2nd build.

Learned not to sweat the small stuff & the things that could be changed out later (i.e. cabinet hardware).

1st house build was our very first home we owned (always rented previously) and couldn't find anything we liked in our price range that was existing. 2nd time around was to build our forever home--perfect piece of property, family-oriented town, close proximity to my parents for when they need us as they age (DH's parents have passed away). Actuallly I guess that could be something else we learned with the first house--make sure you are close to your aging parents because when you get that 3am phone call the 26 minutes it takes to get to your parents' home feels like forever--even when you made it there in 10 minutes because you broke all the speed limits. (We're just 7-10 minutes from my parents in our new home).

Resale did come into play with our first to some extent and it paid off in the end. While it was your standard 1300 sqft 3bd/2ba started home, we opted to add on a laundry/mud room vs just having a laundry closet in the hall, we upgraded to hardwoods in the family room, entry & hall, tile surrounds in baths, custom solid maple cabs, white enamel kitchen sink with granitey-looking laminate, seriously upgraded appliances--Maytag Gemini range, KA DW, & giant floor to ceiling 2' deep cabinetry pantry. We put our house on the market in Oct 2008 (when the housing market was crumbling). We had an offer in 3 days & a contract in 5 after a short bidding war between 2 different potential buyers. No other house in our neighborhood had sold that fast & for that much--ever. In fact, one of the potential buyers that placed an offer already had a signed contract to buy on a house up the street, but when they viewed ours, the other one was out of the running. I attribute our success in selling in a crumbling market to those upgrades we made.

Taxes and school districts are important to us too. However, we also found that the district we were in wasn't a good match for our oldest & we moved him to an out of district school for middle school & his first 2 years of high school. Our new home is about 45 minutes away from the old one & the new district high school is working out beautifully. Our younger son seems to do better with smaller class sizes + he has some food allergies, so we opted to put him in a small private school where there were fewer distractions, more attention and better supervision when it comes to food.

This will be our 3rd.

We built our first house when I was pg with my 2nd child, thought we would be there forever. Loved my neighbors. Grew up with all the other young moms there, raising our kids together. Lived there 15 yrs, then when we could finally finish our basement--tile layers used a flammable glue and burned my house. Yep, you read it right-kaboom. I had 8 mo old twin boys and we got out by the skin of our teeth.

It took 3 yrs of fighting to get it settled. 3 insurance companies involved. A mess. I was such a mess by the time we built this house, i just wanted to get someting built. We built this house and although I enjoy it, I knew we probably wouldn't be here forever.

We have purchased some pretty wooded ground, closer to town and closer to an elderly parent--where my boys can play in the trees, have a tree house, and I can have a room full of windows where I can grow old watching birds--which I know nothing about but intend to learn.

Probably more information than you wanted, lol.

Forgot to add what I plan to do differently

-no dining room--do not use it now. Would rather have first floor guest room.
-larger mudroom, combined with laundry room, multipurpose room, bathroom, cubbies, shoe storage area, with door to back yard and door that closes from house. Windows if possible.
-side entry that does not go through any area that I do not want anyone to see (side foyer). Right now, I have to take guests through my laundry room when they come to my side door.
-much bigger pantry
-bigger kitchen with lots of windows. Sink under windows in perimeter. Prep sink. Trash compactor. Smaller range.
-bigger central eating area with large farm type table
-no living room
-need office
-larger great room without lodge type of feeling
-may eliminate kitchen desk?? Mixed feelings, need to monitor boys internet use
-boys rooms upstairs, one story now--mixed feelings--fire risk. 2 stairways for 2 escape routes?
-seriously considering a residential elevator. Lots of reasons..elderly parents, disabled relative, etc.
-10 ft ceilings, 9 ft now
-master bath and bedroom handicapped accessible

This is our first house ever. We have a NY condo, but those don't count ;)

I am very particular about design. Aesthetics and flow are of equal importance. I have never found a house that met all my criteria and was in my budget. To be honest, I am very disappointed with the local markets lack of creativity and basic functions. All the houses look cut from the same box floor plans and materials.

