Building a New Home? Read this before Design Center Week

This post was originally written in 2020. After six years and going through this process with many more clients, plus seeing how the choices I made in my new build wore over time, it was time for a refresh. Read on for our our tried and true recommendations.

If you're building a new home with a production or semi-custom builder, congratulations! You're about to make one of the biggest investments of your life.

You're also about to make hundreds of permanent design decisions in a matter of days. Cabinets. Countertops. Lighting. Electrical. Tile. Flooring. Plumbing. Hardware. Appliances.

One meeting after another. One decision after another. And somehow you're expected to know which upgrades are worth the extra thousands of dollars and which ones you'll wish you'd skipped, all without falling victim to decision fatigue and just saying “Whatever, I don’t freaking care anymore.”

If that sounds overwhelming, well, it is.

After walking dozens of homeowners through Design Center Week, both as designers and personally on my own home, we've learned that the biggest mistakes rarely happen because someone has "bad taste." They happen because people are making really big decisions, really fast, without a gameplan.

This guide is everything we wish every homeowner knew before walking into the Design Center.

First, a note about Builders and The Design Center Process

Production builders are fantastic for a lot of people. Compared to a fully custom home, you typically get a more predictable timeline, a streamlined process, and fewer decisions overall.

The catch? (of course there's a catch)

Those decisions don't disappear. They get compressed. Instead of making choices over several months, you'll often make nearly every selection for your home in just a few meetings over one high-pressure-gauntlet of a week.

It feels exciting at first. Then somewhere around cabinet sample number 37 and your fourteenth countertop option, your soul quietly leaves your body.

Meanwhile someone keeps saying things like: "That upgrade is only $238, which is only 66 cents a month across the life your mortgage!" Which sounds harmless. Adorable, even. Until you've said yes 437 times to the tune of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars (plus interest).

Remember, they make the majority of their profit on the upgrades you make at the Design Center. The system is designed with pretty pitiful basic options that are “included” with your home and anything remotely aesthetically pleasing (or from this millennium) is an upgrade.

Design Centers aren’t evil. They aren’t designed to overwhelm you intentionally (or maybe they are. Kind of like casinos. No windows. High pressure. Shiny objects). The consultants are typically very nice people just doing their jobs.

But the system is built for efficiency and profit. Not for thoughtful, confident decision making.

That's because your builder has one goal at this stage: lock in every permanent decision before construction begins while getting you to spend as much as possible. They make money on speed and efficiency, not on you changing your mind during construction after you've had time to think it over.

Once you understand that, the Design Center starts to make a lot more sense. While they're optimizing for construction efficiency and profit, your job is to optimize for how you'll actually live in your home for the next twenty plus years and decide what upgrades to do with the builder, and which you can save money and/or have a better set of options doing on you own after closing.

If You Read Nothing Else...

Here's the mistake we see most often: people choose everything individually.

A cabinet color they like.

A backsplash they like.

A countertop they like.

A light fixture they kind of maybe like because they've been there for six hours and just want to go home.

The problem?

A beautiful home isn't a collection of beautiful individual choices. It's a collection of choices that work together.

Before we ever attend Design Center meetings with our clients, we've already developed:

• a Whole-House design direction

• a Cohesive color palette

• Mood Boards

• Preliminary Budgets with pre-identified spending priorities

• a running list of what should happen now versus after closing

The Design Center should be for confirming your plan, not creating one on the fly.

BEFORE you walk into your First Meeting

1. Decide Your Budget Before You See the Pretty Things

It's much easier to decide, "We're comfortable spending $75,000 in upgrades" before you walk in the door.

It's much harder after you've fallen in love with the marble tile, upgraded cabinetry finishes, and the fancy brass plumbing fixtures that you just have to have.

Know your ceiling. Leave a contingency for the thing you don’t know that you’ll absolutely want to have. Future You will be grateful.

2. Build a Whole-House Vision

Don't design room by room. Design your home (see, Biggest Mistake above).

Think about how colors flow. What materials repeat. The metal finishes you’ll use throughout. How the entire house should feel. Your kitchen shouldn't feel like it belongs to one family while your master bathroom belongs to another.

3. Start a Spreadsheet

Like, immediately. You’re going to log every upgrade, every price, for every room, and document every single decision.

You'll hear things like:

"This tile is only $475."

"This cabinet paint is another $120."

"You can add drawers here for just $600."

