Father Knows Best

I've asked a lot of people for a lot of home building advice over the five months since we signed the contract to build our house. I've read those "what I wish I'd known" articles on Houzz and Pinterest. I've daydreamed about every possibility and thought about how I can avoid a headache later on. Through all that, the best home building advice I've gotten is from my father: take a lot of pictures before the drywall goes up.

Now take it with a grain of salt; the house isn't done, so my opinion will likely change in retrospect.

I'm obviously as sentimental as the next gal, especially when it comes to my house, so naturally I've taken a lot of pictures. But the advice isn't so I can cherish this exciting time once the house is completed; my dad suggested I take pictures of what is in the walls, so when we want to change things later, we will have a record of where important "invisible" things are.

All in all, I took about 50 pictures of details inside our walls. Should we decide to add pendant lights over our island down the road, we will want to know where that prewire is. If we want to add some storage between wall studs we'll need to know which studs have air ducts, electricity, gas, or water lines running through them. Seriously, there's like no rhyme or reason to how that stuff is laid out. And if I ever decide I want to rip down a wall, I'll have a perfect record of everything that's in there and quickly be talked out of the task.