Winnowing the Wishlist

We’re starting to consolidate all of our big, new-home ideas to see which ones are really going to work for us.  It's a lot of fun to wish for the moon but we all can't live in the Biltmore.  Time to start setting some reasonable parameters and implementing a little value engineering so we can get the biggest bang for our buck.

The best thing about giving yourself plenty of time to design and build your home is that you can go through your daily/weekly/seasonal routine and think about how you’d like things to be different in your next home.  For example, do you really use your fireplace?  Do you want to have one anyhow?  Should it be gas or wood-burning?

It’s also important to consider the future.  In our case, our children are grown but not quite gone and we hope to stay here well into retirement.  So, we want to be able to function on one floor in case that becomes necessary, but have space for our semi-residential kids (on another floor).  We also want to be ready for future energy-saving possibilities.  For example, solar panels are not yet feasible where we live (more on that in a future blog), but in the event they become so, we’re installing conduit to accommodate them later.  Of course, it’s always hard to predict the future.  In our current home, which we built 15 years ago, we made it cable-ready.  Well, cable never got way out here and we ended up with satellite, which required extensive rewiring, and greatly irritated my builder-husband.  Ah well, now we put conduit in all of the homes we build for just such possibilities.

If there are certain features you really want, can’t afford, and plan to add later, take them into consideration as you design your house and allow for the expansion.  In keeping with the arts-and-crafts style we are considering many built-ins. They can get pricey so we’re drawing them into the floor plan, but we may build them at a later date.  (We’re also considering using lumber from the trees we need to cut down.  They will take some time to cure but the timing moneywise might turn out just right; i.e, two years from now.)

Even if you think this is the last home you’ll ever live in, it’s smart to take into consideration how it will sell when the time comes.  It’s nice to have the freedom to do unique things with your custom home but if it’s too quirky it will be more difficult to sell and may bring in less than its expected value.

So what are our some of our must-haves?  We want a state-of-the-art kitchen, a first-floor master bedroom, plenty of views and light, and - #1 Most Important - a big porch (one of our favorite parts of our last two homes) facing the pond.  We want versatile living space (no dining room or formal living room). We want the ability to shut off heating and air conditioning to the girls’ rooms when they’re away at school.  And we each want our own office.   (Did I mention that already?!  Mine will have a desk looking out a window onto a garden and his will face a TV that can play the History Channel, news, and baseball 24/7.  I’m enjoying the second inning as I write this!)