Hello friends! If you are new to my blog, please take a minute to read the about me page 🙂 today I wanted to share with you my top regrets, or things I would change if I were building again.
Let’s start with number one, white grout in my bathroom. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking?! We are dirty, I have a house full of boys and an unfinished yard, therefore my floors are dirty. No amount of cleaning seems to keep the white grout clean on my bathroom floors. If I could do it again, I would choose the same tile only use gray grout. White should be reserved for wall tile only (at least in my home!)
Number two, so many windows!
Is it possible to have too many windows? I am thinking yes. I love windows, I wanted them everywhere. At last count I think we have something like fifty windows! I wanted a certain look (and I’m stubborn) so we had the transom windows mulled to each window doubling how many we needed and driving the cost up. I love how they turned out but I am still working on window treatments for all of the windows, and my house isn’t quite as efficient as it could be. So maybe I would dial that back a little next time.
Number three, double checking electrical wiring.
Just because you have plans and have outlets drawn in where they should be, doesn’t mean your electrician wires it that way. I was too worried about the light fixtures being centered to pay attention to the outlets. When we realized they missed the entire left side of my family room and dining room there was a small meltdown. Curse words were uttered, there may have been tears, not my husbands best moment! Lol ok, maybe it was me. Not my best moment! They were able to add one but I still wish I had caught it early enough to have them all. Make sure you know early in the process where you will have console tables, lamps, etc.. So you can let your electrician know. Oh and one more thing, I thought I was so on top of things. I wanted to have auto switches installed in my kids closets because the lights never seem to get turned off in there! Well, that would have been nice for my electrician to know since he wired their light switches on the outside of their closets (face palm!) the only room we were able to do it in was my 17 yr olds room and he’s actually the only one who ever shuts his lights off. Go figure.
Number four, using the correct lighting to choose carpet and paint.
When I chose my paint and carpet, I thought I did everything I should do. I painted samples on the wall, and I brought carpet samples to my house. So when the carpet was installed in the basement (it’s different than the main level carpet) and it looked purple, I thought surely some mistake had been made! I called my neighbor over (who owns the flooring store) we had chosen it together and even she thought something was off. We took the samples outside and they looked normal. So what was the problem? I used natural light to chose my colors but my basement doesn’t have much natural light. So when the lights are turned on, the paint and carpet both take on a slightly different hue 🙁 now that all of the furniture is in, it’s not as noticeable. But that was a big lesson learned for me!
Number five, kitchen counter budget.
We had missed something big in our budget, I won’t say what it was but it made a big dent. So when the time came to chose my counters I had to cut back. I really wanted quartzite throughout the kitchen but I couldn’t make that happen. A good alternative was to do two tone. I chose a dark gray/black granite around the perimeter to save money. What I wish I could change is the thickness. I chose the 2cm on the perimeter and went thicker on the island. You may not notice but when I look at it, that’s what I see. If I could do it again I would cut back elsewhere in the budget so I could have the counters I wanted. Kitchens are one place you will always see a good return on your investment.
I hope if you are in the process of building, or have plans to in the future, that you found something useful in this post! Some day I’ll blog about the things we did right on this house 😉 we do love it but I’m sure before I know it we’ll be building again.
Until next time –
Xoxo
Jen
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