Insist that he finish (including cleaning) before you close. Construction clean up can be expensive! If you still need another coat of paint after Wednesday, getting that done (without getting paint on stained woodwork) can also be pretty expensive. For the big jobs that can't be done until spring (landscaping, final A/C testing, etc.) maybe having title company hold 1.5 times the bid price will work. But, make SURE you ask what happens if the builder DOESN'T come back and finish in a reasonably timely manner and that "timely manner" is defined. Will the title company release the funds to you if you wind up having to hire someone else to do the job? Or does the language say that, once the big jobs are complete, Title company will release the funds to the builder? If so, builder just has to wait for you to finally get fed up and pay someone else to do the job then he can waltz into title company and say "job's finished, pay me." And you get stuck paying twice! Make sure that after a certain date, you have the option of hiring someone else to do the jobs and then the money will released to YOU to pay them - including an additional 20% to pay you for doing builder's job of hiring and overseeing the work! And, for the little jobs, is title company going to want to bother policing builder's performance? For smaller jobs, the only alternative I would agree to would be if builder was willing, in writing, to allow me (not bank or mortgage company) to hold back least 2 to 3 times as much money as I thought it would cost to hire other people to come in and do the jobs AND he agreed that after a limited period of time (say 6 weeks maximum) any jobs that were not competed, I had the right to hire anyone I wanted to finish them and, when all work was done, then builder got paid whatever was left over, if any, after I deducted all costs for finishing the work plus an additional 20% to pay for my trouble. And, all I had to provide to builder was a copy of receipts for materials and labor paid out to justify what I deducted. I don't think you're being at all picky expecting that your new house won't have cracked shingles or cracked tiles or gouges in the bench of your mudroom. The house should be as near to perfect when you move in as it will ever be. Maybe your builder needs to postpone his trip out of town???

Mskitchen, I have a spreadsheet, too. I used the spreadsheet to make the maps of lighting on my floor plans (plus assistance from a lighting designer). I can't imagine having to go back a 2nd day to do more! Lzerarc, we're working with allowances for the fixtures. But the electrician went through the house before we got there and marked what was included in our contract for the wiring. And he was showing us where standard/code outlets were going in case we needed to add more. It was much easier to see it in real life than on paper. So we did have everything included in the bid as per code, basically. We did consider furniture placement (had that mapped out when we did the house plans!) and decorating. Kymike1, that's a good idea to have a switch for the overhead lights! However, in our bedrooms we'll have ceiling fans (with or without light kits) that have remote controls. We can then mount the remote in a cradle near the bed for both fan and light control! Chisue, we completely forgot pendants and electrical outlet discussions on our island. I think that was one of the last areas we were looking at and we were so hot and tired we were rushing. I've gone back to the builder and asked about both of those things. And yes, we have security lights and the electrician did suggest putting a light switch in our MBR, which we thought was a brilliant idea!! Thanks for the support, everyone. :)

* Commode area if separate. It is nice to keep a night light in there so you don't have to turn the bright lights on in the middle of the night to use the toilet * inside walk in pantry, storage closets, closets so you can charge any rechargeable appliances such as a cordless Vac or Roomba or if you will have dressers in the closet a charge station for in there or if you keep an ironing board set up *. Inside bathroom drawers, cabinets or medicine cabinets so you can charge items like razors, tooth brushes out of site or keep a hair dryer plugged in and stored inside drawer. * in the eaves of home so that you can plug Christmas lights in and not have to run extension cords * more than one on your island. One in each side * If you will have a front porch or back porch outlets in them. *on stairway if you have one so you can plug in if needed a vacuum mid flight *if you are going to have a charging drawer in your kitchen for phones and such inside a designated kitchen drawer *in floors where a floating table will be so you can plug the lamp in directly below * I would plan out some outdoor outlets along house if you use yard tools that are electric Really the most important thing you can do is take your floorpan and plan out where your furniture is going to sit and if you will need an outlet there. For example where is your bed going to go? Will you have bedside chests on either side. Ideally you don't want one outlet behind the bed. You would want an outlet behind each bedside chest. Are you going to have a sideboard in the dining room or somewhere else ? Lets say you want to place two lamps on it? IS the outlet going to be to the sides of it? That will make for messy wires. Better to have an outlet behind that to plus the lights into. Will you sofa be floating with a sofa table behind it? Do you want lamps on that sofa table? Where will they plug in? You will need a floor outlet there. These are just examples of how your line of thinking can optimize your outlet layout. I also recommend taking photos of each wall/room before drywall. If you know you will be hanging a large piece of art or any piece of art in an area ask them to place Horizontal/cross 2x4's where you estimate the art will be hanging from. This way you will always be hanging your art from a stud/wood and not need to use anchors etc. measure where they are and take a photo to document. later when you are trying to hang things and place things you will be thankful you did it and have the documentation.

I'm also confused about whether this is in the design phase or the walk-through phase. Hopefully you have designed all the elements into the plans or you will find these potential add-ons quite expensive. You really have to think out how you live in these spaces. Our build is in Florida, so we have ceiling fans in almost every room. Bathrooms: We have vent (exhaust?) fans over every toilet. I wanted those light up mirrors, but I don't think the electrical was done for that. We'll end up with standard over mirror vanity lights. Be sure there is an outlet for a bidet if you are doing an accessible bathroom. Lights in the showers because I hate dark showers. Kitchen: We have a giant vent hood over the powerful gas cooktop. Can lights at the specified distance apart and away from the cabinets, light over the sink, under cabinet lights, in-cabinet lights for the glass fronts, and pendants over the island bar. Lots of switches in the kitchen, and a lot of outlets to plug in appliances, I think every 12-18". Exterior patios: ceiling fans and lights controlled from inside. Also had switched high-mounted outlets for Christmas lights or string lights. And a spotlight for a wall which was have art on it. Other exterior: light walkways, dark corners, think about security and bad guys not being able to hide (but thats landscaping too) Big rooms: tend to have paths leading in/out/through, so think about multi-switched outlets at each end, etc depending on your expected use. Media: Put an outlet smack in the middle where the TV/monitors will go. Where will the routers go and where to run RG45 or Cat6, etc. We have junction boxes with all the cable or ethernet lines running to the routers and TV locations. Security cameras. Lots of electronics to think about. Good luck!