After about 12 minutes, those numbers stop meaning anything. Track them. Don't rely on memory. You will not have a single brain cell left at the end of this week. Trust me.

4. Know What Can Wait

Not everything needs to happen before you move in. Some things are expensive and disruptive to change later, while others take one afternoon and a screwdriver (or a handyman). Understanding the difference can save you tens of thousands of dollars. Don't worry, I'm about to tell you what they are.

5. Think About Furniture Before You Pick Finishes

One of the biggest mistakes we see is people designing the house first and worrying about furniture later. Which I get, but…Where will your dining table actually sit? Will your sectional block that floor outlet? Where is your headboard wall? Will your breakfast nook really fit the table you have in mind?

It's much easier to move an outlet on paper than after drywall. Thinking through furniture layouts early helps almost every other Design Center decision fall into place.

OK, now onto the nuts and bolts advice.

Upgrade these with your Builder

Cabinetry

If you've spent any time around here, you already know I'm obsessed with cabinetry. Not because cabinets are gorgeous (I mean, they are). But because almost nothing else in your home is going to impact the function of your space and your daily life quite as much.

Great cabinetry makes your everyday life easier. Poor cabinetry annoys you every single morning for eternity. If your budget allows, this is one of the best places to invest.

Consider:

• Cabinets up to the ceiling

• Full-overlay doors

• Soft-close drawers, everywhere possible but especially in the Kitchen

• Drawers, drawers, drawers. Base cabinets with doors are the worst in most areas functionally.

• Pull-out trash and recycling

• Specialty storage for spices, utensils, knives, cookie sheets, hair tools, charging devices, and more

• Glass-front display cabinets (with lights!) where appropriate

These are difficult and expensive to add later. Investing here almost always pays dividends.

Painted Cabinetry

This is the main thing I've changed my mind about since building my home in 2020.

Years ago, our builder wanted an outrageous amount to paint our cabinets ($11K for anything non-white), so we had them painted after closing instead. And….they haven’t held up very well. I'm going to be spending the rest of that $11K to paint them again someday soon when I can stomach it.

Depending on your builder, you may have a wider variety of options than just white and off-white. If the price is reasonable, I'd upgrade with the builder. That first finish tends to be far more durable than field-re-painted cabinets.

Wood Flooring

If you're planning on engineered or hardwood floors throughout your main living areas, it’s best to install them now, even if the cost is slightly higher than hiring a flooring pro yourself.

Why? The real question isn't about who installs the floors. It's how and when the floors are installed.

If the builder installs the wood, they'll typically lay the flooring first, then install the cabinetry and baseboards on top. If it’s carpet or tile going down, often that all goes down in a different sequence.

That creates a few problems if you decide to replace the flooring later:

• Your new hardwood can't extend underneath the cabinets. Say hello to never getting your dishwasher in or out.

• Quarter-round or shoe moulding is often needed around the cabinet bases and baseboards to hide gaps, or you may have to rip out all of those brand new baseboards that you just paid for because the thicknesses of the materials are different.

  
  

The finished product can feel more like a remodel than a brand new home.

Electrical

If there's one category that has climbed my priority list over the last decade, it's electrical.

Not necessarily the builder's decorative light fixtures (those are typically overpriced and basically trash). I'm talking about:

• outlet locations

• switch locations

• recessed lighting

• sconces

• under-cabinet lighting

• floor outlets

While you're at it, think beyond today's needs. Want a Christmas tree that doesn't require extension cords? Add a switched outlet. Planning for an EV someday? Ask about a charger. Dreaming of motorized shades, landscape lighting, security cameras, or even a heated toilet seat? Now is the time to rough in the power. Future You will thank Present You.

You really only get one clean shot at these. For one of our recent clients , we added sconces above their kitchen windows during our electrical meeting. It wasn't an expensive upgrade, but it completely changed how custom the kitchen will feel once it's built. Those are the upgrades we love.

Doors

Both interior doors and exterior doors are best done with your builder. Often the cost to upgrade from the standard interior door to a more attractive door is only hundreds for the entire house. If you were to replace each door later, each will cost you easily $250 or more.

Replacing doors later can also mean replacing trim, repainting, adjusting hardware, and more labor than most people expect. Easy math.

Stairs

Want wood stairs? Nicer banisters and rails? Do them now. They are built differently than carpeted stairs (carpet is standard with most builders) and are hella expensive to change later.

