10 Things I Wish I Did Differently At The Design Center When I Purchased My New Construction Home

Would you like to know the 10 things I wish I had done differently at the design center when I purchased my new construction home? Ever wonder what words of caution someone would give that’s already been there and done that? Well, as I walk through my 5-year-old home, I’ve got a lot of things that I know I would’ve done differently if I were building a new construction home today. Let my pain be your gain. I want to help you avoid my new home mistakes. I’m going to share my top 10 tips to help you avoid the mistakes I made at the design center. And, if you happen to live in a resale home, this will help you if you plan to do any remodeling as you customize your home to fit your family. But before we get started, go ahead and grab my FREE Home Styling Cheat Sheets. They break down exactly what you need to beautifully style any area of your home. Now let’s get started.

10 Things I Wish I Did Differently At The Design Center When I Purchased My New Construction Home

1.Don’t waste your money on cabinet pull upgrades – I’m totally ashamed as to the amount of money I paid to have the pulls on my kitchen cabinets upgraded. And to top it off, I really feel kinda “ehh” about them now. This is why it’s THE first item on my list of new home upgrades to avoid list. You can always upgrade or add cabinet pulls to your house later.

2. Add more lights – like God said in Genesis, let there be light! Light, light, everywhere. I wish we had more (meaning better and brighter) lighting in several rooms in my home. My office (I’m a blogger, but I know I’m not the only one working from home) and my bedroom stand out, for sure. Having more lights in your office would help during your Zoom calls and video office meetings. And more lights in your bedroom would help at night when you want to read a good book.

3. Center wall-mounted outlets – if you have a new construction home, your builder probably offered you the option to add electrical outlets on your wall so you can mount your TV. In our master bedroom, we had out outlets added to the wall, but it’s not centered on our ceiling fan light. And our bed and dresser are centered that ceiling fan. So, currently our TV is off-centered. Ugh!

4. Space out holes for adjustable shelving – if you have a bookshelf in your kitchen, media room or family room, you might want to check the height between the shelves. We have a bookcase on the side of our island and unfortunately the hole spacing for the shelves is too close together. It’s very hard for us to put the cookbooks we frequently use on that bookcase. What bummer! My friend had the same thing happen to her with the shelving in her family room. There are certain décor items she’d like to have in the bookcase, but the shelving is too tight to actually add them.

5. Add more outlets – if you happen to have a super-large master bedroom closets, you’ll want to think about adding extra outlets in there. I have a chair sitting in my walk-in and it’s where I sit and take my time (when I have the time) to get dressed or wind down at the end of the night. I’d love to add a lamp or even a scented wall diffuser so my closet can smell like a spa. Dream worthy, right? But without the outlet, that dream will never become reality.

6. Choose fixed elements that match your décor style – for example, your cabinets. I chose cabinets that lean more towards farmhouse style. They are a beautiful white shaker styling. But, I gotta say, I’m more of a French country type of gal. I like a mixture of glam and comfort in my house and that’s where I plan to go as I continue to decorate in my home. But my current cabinets and counter tops don’t really match my decorating style. So, I encourage you to use a vision board so you can see on one page that your cabinets and countertops match your current or dream furniture.

7. Use a variety of paint colors – right now my entire home is painted a neutral color. It sounds good in theory, until you’re staring at the exact same wall color in every single wall of your house. If I could do it differently, I would have chosen a neutral wall color for most rooms, but added variety by selecting complementary, but different, wall colors to break up the monotony.

8. Paint or wallpaper before custom shelving is installed – if you’re part of the fortunate group to have your builder install custom shelving in the closets, make sure you’re 100% in love with the wall color. Without thinking much about it, we had the builder use the same agreeable gray wall color on the walls in our walk-in closet. If I could do it all over again, I would have had the walls painted white. I’d like to be able to see my clothes and have them pop-out at me, which the white will do, instead of seeing the see of gray.

9. Make sure the light switch locations make sense – this was a fail for us too. We got our basement finished and I don’t know why I let this one slide, but the light for the main room is in a really awkward spot. The light switch isn’t actually in the room itself. So, it’s so easy to pass by the light switch. I’m not a huge fan or too many light switches, because they just get confusing, but I’d rather have too many than not enough. And, I’d rather they be in locations that make sense.

10. Add a designer ceiling upgrade – this request is a sure-bet to be a structural upgrade, so talk to your builder ASAP if you want this added. But if you’d like to have a tray ceiling or coffered ceiling added to your family room, master bedroom or dining room ceiling, it’s best to get it done as your home is being built. My hubby really wanted a coffered ceiling in our family room, and I convinced him that it would be an easy add later. Because that’s what the model home looked like. But little did I know, that because we had a different addition above our family room, our ceiling structure was different. I should have listened to Hubs because it’s a no-can do for the coffered ceiling in our family room.

10 Things I Wish I Did Differently At The Design Center When I Purchased My New Construction Home

Going to the design center is a lot of fun, but to be honest, the entire home-buying process can also be so overwhelming that you overlook some things. That’s why I wanted to share with you the few key take-aways now that I’ve lived in my new-build for a few years. Hopefully these 10 tips will help you avoid the mistakes I made and also make it easier for you to decorate your new construction home and make it your own. With that said, if you’d like some more help, tips or pointers, grab my FREE Home Styling Cheat Sheets. They break down exactly what you need so you can beautifully style any area of your home.

And please, take a few minutes and leave a comment below and let me know how these tips have helped you.

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