This is sort of the "nutshell" version of our experience -- the most important things we learned during the process of building a custom home. We hope it's helpful to others!

1. MEASURE EVERYTHING.
And I mean everything. We made a major mistake early on when we moved the location of a chimney from the back of the family room to the side, and failed to realize the effect that had on our garage bays on the plans. It wasn't until after the foundation was poured that we realized the garage doors were too narrow for our cars. We made a decision right there in the field to go with gas fireplaces, so we could start the chimney higher, and thus increase the size of the garage doors and still get a man door in between. That was our second mistake -- once again we didn't measure. We should have skipped the man door and just centered the garage bays. The end result is that you can drive into the garage, but it's tough to squeeze in and out of the cars -- the doors go right to the edges of the walls. We just never thought it through -- it's a garage, right? What's to think about? The answer is ... measure everything.

Second example: We ordered an extra-high toilet for the master bath, for no particular reason, but thank God we did. The "standard" toilet that came with the house is 13 1/2" high -- since we didn't measure, we didn't know until it arrived how tiny that is. It's like a kid's toilet. Fortunately it's in the guest bath, which will be a kid's bath eventually, so it works out fine -- but the "extra tall" toilet in our master just seems like a normal toilet to us. Again, the answer is to measure, and do it BEFORE ordering things or making decisions about things.

2. USE CAUTION IF YOU GO TO "LIGHT N LEISURE"
I say "use caution" instead of "avoid" Light N Leisure ("the purple building") because I'm still trying to get the dining room chandelier they sent us replaced, and if they come through, I won't even have to include this item. If you're interested in the story so far, click here.

3. IT'S ALL IN THE DETAILS
If you're building a custom home, you'll find there's a lot more decision-making than just choosing carpets and tile and hardwood and cabinet type and paint color (although those are all part of it too). The amount of minute detail that YOU will need to be concerned with is staggering. The builder will want to know what kind of stair balusters and newels you want, what color heating registers, what kind and color of thresholds go in each doorway, and what kind of crown molding and door and window trim you want. You'll also need to decide if your kitchen tile should be arranged in a pattern, and if so, what pattern. You'll need to decide how much bevel your cabinet doors should have, and whether the insides should be melamine or something else. Add in a hundred more decisions like those and you'll have the idea.

Obviously competent subcontractors and vendors make a big difference -- the bath fixtures guy can help you decide what faucet is perfect for each bathroom, and the cabinet guy can help you decide on just the right amount of gloss for each cabinet. But you'll feel more comfortable with your choices, and find the process less daunting, if you do your homework in advance.

Two major ways to do your homework:
1) Visit EVERY new home or model you can. In Massachusetts, Boston Magazine sponsors a multi-million dollar "Design Home" every spring that's essentially a sales vehicle for all the contract work inside it, plus all the furnishings and decor. Go, and bring a camera -- you'll find yourself referring back to the pictures a thousand times.

2) Start a notebook. Use categories like Kitchen, Bath, Bedrooms, Garage, Basement, Stairs, Outside, Whole House. Then every time you look at a home & garden magazine, keep your scissors handy and cut out the things that appeal to you -- colors, styles of crown molding, carpets, cabinet doors, anything and everything -- and paste them into your notebook in the appropriate section. We wished badly that we'd started doing that much earlier than we had -- I remember one night when we rushed home and started tearing through magazines trying to find pictures of fireplaces, for example, because it was time to choose our fireplace mantel style.

4. WRITE IT DOWN
This should be obvious, and you'll already have the best intentions anyway, but it bears repeating: Write it down. Everything. Every conversation, every e-mail, every site visit. You'll start out strong, and then in the throes of the final months of construction, when you're talking to the realtor or the builder multiple times each day, you'll start to slip. Then, suddenly, it will be time to close, and you and the builder will be wondering: Did the extra you paid for storage under the window seats include finishing the insides, or did we say just paint was OK? What was that estimate for the French doors in the study again? Wasn't there some kind of rebate on the dishwasher we were supposed to get from the appliance place? ... WRITE IT DOWN, or you'll wish you had later. We were lucky enough to have worked with a trustworthy and agreeable builder, so it worked out fine to do many things with a "spit and a handshake," but not everyone will be that fortunate, and it's just good sense to keep track of the details.

I found a little free program called InfoMagic to be very helpful -- it's essentially a shell that sits on top of regular text files and makes them searchable. You can do stream-of-consciousness type documentation and still find that cabinet guy's phone number later.

5. THINK ABOUT YOUR LIGHTING EARLY
One day we met the electrician up at the house, to talk about where our switches and outlets and box lights would go. Piece of cake, right? Well, it was fast and easy because we had a good electrician with good suggestions ... but the truth is that we're living with more of his preferences than ours. We hadn't really thought through how many or what kind of lights we'd want in the kitchen, let alone where we'd want them switched. We THOUGHT we knew -- island light over the island, obviously, undercounter lights under the counters, some rope lighting over the cabinets, a few recessed lights ... what's so hard about that? Nothing -- the lights are great -- but the one we switched from the family room is NOT the one we tend to want to have on. A light switch seems like such a tiny detail but you have to live them every single day. Put one in the wrong spot and you'll never quite adjust to it.

So, my advice is even when it seems way too early, when you can still walk right through all your walls, start thinking about how you'll use each room and what kind of lights you want in each space. And THEN think about where the switch should go. Jot it down, try it out, and then you'll be ready for your date with the electrician.

6. OUR FAVORITES, AND NOT-SO-FAVORITES
It's perhaps a bit early for this one since we've only been in the house for a few weeks, but now that it's all said and done, here are some random thoughts about things (some unexpected) that we really like, and things that we're not so crazy about:

Things We Like:

• Rope lighting over the cabinets -- it's like a really cool nightlight. Best thing we ever did.

• Dark green granite countertops -- I was undecided between Corian and granite but I LOVE these counters.

• Closet in basement -- if you have an "under" garage and will be coming and going through the basement, it's worth the small extra expense to put a finished closet down there

• Slop sink -- ditto for the sink. It's worth it to have a place to rinse off muddy shoes, gardening pots etc.

• Window seats -- I thought I'd love these, and I do! However ... see the next list for the drawback

• Slide-out drawers -- I don't know the technical name for this kind of kitchen drawer. You open the two cabinet doors next to each other, and then slide out these wide trays. At first I thought it would be a pain to have that two-step process to get at things, but the trays hold all my mixing bowls and heavy platters etc. -- and at a much better height than when they were stored overhead. I really love these drawers.

• Closet in kitchen -- this is something our builder does in many of his homes, and we are REALLY glad we have it. The big wide shelves are perfect for cleaning supplies, the dogs' food bowls, paper towels, vaccum cleaners bags (and the vac too), a small toolbox ... all the little odds and ends that we wouldn't know where to put otherwise. He typically does one pantry closet and one coat closet -- we did a pantry cabinet (matching the rest of the cabinets) and this storage closet, and it's working out great.

• I'll add more as I think of them.

Things We're Not so Crazy About:

• Garage too narrow -- we should have gone wider on the garage. It's too tight for shelves on the sides next to the cars.

• Lack of heater fan in bathroom -- really wish we'd had one put in (we have a light and a fan, but I wish we had the heater too)

• Super Susan -- this special corner-cabinet in our kitchen is OK but it's so big that it seems like it takes forever to spin it around, and unlike our old lazy susan, you can't close the door when it's just anyplace -- you have to spin it back to the original location. I find myself crowding everything to the closest edges and not using the very back of it.

• I'll add more as I think of them.

Hope you enjoyed browsing the site!

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