What I would do differently

My husband and I bought out house 2 years ago. It was an older style ranch, but there is so many things I would have done differently. It's our first home and it's definitely been a life lesson.

I totally understand your problem of walking through your entire house to get to the kitchen from the garage. Our house is set up that way and I won't buy another house with a similar layout again! I like to imagine hiring an architect to design our next house and I'd probably start with describing how I want the house to work rather than look.

I can relate to many of the things you like and dislike, as well as the changes you would make. Lights, YES YES YES!!! In all closets, and ceilings. We too have at least one room with no overhead lighting (switch connected to outlet), and it drives me insane. Our laundry room...TINY, way too small even now that it is just the hubby and I. The other thing is I would have upgraded to hardwoods throughout (especially due to allergies). And agree, would have gone 4 sides brick (2 are complete, 1 about half, and the back 1/3). Windows...we are in the process of installing new windows to replace our 20 year old double hung, single pane, wood windows. Not fun!!! Not cheap!!!

I have the same thing... we come from the garage, through the mudroom/laundryroom, through the family room to the kitchen. Never noticed this when we walked through the model, or peered over the blueprint.
Better equip next time I guess....

I bet as the Bubs gets older, especially into his teen years, that the loft gets a lot more use as an extension of his space. My two teen girls would kill for a space like that, near their rooms, but separate from where the adults hang out to watch tv, play video games, or just hang out with friends. The one requirement we will always have for a house is a separated space for a home office. DH works from home and its a necessity, especially when we are invaded by the mob of teens all summer long :) No 'shhhing' required! Lights in closets are a necessity! We went out and bought battery operated led lights for every last one. Problem solved with a lot less expense.

Oh, I totally agree with all of your input! My biggest regret: not finishing the basement! we thought on finishing it a couple of years after we built the house but here we're almost 15 years later and it's not finished yet :( at least we did the rough in! Great advice, Sarah!

I think all of your input is spot on my friend. PLUS your house looks just beautiful

We built our house the same year you did. Our move-in date was Halloween weekend, 2004. You are so right. The things you don't realize when walking through models. And we have walked through MANY! You really have to live in a place. Thing is with our builder is they killed us in upgrades! LOVE recessed cans. I would of added them to the kitchen if they weren't $150/light. My hubby works for an electrical wholesaler. That is ridiculous. We were not allowed to get our own electrical supplies. We had no say in brands we wanted. So, we have since switched out all of our cheap outlets and switches to a better brand. Each extra outlet was $40. :/ We are upgrading our windows, so I can relate to the other commenter. Builder grade vinyl sliders are going bye-bye. We have replaced all of our brass door knobs with better Schlage ORB ones. Replaced the chrome sink fixtures for ORB. Flush doors are slowly being replaced to 2 panel recessed. Hardwood floor is being added. I wish I could upgrade my kitchen cabinetry. We went with simple finishes being the upgrades were super expensive for even the simplest things. $50 for an outlet in the floor next to this ledge we have so we can put decorative things with lights up there. Adding on to the garage. That was unreal. We skipped it. Almost $10,000 for a small section in the 3rd stall for my Tim the Toolman hubby to have a little workshop area. Garage here is tiny!! Shed going up this summer. May I suggest for anyone that reads this... this was another really expensive upgrade we wished we would of done. We built a two story and wish we would of added a split trunk to the heating/cooling system. Our house is so unevenly heated/cooled. I think a split trunk system would of alleviated that. Our house isn't big either. Maybe 2000sf, not including the basement, which right now is unfinished (and cold!). Our 2nd floor is cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Frustrating. The good thing about this place?? We upgraded and bayed our dining like you did. There really isn't any wasted space in this floor plan. I love the open foyer, though noise really does carry through the house. I likes my kitchen (just not builder grade cabinets). Design is fine. All of the bedrooms upstairs have walk-in closets, all with lights. :) Hindsight, I wouldn't of gone with this builder. But, my hubby was sold on this floor plan, which is funny because he is a rambler kind of guy. The house I wanted was a spec home in our neighborhood, better builder, a rambler, same square footage as this with the basement finished. Ah well. We are having fun remodeling and puttering with this place. Funny thing, it is our form of entertainment. LOL

