A recent home build here was plagued with dust marring the varnish on the hardwood floors. I think the house should have been really thoroughly blown out (leaf blower) or vacuumed during construction. After the drywall is cut for can lights, outlets, etc. jump on the dust. Especially above the ceiling around the can lights. I think the wind was mobilizing the dust on the upper surface of the ceilings around all the can lights when they were varnishing the floors. Three applications of varnish later, the floors still look ‘dusty’.
Mkae sure there are enough circuits for the plug ins too. Another local house had one circuiit for the garage and the laundry room. Bad idea, the washing machine takes quite a bit of power, and using power tools in the garage while it was running would pop the breaker.
If you anticipate a freezer in the garage or a mostly unused basement area, wire another plug in on that circuit to a lamp outlet in the living room or somewhere you’ll notice, if that breaker pops you don’t want to loose a freezer full of frozen food.
Some local cable TV companies will wire TV jacks for free. After they leave, string more wire for satellite and antenna. Main TV locations need 3 coaxes run to a common ‘head’ area in the utility room, kids bedrooms, offices, etc, always run 2 coax. Run one or 2 coaxes from head to TV antenna location, and 4 from head to satellite dish location. You can do this to save $. Menards has 500 ft rolls of RG-6 for around $50. Way easier to do this before drywall, and who wants to see a new house with wires stapled to the siding all over? Easy problem to avoid.
(Yeah, I know DirecTV SWM needs one wire from head to dish, run 4 anyhow)
Watch how many doors open into a small space, my sisters house has 3 doors that are always banging into each other in the entry way.
Remember, sliding doors are nice, but you cannot have a TV, phone or AC plug where they slide in the wall area.
Outdoor plug ins are nice, especially near a deck if you are building one.
I know this sounds dumb, but I have seen people have bedrooms open into living spaces without doors. This, IMHO, is a real bad idea. Also, another weird one, the master bath and the master bath should be adjoining. Another one is to have a garage physically attached to the house, but no door connecting the two, you go outside to get in the garage. Weird and strange goof.
Be cautious of having a stairwell canted at an angle to the general grid of the house. It may make the entry look cool, but you now have angled walls to deal with in all the adjoining rooms. Particularly a problem for a kitchen.
If you have stone counter tops, think of using the scraps (corners, sink cut out) around the fireplace. Stone is expensive, and using the same stuff around fireplace and kitchen looks nice.
Having indentation in wall behind refrigerator will let you get a deeper, bigger one with out it jutting into kitchen. Reinforce wall behind fridge with a sheet of plywood under the drywall, and don’t worry about a missing stud or two behind fridge.
Got a CPAP machine? Get a longer hose and put that darn noisy thing in the closet, and have the tube to the mask come out of floor or wall near your bed.
(I might think of more later, I work in many new houses)