it over the max garage footage. The wife didn't mind that. Instead of the garage we will now have a bigger master bath. We added a lot of square feet and are around the 250 mark without the lot. The nice thing about adding the square footage is a bigger basement and now I'll have my hunting room for all my things. I also bought a gun safe that will be going into the basement as soon as they get the floor on and steps built.

[Down Deep]

Have a print for the basement design made now so you can avoid expensive retrofits of existing electrical, water and mechanical. For heating put in the tin for forced air or run the electric to branch areas during initial construction. Don't forget to build in code egress windows.

[MattL]

Another thing to consider when you finish your basement out...If you plan on hanging shoulder mounts or other taxidermy, install wood backing before hanging the Sheetrock. That way you are not as limited in where you can hang things and you don't have to rely on Sheetrock anchors.