I have been such a fan of yours forever! This is, as always, a timely post. We just signed the contract for our first home build on Sunday! I am crazy excited...and nervous. I came here to see if you could give advice on porcelain tile flooring? We originally thought to go with dark, hand scrapped wood to offset a white kitchen (shaker cabinets, subway tiles, grey quartz tops). But now we are considering porcelain tile...not sure if we'd go with the wood-like versions. Probably a darker grey, more modern. The attached living area will have a neutral grey, peppercorn accent wall and teal, I think. I want to mix in natural textures and some bling too...not sure what my style is but I've got some awesome inspiration here! My question is...would it be weird to do the tiles with loads of rugs through the entire downstairs which includes office, kitchen, mudroom, great room, et.?

we are currently in the process of building our first house so this was very interesting to read. i've already made one change major change dealing with the drywall. there are definitely things that i wished we could have afforded, but there is only so much money. it will be interesting to see what we wished we had done after living in the house a while.

My Mom just built a house with a corner fireplace!! I thought it looked odd when I did the dry wall walk through with her!

We'd like to eventually build our own home, so this is really helpful! It's amazing how you can look back a few (or 10) years later and think "Why the heck did I do that?!" We've only been in our house 2 years and I already think "Why the heck didn't we paint the whole inside before we moved in?!" :)

We didn't build new, so our situation is a little different, but there are things I'll do differently the next time we buy. The biggest one: more natural light! Oh my god. I didn't even think about how dark it would be in the winter with these tiny split-level windows. It's the worst, and we totally kicked ourselves this year. Overhead fixtures in all of the rooms is another one. Weirdly, the only room without any is the dining room (???) so we have lamps in there.

I agree with the lighting entirely. They didn't mark or let us know where there would be a spot for a chandy roughed in. But they did it anyway and right in the center of places we added extra recessed lighting. Also wish we roughed in a recessed light or place for something in bedroom 2 & 3. My biggest regret is not adding the extra trim package. I didn't understand the difference, for just a bit more we could have had crazy chunky molding. =( Otherwise, amazing home, we are really happy. lol =)

I adore this post! We have renovated twice, but are getting ready to build soon and it's a whole new ballgame. When renovating, we simply worked with what we had and tried to make it better. It's so overwhelming that we make ALL.THE.DECISIONS. Thanks for all your tips.

We built and the biggest annoyance that I never knew was important was that the builder put the hot water heater on the side opposite the master bath. It is one of those things you wouldn't think of, but has a huge impact on your daily life. Also, I should have arranged the kitchen to my specs, not the design teams. They obviously didn't cook because the trash is on the opposite side of the fridge/prep space.

What we did do, in our two story, was make sure the bottom level had a guest room and is handicap accessible. It was for a family member who would visit, but in the interim i broke my toe and having flat access to the house is invaluable.

We moved to our current house when our babies were 4 months, 2, and 4. That had given me enough time to see how I really live with little kids, and I'm thankful for that (even though moving with those ages wasn't fun). I still love our house, almost 4 years later. It's not our forever house, though, and I think about what we'll want in the next one. Definitely a second living space (we just have one now). I think you'll use your living room and loft more as your kids get older--I know we will.

I need shutters for our house and I am DYING to know where you got yours. Can you share if you don't mind??? Thanks!!

"We have rooms like our dining room and loft that we hardly use and I hate that. I wish we had that space in the areas we use, like the kitchen. "

I'm sure you will find a way to solve this issue ....


great idea for a post!

Completely agree with the useless rooms. (Formal dining and living seemed like a good idea at the time). If I could build, my house would have just a great room. Also, we wouldn't put the kid's bath right next to our bedroom since they wake us early on the weekends. And, forget the jet tub that we've used a handful of times in 10 years. I would love a huge shower in its place and a closet where the current shower is at.

I hear what you're saying about the grocery journey to the kitchen, but I see something good wit hour layout. You can dump mail right in your office. We're having a new house built and I'm dreading the entryway table again. My husband is getting a tiny tray for his keys and such. No more baskets for that man. His basket is horrendous!

