Choosing Finishes for a New Home: Where to Spend and Where to Save

Once the plan is settled, the house is still mostly lines on paper. Selections are where it turns into your house: the floor you walk on, the counter you cook on, the light switch your hand finds in the dark. It is also the stage where budgets drift and schedules slip, usually for the same few reasons.

This is part two of our four-part series on how a home gets built. Part one covered designing the house. This one is about everything that goes inside it.

You are choosing more than you think

On the outside: siding, roof color, stone or brick, windows, the front door and the garage doors. On the inside: flooring, cabinets, countertops, tile, plumbing fixtures, lighting, door hardware, paint and appliances. Each comes in its own colors, styles and price points, and most of them have to work with each other.

Nobody expects you to know all of that on day one. It just helps to know the list is long, so you can spread the decisions out instead of making forty of them in one tired afternoon.

Pick a direction before you pick a faucet

The fastest way through selections is to settle on an overall style first. Once you know you want a warm, transitional kitchen or a clean, contemporary one, most of the smaller choices narrow themselves. If you are not sure what to call what you like, our guide to interior styles is a good place to start.

Save photos as you go, of rooms you love and rooms you do not. The second set is often more useful, because it shows whoever is helping you what to steer away from.

Some choices come early, and the order matters

Selections follow the build. Items with long lead times, such as windows, cabinets and some tile, have to be ordered well before they are installed. Exterior choices need to be settled before the house is closed in, and our post on choosing a siding color covers that one in detail. Paint comes last, once the floors, cabinets and counters are decided, and our post on interior paint colors explains why.

Changing your mind after something has been ordered is where cost and delays creep in. Ask your builder for the date each decision is needed by, and treat those dates like appointments.

Know what your allowances actually buy

An allowance is an amount set aside in the price for something you have not chosen yet, such as flooring or light fixtures. Pick something that costs more and you pay the difference.

Ask any builder how their allowances work, and find out what that number actually buys before you sign. An allowance that is too low makes a price look better than it really is, and the difference shows up later.

Spend where it is hard to change later

Some finishes are expensive to redo once you live in the house. Cabinets, countertops, tile, flooring and windows all mean tearing something out to change them. That is where it is worth stretching for the quality and the look you really want.

Other things are easy to swap on a Saturday: paint, light fixtures, faucets and cabinet hardware. If the budget is tight, those are good places to save now and upgrade later.

Choose for the life you actually live

The prettiest option is not always the right one for your house. Kids and dogs are hard on floors, so look at how a flooring choice handles scratches and spills, not just how it looks in a showroom. If you cook a lot, counter space, a pantry and a range hood that vents outside will matter more than the backsplash. If you want low maintenance, ask how each material is cleaned and whether it needs sealing.

The small details people forget

Some of the most common regrets are small ones. Outlets where you will actually charge your phone. Lighting under the kitchen cabinets. A light switch at every door you walk through. Somewhere to keep the vacuum, the brooms and the recycling. Where the TV will go, and where the internet comes into the house.

None of these cost much while the house is being built. All of them are a hassle to add afterward.

Look at samples where they will live

Showroom lighting flatters everything. Look at samples in the house itself, or at home, in daylight and again in the evening, next to the finishes they will sit beside. A countertop that looks perfect on its own can clash with the floor beneath it.

Making your selections with us

Every Klemme home includes sitting down and working through the selections together, in the order the build needs them and with the finishes side by side, so each choice is made with the others in view.

If you are starting to think about finishes, or just want to talk through where to spend and where to save, we are happy to help. Next week, in part three: what actually happens during construction.

Written by Kayla Klemme