Tips on Building a House or Remodeling Part 3

11 April 2018


Oh goodness. I’m back – thoughts just keep coming and your helpful comments in the previous posts have also reminded me! If you need to catch up:


Part 1 – Features to Consider When Building a Home // Click Here


Part 2 – What to Know Before Building a House // Click Here


Some more tips on building a house:


carrera hex marble tile

* I want to curse the grout on the floor in our master bathroom. More grout = more cleaning. I adore the hex tiles but they are my cleaning enemy #1. I would go with bigger tiles, less grout.



fridge flush with cabinets pantry behind

* Allow for your fridge to be pushed back so it is flush with the cabinets. Our laundry room is behind the kitchen so it would have totally worked, darn it! One of the most popular pictures on 320 Sycamore is from a Parade of Homes ^^^ where they did this and those two long cabinet doors past the fridge are actually a door to the pantry where the wall does go back behind the fridge to allow it to be even with the ovens and other cabinets.


pantry behind fridge




outlet on floor


* outlets on the floor are an awesome idea ^^^ so you can have a lamp by a sofa or between 2 chairs in the middle of the room. But they put in these raised ones and now we have moved the sofa and everyone trips over them. If you put them in, make sure they are level with the floor.




wallpaper in bathroom

* Wallpaper in the bathroom is so cute, right? But those watermarks behind the sink aren’t so hot – what was I thinking? Save the wallpaper for walls where water isn’t close. Here is more on that removal process.



master bedroom 320 sycamore

* Really think about window placement in bedrooms. If you have someone who loves a completely dark room (my husband!!), has to sleep during the day, etc. you’ll want to think about window placement and how you’ll cover those windows. If I had to do it again, I would have taken out the windows next to the bed and just had one big window on the wall across from the door. We have blackout curtains on the windows next to the bed and we hardly ever open them. I would rather just throw open the curtains each morning on one main window.




broom mop in pantry

* My sister-in-law Natalie reminded me of this one: If you do a pantry, make sure you leave room for a place to hang brooms, mops, hang aprons, grocery bags, etc.  We just had them end our shelves early to leave the space. ^^^



master closet

* Master closet: I could have eat least cleaned it out or organized it but this is to be helpful not to show something that never happens!! I would have done less open shelves and made room for 2 wide dressers – like the Ikea Hemnes ones. I don’t love clothes just folded (a very loose term for my closet) in the open, I still like drawers but they are expensive for built-ins so I would have just designed my closet around two dressers – one on each side, with hanging above and on the sides.


If you have bathrooms with a tub that has a shower curtain you may want to consider tiling the wall on either side to prevent water damage to MDF baseboards. Behind a toilet with boys is an excellent idea as well. More on that here!


Ok, what else would you add? Thanks for stopping by --


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