Upgrades to do on your own After Closing

Decorative Lighting

OH MAN. Guys, this is the big one. Builder markups on light fixtures are huge. Take the basic fixtures that the builders offer you and select your own lighting to update later, either right away, over time, or only in select areas. Hire an electrician, handyman, or DIY those bad boys after you move in. Donate the ones you take down to Habitat or sell them on Facebook Marketplace.

You'll have far more options, and usually for less money.

Cabinet hardware

The standard options are limited and expensive, and cabinet hardware adds so much personality to a space. Purchase these on your own and either install them yourself or have a handyman add them for you.

Wallpaper

Want some cute wallpaper in the Powder Bath or your Kid’s room? Don’t pay the builder. They will charge an arm and a leg to prep the wall to a smooth finish, and then your wallpaper options will be extremely limited (if they offer it at all). Have them paint the wall your standard color, and then hire it out after the fact.

Multiple Room Paint Colors

Most builders will want you to choose 1 color for all of your walls and 1 color for all of your doors, trim, and cabinetry. If your daughter has her heart set on a blush pink bedroom, or you want a moody color in your dining room, or a set of doors painted an accent color, definitely do this on your own. Whether DIY'd or by hiring a painter, it will save you a ton.

Custom Trim

If your heart craves wainscotting, coffered ceilings, white oak beams, and all those little details that make older homes charming (and the lack of them make new builds sterile), do this on your own with a trim carpenter after closing. You'll have more options on design, style, and color. This isn't where you want something standard.

Extra Cabinetry

Again, with the cabinetry. It just makes a home. Clearly your builder is going to take care of your kitchen and baths, but don't let them near the other rooms. Offices, playrooms, media rooms, whiskey lounges, window seats, anywhere where you think an extra wall of cabinets would be amazing, have this done after the fact. It will likely be less expensive and you'll be able to get exactly what you want. Builders are set up for standards, not customizations.

The Maybe Pile - it's a tossup

Door Hardware

This is one of those things you say you’re going to change after closing, but you rarely do (looking at myself here, many years later, with the same basic satin-nickel boring door knobs). And when you do change them after closing, be aware that the paint on the door might have to be re-done because the backplate has imprinted its shape into the door.

If the builder has a hardware set that’s pretty and doesn’t break the bank, let them do it. Otherwise do it on your own, but don’t wait a decade, okay?!

Appliances

Most new builds these days come with a decent quality stainless steel appliance package. For many people this is FINE. I just happened to have my heart set on Café Appliances and I was willing to spend a bit to get them (hey, we all have our things). But some builders have lovely appliances built into their offerings.

Sometimes builder packages make sense, and other times bringing your own appliances saves money or gives you exactly what you want. Every builder is different, every package is different, so run the numbers.

Tile

There is no polite way to say this – builder basic tile is generally fugly. It’s 12x12, it’s textured, it’s peachy-beige, looks dirty all the time, and it’s straight out of 1991. But demolishing and replacing tile can be messy and time consuming. You may decide to avoid the hassle and select to have the builder do all of your tile. Or you might get selective.

Here’s how to decide:

• Tile that is easy to swap later - backsplashes, laundry room floors, anywhere where you don't have to remove a cabinet or risk piercing a moisture barrier when removing and installing is fair game to change later.

• Tile that is difficult to swap later – Tile buried under cabinetry (especially cabinets with plumbing), or anything in the shower, is tricker. If you touch shower wall tile, you may have to go all the way back to the cement wall board and start the process again so you don't have leaks and mold. So be warned.

• If they don’t have what you want – Most design centers have pretty decent options, but if you have Magic Designer Eyes like me, you may already have your heart set on something else. If it's the lynch pin of your entire home, just take the 12x12 ugly free tile and swap it later.

  
  

Countertops

Sometimes builder pricing on counters is competitive, and sometimes it isn't. Do a little research. Engineered quartz slabs can run $2-4K, but if you want Taj Mahal Quartzite, those bad boys can cost you $10-15K per slab. You need to know what you want, and what you're willing to spend for it.

Also, think about downstream consequences. Demolition can cause scratches and dings in all your pretty, perfect finishes that are already installed. Will the sinks be salvageable or have to be replaced? You’ll need a plumber to reconnect faucets. If the countertop thickness is different, it will impact any backsplashes you have installed.

Plumbing fixtures

Similar to lighting, the builder is probably only going to offer you 1 style in 1 finish. And if you have your heart set on unlacquered brass faucets, they simply aren't going to have it.

