However, my home is going to have a box in the basement where all the cables and phone lines go to. From there is where it goes outside. I believe this is the way most buildings are now.
So, if I understand correctly, I can just wire it any way I like from the basement box. If I have sat then I can have four lines come in there and attach them all individually to lines running to rooms in the house. If I have cable, then I can simply split the one line to all the rooms in the house.
I’m not 100% sure, but that’s how I think it’s going to work.
FINE, acre and a half ;). Riding lawnmower, I hope.
Yes - my phone and cable all terminate to one “box” on the exterior of the house. I assumed we’d get cable, and forgot about it - when it came time to get satellite, we realised we hadn’t wired the house correctly (it was nearly two years from sign to move) and ended up drilling holes in the side of the house for the rooms we wired.
My wife and I looked for homes for a few months. They were expensive for what you got and many had problems. We aren’t fixer uppers nor want to be. Homes we did bid on had much competition or failed inspection dramatically.
My wife started looking at having one built. I was very hesitant.
FInally she dragged me in a model and I loved it.
So here is my story:
Met with the builder, signed up
Met with finance guy recommended by builder specializing in new construction.
Home was built.
Closed on home.
Been living in home 5 years and no problems.
The experience could not have been more smooth.
Based on other people and stories, we must have gotten very lucky Sometimes I wonder if the horror stories of new construction are warrented.
That was my experience. YMMV.
The only even slightly (but still cute) thing I remember is that my wife would have to go and look at the hole…then the sticks EVERY DAY!
I was also pleasantly surprised that the actual cost of the home wasn’t much more than he quoted as a base.
You have ‘allowances’ on things like carpet, kitchen appliances etc. It’s easy to go over and we did…but we got nice things for not adding much more to the cost. Much less than I thought in my cynicism anyway.
In Spain the choice is different, almost nobody builds a house from scratch. Most people live in apartments or townhouses.
get a house that’s already being built. You can ask for changes to wall color, tiles, placement of electric, phone and TV outlets. Most people don’t bother ask for paint, since painting it yourself over the usually-stark-white-finish isn’t such a pain.
get a house that’s been renovated. Many people will “do” the kitchen and/or bathroom before selling, since those two rooms are usually the ones that get beat-up faster. The problem with this is that you can get some really yucky bathroom. I can’t get over the ones with gold paint everywhere.
get a fixer-upper. Often this just means it needs a coat of paint; sometimes the bathroom or kitchen go to the to-do-but-can-wait list.
My brothers work in construction (one as a site supervisor, the other as an accountant, different companies). Both are getting the first type, now. The one that’s married got a just-fixed for his first house - it was the only thing they could find in their price range, and there were quite a few hidden defects, but it had been done real pretty. The house he’s buying is from the company where he works, so he was able to get a nice reduction on the price.
I expect to be moving soon. If it is to a town I know well, I’ll get a fixer-upper in a neighborhood I like; if I don’t know the place, I’ll go rental for a year and then look for a fixer-upper.
Oh yeah, riding mower. Except for the pushy parts in my back yard. I have added a pool, a privacy fence and three storage buildings to my back yard since moving in. It’s starting to look like I’m a couple hundred rounds of ammo and some MRE’s away from a walled in compound. andymurph64 the builder called me out to the site almost everyday to discuss something or other. Thus, such scintillating conversations as where to place the septic tank were held. There were many detail things I wanted that needed discussion also. Plus, as I said, checking up on things frequently does pay off as in when the wallpaperers were putting up wall paper in the wrong room. My builder was great. He took a lot of care and paid attention to the most minute details, often having subcontractors redo something if it didn’t look right to him. Stuff I would probably have never noticed or paid attention to even.
Anyway, I’ve built a house. Been there done that. Next time around it’s buy something already there for me. I think. Watch me have to come back and eat those words one day.
Wonder if it was the same Thanksgiving that we watched about a quarter of the siding on the home we’d just built in Wyoming blow off. By Christmas bits of it were probably somewhere in one of the Dakotas. Our builders (after some astonishing resistance) replaced it, though it blew off again and buckled in the sun. We sold the house and moved in less than a year.
Like others have said, I valued the experience but I’d never ever want to build again. My husband would, though, and makes the evil suggestion periodically.
Note to Suse: vinyl siding, no matter what anyone says, is an abomination. Even the premium, guaranteed, no maintenance, top of the line, “trust us, you’ll love it” kind. Just don’t.
Sometimes I wonder if the horror stories of new construction are warrented.
