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We recently signed a presale in west cary. It will be on slab. The upgrade options available are indeed overwhelming. I'm trying to decide which should be done now rather than later. I listed the ones I'm interested in, is there anything that can be done later at a much lower price:
1) Surround sound prewire (5.1 surround) - $590
2) Ceiling fan prewire - $150
Can prewire on the second floor be done easily later through attic?
3) Garage door opener - $370 (includes two remotes no keypad)
4) Crown molding - $200 per room
5) Brushed Nickel Faucets - $1,320 (3 Full Baths)
6) Brushed Nickel Shower Enclosure - $140
7) Brushed Nickel Bath accessories - $60 (towel bar, toilet paper holder)
8) Bathroom floor tile - $200
9) Bathroom Tile accent - $20 per sf
We recently signed a presale in west cary. It will be on slab. The upgrade options available are indeed overwhelming. I'm trying to decide which should be done now rather than later. I listed the ones I'm interested in, is there anything that can be done later at a much lower price:
1) Surround sound prewire (5.1 surround) - $590
2) Ceiling fan prewire - $150
Can prewire on the second floor be done easily later through attic?
3) Garage door opener - $370 (includes two remotes no keypad)
4) Crown molding - $200 per room
5) Brushed Nickel Faucets - $1,320 (3 Full Baths)
6) Brushed Nickel Shower Enclosure - $140
7) Brushed Nickel Bath accessories - $60 (towel bar, toilet paper holder)
8) Bathroom floor tile - $200
9) Bathroom Tile accent - $20 per sf
Thanks!
In the grand scheme of a home price, those are all very minor things. The surround sound pre-wire and ceiling fan pre-wire both would require ripping holes in your walls, and would not be cheap after the fact. Just make sure you mark out exactly where you want the speakers located, or the pre-wire might be useless to you. I'd also really doubt you could find someone to add fan wiring even on a 2nd floor, for less than $150. We did the fan pre-wire in all bedrooms, the office, and the family room, and I'm SO glad we did.
A good garage door opener is more than $370 just for the parts, so I wouldn't say their price is that bad. Just make sure they don't give you a crappy opener. I highly recommend a Liftmaster 3800, but it's unlikely a builder would supply one. The faucets you could probably save a few bucks on if you did the installation yourself, but if you have to have someone come out and install them, it's probably a wash.
The bath accessories are a good deal. I just added a few matching Moen towel bars and hooks to our house, and I think the bars were like $35 each, and the hooks were about $20.
What exactly is the tile accent? For $20/sf it doesn't seem like a big deal unless it's a huge area. We had the option to add a decoratie tile band around the inside of our shower, and it was like $1200, so I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing. We skipped that option.
1) Surround sound prewire (5.1 surround) - $590
2) Ceiling fan prewire - $150
Can prewire on the second floor be done easily later through attic?
3) Garage door opener - $370 (includes two remotes no keypad)
4) Crown molding - $200 per room
5) Brushed Nickel Faucets - $1,320 (3 Full Baths)
6) Brushed Nickel Shower Enclosure - $140
7) Brushed Nickel Bath accessories - $60 (towel bar, toilet paper holder)
8) Bathroom floor tile - $200
9) Bathroom Tile accent - $20 per sf
Thanks!
In my experience, if your builder wont let you do anything yourself (mine allowed us to pre-wire for 5.1, run central vac wiring and pipe, and lots of other stuff, but they vary):
1) Unless you have easy access to the insides of all the walls, you're probably better off doing this during construction instead of later.
2) Easier to do now - even if you have access in the attic, it can be tricky to fish wiring through walls and joists properly and to code
3) Not bad, but price them at HD or Lowes - I don't think they cost that much installed
4) This sounds very reasonable considering it'll be properly painted and caulked to match the trim
5) Yikes - sounds way high - price some bath stuff at HD or Lowes for comparison
6) Do it now
7) Seems reasonable
8) Depends on price per square foot. Decent tile work should run anywhere from $7-10/sf I think
9) $20 per square foot? Is this diamond-crusted or platinum accent? If not, sounds too high, but is not something you can do later. Expect charges for doing anything other than standard tile in a straight line. Things like diagonal placement, insets, different styles or sizes mixed together, all cost extra
Putting crown molding in--at your same cost per room--is probably my favorite upgrade we did. So worth it, as it makes every room look so much nicer!! It's also much easier to paint the rooms cause you don't have to make a straight line at the ceiling!
If it's anything other than brick I would spend my money on that.
The first time you have to paint your home your will spend more than what the upgrade costs.
Even the new pre finished siding looks bad after a few years. I have seen it in many places and after a couple of years ever joint shows and areas are faded.
I say go for the brick and wait for things like tile and faucets that can easily be done later.
If it's anything other than brick I would spend my money on that.
The first time you have to paint your home your will spend more than what the upgrade costs.
Even the new pre finished siding looks bad after a few years. I have seen it in many places and after a couple of years ever joint shows and areas are faded.
I say go for the brick and wait for things like tile and faucets that can easily be done later.
The exterior Garage side is all stone. It comes standard for the elevation we picked.
If you want a tiled bath floor, have the builder do it.
He will raise the cabinets to allow for the thickness of tile underlayment and tile.
You lose up to an inch when adding tile later and effectively lower the height of your cabinetry.
Not to add to you list, but if you decide to tile the master bath floor in a house built on a slab I would also add under tile heat mats. They won't be cheap, but a cold tile floor in a master bath isn't fun as you tend to be barefoot in a master. We're not on a slab, but have heat mats in our master on a thermostat timer and wouldn't do tile in a master bath w/o it.
A slip membrane between the tile and slab would be a good idea too.
Prewire sound system and ceiling fans is my vote - you can do the other items later. One thing I did was to add a 20 amp outlet in the garage for a extra freezer or refrigerator
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I highly recommend a Liftmaster 3800, but it's unlikely a builder would supply one. The faucets you could probably save a few bucks on if you did the installation yourself, but if you have to have someone come out and install them, it's probably a wash.
