building a new home, where would you spend your money? (1 Viewer)

[Philip_G]

the garage service door is INSANE at something like 1600 bucks, hell I can cut in and frame a door myself, or learn how for that!

the fireplace does go where I want to puy my TV so we'll have to live without, on such a cheap house I don't think it will hurt me any... maybe on a 300+ it would.

Gas could be run through the attic and down the outside of the house if needed or down an inside wall such as the pantry. The new flexible yellow stuff can probably go down a wall if I needed but I haven't worked with it.

Good call on the pantry door, I'll check into that.

 

[shaniceMW]

kwangsuh, that's one thing we did upgrade was the appliances and only because the center island that comes standard had an electric cooktop which was so ugly i dont know they would consider selling that crap. so we got the gas gourmet cooktop which upgraded the rest of the appliances. i believe the fridge is 25.6 cubic ft. that entire upgrade was $1100 which is less than what i would have spent to upgrade everything later at home depot. so you just have to get pricing from other sources.

 

[Kwang Suh]

Your builder should give you a credit if you choose not to buy appliances from them.

Not sure what your builder does; ours actually let us go to their supplier, and had special builder prices for appliances that no one else could even touch.

 

[shaniceMW]

our builder gave us 10k in options which cut our sunroom down from 26k to 16k. that gave us the additional room in the basement for the ht room. it's about 13x23. other than that, they charge like $75 for each design change. like in the sunroom they wanted to put carpet and i was like no freaking way and i want tile or vinyl and they said $75. and thats when i said well since my option costs less than your standard i should not be charged and we didnt get charged. several other stupid things like that. some of their design ideas were just stupid. and i'm like do you all buy your own houses??? standard roof was hip roof. wtf? that's usually much more than the standard roof. i didnt complain though. some things it doesnt make sense for the builder to mark up heavily like wiring, cabling, lighting packages, etc. but other things where most people would not know any better, they mark up seriously. the other thing is people think they ahve to get it done now or it will never get done. like kitchens and basements. that's why people pay 40k for a finished basement. i think that's ridiculous.

 

[JonZ]

Yea, it is. With some time and patience you can do just about everything yourself.

The only things my G/F and I wont be doing is electrical wiring in the walls and ceilings and the plumbing in the basement.It wont be too bad though, since I know both and can get what I have to done without paying a fortune.

Edit:I wouldnt do anything electrical without it being inspected.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Yes, $1600 for a door is insane. Are you having the garage finished? To put in that door later will require cutting at least one of the studs, installing a header and new stud, all of which is much easier without having to rip off the drywall. Hopefully there isn't a concrete foundation wall that you'd have to cut out too. I would ask about having it rough framed if you are going to finish the inside. Make sure that door is as big as possible (36" at least).

As for gas lines, these are something I'd want professionally installed. Your insurance company isn't going to like it if you blow up the house with a DIY install.

I would also agree with adding insulation in the bedroom and especially bathroom walls. I would ask the builder if this was something you could do yourself before they drywall, the same goes for any extra cable runs that don't need to be inspected.

How large is the electrical service panel? I'd make sure there is room for expansion, and that there is accessibility to it, preferably with an empty conduit running to the attic or someplace you can get to if needed.

 

[Keith Mickunas]

My builder officially was opposed to this, but would turn a blind eye to it. However they could be touchy about electrical. If it's passed electrical inspection, then you add something, they may want to have another inspectior or rip it out, and they'll charge you more either way. Of course this varies by state, county, city, builder, etc., but be careful.

 

[Philip_G]

I've worked in HVAC... it's not complicated, neither is the permit and inspection process.

 

[Philip_G]

FUCK tile!
went by HD and found a nice laminate maple floor that I like, and it's cheaper than tile at about 2 bucks a sq. foot, 25 year warranty, sounds like a good deal. I'll start in the entry way, then do the kitchen and baths, then slowly do the whole damn house.

 

[Jimi C]

You could just move to Buffalo and buy a 1,500sqft house for 35k. Then you will have plenty of cash to do whatever you want with. In fact theres dozens of properties over 2,000sqft for under $10,000.

 

[Philip_G]

no thanks

 

[Jimi C]

We dont want ya anyways! hehe

 

[JonZ]

"You could just move to Buffalo and buy a 1,500sqft house for 35k"

DAMN! I just paid 192K for a 1100 sq feet and that was cheap becuase it needs so much work(Ill double the sq feet when I finish he downstairs)

A 1500 sq foot house near me cant be found for under 200K. Theres more homes here for 500K at the moment then there are under 200.

Its all the people moving here from Rockland and Westchester and such driving up the prices. 15 years ago, you could have gotten a huge house here for 80-100K.

2 years ago a friend of mine build a house for about 260K. She just sold it for 560K!!!

 

[Lee L]

Philip,

We bought a house from Pulte a few years agao and went ahead and got the upgraded carpet. Let me tell you it was a real waste. We got dogs a few months later and we had to replace the carpet about 18 months after that. We would have been better off just getting the low end carpet and saving the $$ for the early replacement.


Also, definitely try to buy your appliances if you can, for things that you can't delete (ususally stove and dishwasher) I would go ahead and upgrade them. I would definitely get a glass top stovve if available, really adds to the enjoyment and looks.

 

[Marc_Sulinski]

I agree that the upgraded carpet is a waste. Chances are that the upgraded carpet still isn't that great. You will have to replace the carpet in a few years anyway, especially with dogs.

I would also not get the corian countertops. I do prefer them over laminate, but you can always get the countertops later, and probably for less than the builder will charge you.

I also recommend the CAT-5 wiring runs that all go to a central box. I had one of these in my previous house. In the central box, you could choose to plug the CAT-5 line into the phone system, or you could get your own network hub/switch and plug the line into it. This worked out great when we got a cable modem.

 

[shaniceMW]

you still recommend cat-5 with wireless becoming more popular? maybe it's just popular where we are. but you can drive down the street here and connect to five different networks.

 

[Marc_Sulinski]

I still prefer to have a regular wired network, as the speed is faster and less prone to interference problems with cordless phones and such. Also, as your post indicates, there are some security issues with wireless networks if they are not set up correctly. Although, if someone has a wireless network already or plans on going that way, then I guess the CAT-5 is unnecessary.

 

[shaniceMW]

yup definite security issues. and the more i think about it, the more i am considering letting the builder run cable anyway (depending on the cost)

 

[Philip_G]

I go back and forth on the cat-5.
Both of our computers will be in the "office" so a cabled network there is fine, the laptop will need to be WLAN, which is actually pretty secure if you take the time... Tough to get around MAC address filtering, but I suppose it can be done.
I guess I can always drop cable down from the attic too, I don't know...

 

[shaniceMW]

i'm thinking mostly of resale. the average person doesnt know how to change defaults on a wireless router or know what one is for that matter. all most people know is network connection.