I am thinking about resale for sure. While I anticipate being in this house a very long time I will never say never. We are a young family and you never know how things will change. That being said I added features that I know will make this house standout and a lot of the feedback I get reassures that...thank goodness! Just praying that the build goes smoothly.

Where I am building every school in the district,elementary through high school, are top rated. That is VERY important around here and to me. I passed on my dream neighborhood because only a few schools in that district were great and you never know what will happen in a few years if they rearrange things. I have another 4 years before my first is even in kindergarten.

red lover- i'm so sorry about your house! what a nightmare!

How sweet. Thank you. Just a bad memory now.

This is our 2nd build, the first being a tract house with few choices to make. The main regret from that first house was that we didn't have the confidence to tell the builder to change out things that were just plain wrong - like them putting in the furnace in the wrong place and turned to the wrong direction.

Twenty-five years later, having left that house in NC, bought a house in OH, it is time to move south and be done with winter.

I do have a major regret on this current house build. We put together a very thorough document on what we wanted so that we could get accurate quotes from builders. It listed everything from materials to appliances to windows to number of outlets and where they would be located. However, when it came time to sign with our builder, we did not make that document part of the contract. Alot of the information did get in the contract, but not all of it. That's regret #1.

We were doing all of the preliminary planning long distance and as it turned out, we did not get the final blueprint from the designer until after the contract was signed and we made (another huge) mistake of not going over the final blueprint bit by bit with the builder. Or by ourselves even because we were moving around so much. We had assumed that the designer hadn't deviated from previous drawings, and our own spoken/emailed preferences. Regrets #2 and 3.

So, allow me to reiterate what I learned here in the first place (ahem, what I should have learned better from GW), do not make any assumptions about anything. And just because you tell an electrician (or plumber or ...) where you want something and even if he marks it on the wall, it doesn't mean that he or his worker bee will pay attention to it. Another wish of mine is that I had been checking and marking my blueprint at the same time as various workers were marking their prints with information. We would have caught alot of errors and omissions alot earlier. Some of those problems were changes that the designer made and we had missed. And those are regrets #4 through we aren't done with our build yet.

Let me give my appreciation to this forum for teaching me so much The generosity of information while I have lurked for months has been highly appreciated and is helping us build a much better house.

Red_Lover-What a scary event in your life. I'm so glad that everyone was able to get out safely.

This is our first build, third home. I learned a lot from my previous homes, including the rental we're in now, such as...

1. Think about furniture arrangement, especially conversational seating, when designing a room.
2. An open floor plan that flows nicely for entertaining yet suits our daily family lifestyle.
3. Large screen porch big enough for dining and lounging plus electricity for television and lights. Nothing better than watching the Masters on a porch!
3. Smooth ceilings, solid doors, and no flat paint.
4. No two story great rooms but I did still want a two story foyer.
5. Large island with prep sink
6. Large mudroom/laundry room (hope I made ours big enough).
7. Friends and family door into a nice part of the house.
8. Did keep the dining room for holiday entertaining and added a "morning room" for me to escape to while the kids are watching cartoons in the family room.

Resale was only a minor consideration. The neighborhood was the biggest factor because we wanted our kids to stay in the same school. If we didn't have kids we would have bought a bigger, prettier lot but kids come first :-)

We are now living in our 3rd build - our first home was a 25yo existing #2 & #3 semi- custom new construction and #4 custom home from start to finish- starting with an architect and blank paper, designing the house for how we live.. but thinking about resale. You live and learn along the way... and with every new home there were so many more choices to be made. We didn't plan on this being our last build, but with the house market as it is, it just might be.

I disagree with many of the points others have made- but it doesn't matter what is important to me or them, its your house! I love my formal dining room and use it often.. my must haves were a large walk in pantry with fridge, large master closet with washer and dryer(THE BEST!!) and my husband's must haves were more in the trim work than design, but he needed extra garage space, so he as an upper and lower. But most people wouldn't want or need that.. Before our last build we gave years of thought to what we really want, what we HAVE to have and how we live, and built our house with all those thoughts in mind.
We have now lived here over 3 years and the only thing I would change is I put an undercounter microwave in.. don't really like that.. but EVERYTHING else.. so far so good!
Good Luck!!!

Here is a link that might be useful: our build from start to finish