New Residential Construction Must-Haves/Nice to Haves

Are people still building new homes in this high interest rate environment?

Tornado shelter made with cinder blocks and rebar, filled with concrete and a steel door. It can be done as a closet off a bedroom. Negligible cost to do it when you are planning/building. Or the ones made to go under a garage floor with a sliding steel door.
Expensive as hell to put in a shelter of any type as an afterthought.
That is my biggest regret from building ours 20 years ago.

Wire in a way to feed at least some of your panel with a generator.

Already some great ideas that I haven't thought about yet.

-Storage space. You can never have enough. Any dead space you might have available, try finding a way to make it into a closet or niche.

-Dual heads with separate controls in the master shower. Nothing will bring a marriage closer than showering together regularly.

-air fryer built in next to microwave. However you lay out your kitchen, have an air fryer figured into your cabinet layout

-Outlets in your eaves. This is usually a small oversight in preconstruction. Your electrician will ask you at rough-ins if you want it. Without it on your plans initially, it'll be an extra. But it's something you will want.

-Zone climate control. This is something everyone is doing lately. I've even seen a mini split just for the master suite. It's a bit more cost, but it's worth it.

-Blank sleeves. You never know what the future holds. It's smart to have empty conduit ran to certain locations to just a blank cover in the wall. Even tho today everything is trending wireless, who knows what tomorrow will bring. Having designated spots on your wall for future electronics with a blank cover over a gang box will save you literally thousands of dollars. (running wire, sheetrock repair, paint, etc.)

-Don't be afraid to upgrade your electrical panel. Most people who are building a custom home is trying to cut any cost they can. Typically, people try to save at the onset by cramming everything they have in the smallest electrical panel they can. You can get most all your electrical needs in a 200 amp panel. However, it will leave you with no room to grow and expand later on. If you're building from the ground up, plan for the future. People ALWAYS want to upgrade. Make sure you have the room to do so.

-If possible, require all door casing, base and case, and cabinets (the actual boxes of the cabinets) be of real wood or plywood (finger joint and cabinet grade plywood). Everything has been transitioning to MDF, which is nothing but glorified cardboard. Be sure that any proposal given by anyone supplying a wood product is giving you a wood product and not cardboard.

There's a lot more I could suggest, but if you're using a reputable GC, he should already have these items dialed in.

If you're going owner builder, good luck. Every subcontractor will tell you how the product they use is "equal" to another that's been used for decades without issue. That will be your biggest fight. Making sure subs aren't using substandard materials that will last throughout their warranty then break the day after it expires.

Things we did right:
Big arse garage, outlets under eaves and both sides of porch connected to switch in foyer for Christmas lights, solid core doors, gas hookups everywhere, cat 5 cable and between stud blocks behind all TVs, Tons of decking in attic, pulley system to get crap out of attic, 12’ Ceilings, bigger outdoor space than you think you want and tons of concrete, big pantry with an outlet for coffee, toaster oven, LVP floors, media closet for surround sound, nvr for cameras, router, printer, etc, separate makeup vanity for all my wife’s stuff so her crap isn’t all over the double sink area, outlets behind toilets for bidet, radiant decking on roof, perforated soffits all the way around house and ridge vents, hot water hose by boat for washing it and ice chest is probably the best “extra” thing we did.

Things we did wrong:
Only did a few solid core doors, wish I would’ve done them on all bathroom, bedroom doors, Mont Blanc quartzite sucks, should’ve done good ole granite, can lights in bedrooms instead of light kits on fans, whole home generator, side entry door next to garage door, subsurface drainage and sprinkler system when building, another ice maker besides the shitty one in the refrigerator combo, heaters in bathrooms (my cheap arse contractor snuck this by me), in winter we have Amazon space heaters in the bathrooms

Wife and I absolutely love our undersink water chiller and instant hot tank. I would have put an RO system, but it would not fit. Of note, I do not think RO water is necessarily good/helpful/beneficial for human consumption, but it would keep the tanks from developing scale and prematurely failing if you have hard water.

I'd seal the house (foam insulation) well and condition the attic space (walk in, of course, not a pull-down). I'd suspend ductwork as much as possible. I'd dedicate a spot up there for an equipment rack and run 2x Cat6 cables to just about every wall in each room (though you could argue one wall per room is probably plenty). I would also have a pair run to each exterior wall (smart lighting, particularly Christmas lighting). I probably wouldn't actually install permanent LED smartlights on the house. It would make it much easier for me to install smart lighting in the yard.

I go back and forth over in-ceiling speakers. They don't compare, sonically, to a good system with towers/bookshelves. But having some music in every room that's easy to control beats the pants off a listening room that you don't walk into (my, unfortunate circumstance)

I have an understairs pantry. The previous owners/builders installed pegboard in the pantry. I have pretty much all of my pots/pans organized on it (lids fit in some pegboard shelves). I don't put stock pots or my few enameled cast iron pieces on it, but it is a fantastic way to organize your coowkare, if the space allows for it.

Likewise, pegboard in a storeroom/garage I'm a fan of. We do quite a bit of decorating and have garland for most major holidays, and it's a pretty great way to organize it (Granted, so is a long 2x4 and a bunch of nails, but I think pegboard looks a lot nicer than that)

I do not have a central vacuum. I am highly considering retrofitting one, and I almost certainly would install one if I were ground-upping. I would make sure to include a garage outlet to vacuum cars/shop, and I would also include the sweep inlet valve/dustpan

We have an office with a decent built-in desk. There is a 'nook' that was actually the perfect size for a second desk. My wife and I are both professionals and enjoy our 'battle stations.' Certainly not on the 'must have' list for most, but if an office is on the list, a 'second desk' area for the other spouse, the household finances/paperwork, the kid doing homework is a pretty neat feature.

A semi-central closet with decent airflow/venting for whatever smart home hubs/router stuff you have to be more central than tucked in a corner. Probably overkill, but somewhat useful. Could replace or be part of the 'attic rack' idea, but pretty hard to have an attic with walk-in doors AND central location.

I'm super annoyed by batteries. So if I were to have a fireplace in a place, I'd build it with plans to have an appropriate low-voltage wire/thermostat to control the fireplace than doing it after-the-fact


Power in the soffit, ideally connected to a switch for christmas lights

Appropriate wire runs/plans for low voltage lighting, including ducking under driveways/gates/sidewalks


ETA:
gas + electric panels near each other, transfer switch installed at the time. I would also have this area near where I would plan for an outdoor kitchen and plumb a gas/water/sewer line to the back patio (or wherever I was planning the outdoor kitchen) even if I weren't planning on building it out

Rounded wall/drywall corners

Electrical outlets EVERYWHERE inside and outside. Nothing will piss you off more than wanting to plug something and not having an outlet on that wall.

Spray foam
Ample exterior plugs
Generator connection.