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Important things to consider when building a new home!

When you are in the planning and pre-planning stages of building your new home or other such new projects, that is the time to take a closer look at the design details of your project and how it will effect your life style or business needs depending on the type of construction you are having done.

The following is basically a list of mostly questions that hopefully will help with the planning and also solve important problems that might need to be brought up to the builder or designer in advance.

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Let's start with windows and ambient light coming in from outdoors. The beautiful outdoors needs to be let in! Lots of windows, large and small and good planning bringing in plenty of natural light from outside, can be important for many reasons such as looks, visibility, warmth and more. Large windows, properly placed windows, skylights and so on, can add beauty, feeling and a very aesthetic appeal. This of course will be better thought of in the planning and pre-planning stages.

And concerning the outdoors, you should make sure you have plenty of water faucets and power outlets on all sides of your home as well as in areas where access to such may be important to your needs. Just washing off the sidewalk or watering plants and flowers without having to have extreme lengths of water hose may be very appreciated later.  You may have a need for a more convenient water source available in order to wash your car or yard tools in a certain area or maybe to reach your garden.

What about your Electric layout? Will you have plenty of outlets through all parts of the house such as in the kitchen, the hallway, the garage and other areas of the home? And installed in places where they may normally be scarce could be of great help and much easier to deal with than after everything is finished?

Also lights and light switches should be considered. It is so important in hallways, stairways, closets and attics where they may not always normally be installed. Outdoor lighting as well as out building electric are things that may require advance planning of electric conduit placement.

Maybe you will want a workshop outside, in the home or in the garage? Before everything is finished it may  be the time to think about how such things should be planned. And speaking of the garage - will it be on the main level and is that important? Are there special features that should be built into the garage for the kind of work or storage you may need? Will the garage need to be near a mud room, a restroom, a shower or a kitchen that will make life a little easier for you?

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And back to the outdoors - have you thought about water drainage in the area around the building? It is a mess when water drains toward the structure that is not properly drained, or is able to stand up against the house or building.  It could be even worse if water is able to actually enter the structure or cause damage in a heavy rain. This may mean proper planning in the placement of the structure at the outset or maybe just proper planning concerning landscaping.  Pre-planning is the key here.

There is also your overall layout? Where is the kitchen to be? Are you going to need a bedroom on ground floor for family members or expected guests who cannot walk up or down stairs?  What about the number of bathrooms, bathrooms with showers, guest rooms, etc? Will you need an office, a studio, a gym, or will you need a basement? All important things to think about ahead of time.

Will there need to be special planning for things like new wells or septic tanks, etc?  Also remember, experts say it is always crucial to have wells and septic tanks that are already existing inspected.

Before sub-floors and stairs are put in it is time to plan ahead and prevent squeaky floors. Floors in upper stories and stairs going up can get squeaky when using only nails. Screws, nail screws and construction adhesives can help to get rid of noisy squeakiness of floor boards and stairs that might come up in the future.  Another issue might be shower height:? Do you have tall people in your family where you will need a shower head that is taller? Something to think about.

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Are you going to have an attic and if so - that is roomy enough for storage? Then you may want to have that area paneled with flooring or decking applied and possibly even built-in shelving or cabinets perhaps? You may also want to consider the access to your attic area by pull down stairs or a stairwell? Great things to plan ahead and include in your original plans that might even save on cost compared to having it done at a later time.

What about space planning such as shelfing, cabinets and storage space throughout your new building? This is always very important. It seems there is never enough area for storing things. Shelf sizes and cabinet space, closet sizes etc., may be some things to double check. Often there are unused spaces or voids in the design that could be turned into special storage spaces. For example, void space under interior stairways could be converted into special cabinets or shelves.

Maybe you are you building with a resale in mind or planning to move right away? This may change how planning should go in the beginning where a lot of custom design would not be as necessary and to make design more generally acceptable.

There are a lot of questions here and many without answers because often the main one to answer these questions is the customer.  Some things could be a possible future problem that could be overlooked in the planning possibly which should to be addressed so as not cause harm to the structure or be trouble down the road. It's good to think about many of these things when in the planning and pre-planning stages.

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