Many builders offer Moen or Delta, which often have universal valves (the part in the wall) that would allow you to swap for another Moen or Delta fixture later without major construction. So try and find out which brand they're offering and do a search to see if you could swap them out later.

The Biggest Mistakes We See People Make

After guiding homeowners through countless Design Center appointments, and visiting many an new build after construction is complete (and being called in to fix it), these are the mistakes we see over and over again.

Spending evenly across the whole house.

Your budget shouldn't be democratic. Spend where it matters most. Don’t feel bad about letting some rooms be basic (laundry room cabinets) while others are showstoppers (your kitchen).

Phoning it in on your electrical meeting.

Outlet locations matter (if you’ve ever had to wrestle a charger behind a headboard and wondered why that outlet isn’t behind the nightstand, then you know). Switches in intuitive locations matter. If you don't have them where you need them, you'll notice these decisions every day. I know this one is mind numbing, but you want to be very intentional here.

Designing each room independently.

The Design Center typically has you make choices room by room for efficiency, but remember to think about the home as one complete story, not just a room-by-room grab bag.

Forgetting how you'll actually live.

Do you bake? Host? Have dogs? Young kids? Love coffee and red wine? Everyday routines should influence design decisions more than trends.

Falling in love with The One Thing

There will inevitably be one very pretty thing you see at the Design Center that you’ll swoon over and have to have. That’s cool, but pretty please be sure it goes with all of the other decisions you’ve made. I cannot overemphasize how many times I’ve seen folks splurge on a ridiculously gorgeous (and expensive) mosaic tile that went with exactly ZERO other of their selections and looks absurd once it's installed. A very expensive sore thumb.

Not asking what an upgrade actually costs.

I know, it’s awkward and moderately annoying to ask “and how much is that upgrade?” literally hundreds of times during these meetings. It doesn’t matter. Be annoying. Never assume. Always ask.

Our Best Advice

Your goal isn't to say yes to every upgrade or to say no to everything. It’s to optimize your investment. It's to understand:

• What's expensive to change later?

• What's easy to update later?

• What's worth paying for?

• What's is marked up to an absurd level over retail costs (aka where am I being taken advantage of)?

• What's genuinely valuable and totally worth it?

The smartest homes aren't the ones with the biggest upgrade budgets, they're the ones where every dollar was spent intentionally.

TLD RULE OF THUMB: If it's difficult, destructive, or ridiculously expensive to change later, strongly consider doing it with the Builder. If it can be changed with a screwdriver, a gallon of paint, or a handyman after closing, save your damn money.

Your Design Center Checklist

My to do list people, this is for you:

✔ Set your maximum upgrade budget (leave a contingency).

✔ Build a whole-house Mood Board.

✔ Prioritize where you'll spend; know where you can skimp.

✔ Start a spreadsheet to track upgrade costs.

✔ Ask for multiple pricing scenarios to weigh options.

✔ Photograph everything. You won't remember.

✔ Sleep on major decisions whenever possible.

✔ Triple-check every selection before signing (there are almost always mistakes).

✔ Get it in writing. If it's not on a document, it didn't happen.

At the end of every meeting, ask for a printed copy of every single selection you made. Then go back to your home or hotel room, grab tacos and margs, spread everything out across the bed, and review it one more time. We've caught incorrect cabinet finishes, wrong hardware, missing upgrades, and pricing mistakes simply because we slowed down long enough to look at everything with fresh eyes.

Final Thoughts

Remember: your builder is only going to build this house once.

You have exactly one opportunity make many of these decisions before drywall goes up.

Take your time (as much as you can at least). Ask questions. Build a plan before you build your home. Future You will be incredibly glad you did.

And if you'd rather not navigate your Builder's Design Center alone, this is exactly what we help our clients do on the regular. We build the vision before the meetings begin, walk into the Design Center with a plan, track the budget as decisions are made, and help determine what belongs in the builder's scope versus what can wait until after closing, and what those future updates will cost.

Whether you're building in our stomping grounds of Prosper, Celina, Frisco, McKinney, Dallas, or anywhere else in North Texas, our Team can guide you through the process in person. We've also helped homeowners virtually around the country who simply wanted an expert in their corner before making one of the biggest investments of their lives.

Because the goal isn't simply to build a house. It's to create a home that still feels like you long after Design Center Week is over.

You've got this.

And if you don't, call me.