Completely agree with you about wishing for lights in closets etc. EVERY single time I go into my (small) pantry in the evenings I have to switch on the main kitchen light so I can find anything. Next time I have the electrician out, I'm going to ask him to quote me.

Lights in closets: YES! I did put one in the big hall closet upstairs. Then I moved in and wondered why I didn't add them in every closet. Outlets, too. I thought it did not matter where they were. Now I realize it matters very much! I would add them in more places, as well. I added one in the master closet, in the garage (still should have added more in the garage) and in the basement store room.

I did a very similar blog post last year: http://www.velezita.com/2013/07/nine-things-i-would-do-differently-when.html

(Long time reader. First time commenter.)
You wish you had a bigger family room area. You're not a fan of the fireplace. Have you considered removing the wall between family room & office to make a bigger family/dining room? Your office is adorable, yes, but you have that little-used craft room that would make an awesome office. Bubs will always have the basement for teen hang-out space.
See how easy it is for followers/fans to rearrange your space?
Thanks for the consistently fun DIY read!

Hi there! I LOVE your blog but like many others-first time commenter. We are building (they just broke ground) so this post is so timely. Thank you for all of your tips.

I agree with the lights in the closets heck lights everywhere! I bought kitchen under counter lighting and had it put in my closets - something you might think about. I would also put electrical outlets everywhere, really everywhere! My house also does not have ANY overhead lighting upstairs - NONE. So yes get it. We had it put in our kitchen and dinning room area because it wasn't even there when we moved in. Thanks for all the tips. Victoria

Your home is amazing. I love what it has become. I'm a first time home buyer (purchased 24 January) and I cant wait to see what my home transforms into. Thanks for the inspiration!

I agree with the lights everywhere AND the mudroom/garage entry. We didn't build this house, but we are the first owners. I didn't realize how weird it was to walk in from the garage into the hallway and have to choose living room or kitchen, there is no mudroom and the coat closet (and my upstairs linen closet) are triagular because of something (toilet stack or something maybe) running through that spot. If we ever build (I dunno if I can take the stress) I'll be super particular about those parts.

When you enter the from the garage in my home, you pass the laundry room, go through the living room, into a short hallway, and finally end up in the kitchen. I get a great arm workout when I bring in the groceries from the car! Also, when you walk in my front door, the first thing you see is the back door directly across the house from the front door. I hate that!

We added and enlarged most of our windows. We added two extras across the back of the house in the basement which makes our basement really bright like a main floor. And WAY cheaper to do it then.

I agree with the laundry room. Our old house had a laundry room upstairs and the new one we chose to keep it in the mud room and have cathedral ceilings in the entry instead. I would give up the entry ceiling to have the laundry back upstairs.

Hi, I have read your blog here and there over the last couple years and finally realized today that we have the same floorplan! (I think the corner fireplace threw me off.) ;) So, it was fun to read what you like/don't like about it. We totally agree on needing more space in the kitchen and family room, overall the house has great square footage, but wish more was allotted to those 2 areas. Unfortunately we did not do a bump out on our kitchen and opted for a french door that swings into the kitchen instead of a slider (what were we thinking??). After 5 years of the door bumping into the kitchen table, we decided to take the table out (we have a large dining table) and double the island to 8 feet. We can now seat 5 people and love it! It was super easy since they still make our cabinets and counters. If we ever finish our basement, I'll have to come check out your ideas. :)

I know this post is kind of getting older now, but I thought I'd chime in on my open floor plan. My garage entry is by the front of my house by the office& bathroom and I hate it too! Treking through the house to get to the kitchen; I'd definitely think about that design again. I don't even have a mud room :( My washer and dryer are in the equivalent of a CLOSET upstairs; so I bought a front loading stackable set and installed a laundry sink where the old washer used to be. WHY in a 3300 sqft home the laundry room is the size of a closet baffles me. I could go on, but explaining the poor design of this open concept home would be a longer blog post than yours! Live and Learn I guess!