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Building with Heartland or Ryan
So we are in the process of finalizing our structural decisions - yeah! Another thing done. So our next step is all the design center stuff - extra outlets, lights, etc. I have some information about the electrical and lighting options. We probably won't schedule this until sometime after we close on our current home. I would love to go look now but we don't have time with trying to pack up the house.
I know in the next month I am going to be wondering about these items. So any insight would be greatly appreciated.
I am trying to figure out what is the average amount of extra outlets people add to the standard number.
I am also trying to guage the cost of all the wiring for cable, media, etc. I know we want to pre-wire the family room for a wall mounted TV. If budget allows we would consider surround sound speakers in the family room. I am also trying to figure out the internet cabling needs. We currently use a wireless router but I have been reading about do hard wiring. Not sure if we will need this because we only use wireless electronics currently (laptop, tablet, and cell phones set to pick up our home wifi). I figure we will put a cable jack in all of the bedrooms, study, living room, basement, and family room. Am I missing anywhere else?
Re: Building with Heartland or Ryan
i am assuming you are doing this through Guardian? that is who Ryan used when we built. my friends and i were just talking about this exacty topic (they just built in Mars) so it is fresh in my brain.
we added an extra cable outlet in the family room. We did the cable outlet over the fireplace for the TV, but for resale purposes we put one on the wall too. we also ran the TV cable from the fireplace into a kitchen cabinet (adjacent rooms) so you can't see any our our cable boxes, DVD, components, etc as they are hidden in a cabinet. like your email said, we have cable in all bedrooms, family room, game room, office.
we also put a cable jack in our master bathroom, mounted in the corner near the ceiling. we have a small, cheap flat screen - very nice in the AM for watching news/traffic or taking a bubble bath
it's my favorite thing in our house LOL!
we did the audio speakers as well - the 4 room option. I absolutely love it - we can plug our iPod, iPad, computer, etc into a small wall jack and there's music everywhere. i use it every night when i make dinner. we also use it during steelers games
we are hard wired for internet in several of our rooms, but mainly use wireless devices.
as for extra outlets - we put one on each staircase "landing." comes in handy when vacuuming. we also put an outlet at the top the kitchen cabinets. I have some decorations and twinkle lights above each cabinet cluster and it looks nice. i wish i would have put an outlet on my fireplace mantle as well (again more for decor purposes). i think code has you put outlets every 8 feet or something so i don't think we added a ton.
if you have a certain chandelier/light you have or are going to buy that you want to hang, get them to move the "free" one into a closet or a room with no light - they will install it for you. the lighting was the hard part for me. we used recessed lighting in our kitchen, bedroom and living room and really like it.
we also added an extra keypad in our master bedroom for the guardian security system, so it's the last thing we do before we go to bed.
let me know if you have any Qs....
Those are all great suggestions! Particularly the extra security keypad in the bedroom. I don't know why they don't do that automatically!
I would also definitely do the outlet over the fireplace. We didn't and I wish I would have b/c I think prelit garland on the mantle would be so pretty.
Outside, I thought about adding another outlet so that there'd be one on each side of our front door for Xmas lights, but I didn't and now I wish I would have! I'd also have liked it if they could've hooked the outdoor outlet we do have up to our indoor lights in the foyer so we could've turned the lights off by flipping the switch vs. unplugging them. You can of course set them on a timer, but the switch is a nice option too. I also wanted the ability to turn off the light in the front yard, but our newby sales rep told us that was included (when it was not), so I never found out if it was possible to have that option. It bothers me that it stays on all night. We added spotlights to the back of the house, but watch them b/c they misplaced ours and now we can't reach out a window to change them. Also really pay attention to where they're roughing in lights b/c our dinette one was off center and had to be moved at our 30 day review.
We didn't do much extra for electrical. We added a dedicated circuit for our microwave.There are plenty of outlets, but I wish I would've moved a few to be closer to the windows b/c I ended up needing extension cords for almost all of our Xmas candles. The whole electrical thing was so daunting at the time!
For internet, we just use the wireless router. We added cable in all of the bedrooms and the basement, and one phone jack in the family room. The study came with cable and I think a phone jack.
We did the wall mounted TV in our family room, but not over the fireplace b/c I felt like it was too high and I like being able to keep the mantle decorated. We have the TV on a swivel arm thing though so that we can watch it when we're in the dinette and kitchen. I have a small coffee table under the TV to hold the cable box, and we mounted the sound bar on the wall using a picture ledge from Ikea.
We had prewires for overhead lights installed in all of the bedrooms and the study. We have recessed lights in the kitchen and over the showers, which are nice. I wish we would have also done them in our finished basement, but we again misunderstood what was included so now we have four boob lights down there and it looks awful! I asked about relocating the included lights, but our PM wouldn't do that. Also, if you want any pendants in the kitchen make sure you get them prewired b/c the recessed canisters Ryan uses don't work with the conversion kits.
hmmm - it's been about 3 years but i think the 4 room speaker package was $3K?? don't quote me on that. I remember there being a 2 room package too (obv cheaper). we have speakers in our kitchen, living room, basement and outside on our deck. Just to be clear, it's not the surround sound but 2 speakers in the ceiling of each room. Mandy makes a good point, the sound definitely travels, so keep that in mind. we use it mainly for music and have no kids so we don't think about stuff like that
i remember running the CoAx cable for the fireplace/cabinet mount was like $300 - they price the wire by the foot. I don't remember the internet stuff.
we also added extra flood lights outside on the side of our house and an extra light outside where our deck was eventually built out. They gave us a "free" light outside and it was actually cute, so we got an extra matching one and it makes a big difference.
ETA - we also roughed-in ceiling fans in each of the bedrooms... we just got around to actually installing lights in 2 of the bedrooms about 6 months ago!
hth!
it looks nice, but i hate this too. it is kind of funny when you are outside at dusk and watch all of your neighbors' lights come on one by one.
my neighbor's sensor broke and she replaced it - now her light NEVER turns off, it is on 24x7. ha!
we plan to do roughin for ceiling fan/lights in all of the bedrooms. But we are major fan/sleepers so I can see these being purchased and installed ASAP.
Our lamp post included is a dusk to dawn post. I never thought about the sensor going bad.
Our neighbor said they just never replaced the bulbs in theirs once they burnt out, so that's one way of turning it off! I do like the light it adds, and I think they look nice, but I could do without them staying on all night. I don't notice as much now, but it drove me a little crazy in the beginning (especially before our blinds were in)!
We ended up dropping the speakers too and I'm glad we did. Noise really travels!
I second the guardian keypad in the bedroom. I couldn't imagine not having one in there.
We added a couple outlets, nothing major. We put one higher up on the wall, by the cable, in our bedroom. And I can't remember if the outlet in the master closet was included or we added it.