If building again - what to do differently?

Short addendum to my list:

11. Emotion is more important than perfection. A relaxed attitude towards compromises ;)

....I would always prefer an existing residential area to a new development area

I always thought so too, until we built in an existing residential area 20 years ago. More or less the entire neighborhood caused us (at that time a young family with small children!) nothing but trouble up to the point of a lawsuit; they simply didn’t want the property to be developed (one person had even used it as an extension of his own garden)! Now we are building in a new development area and yes, of course, we miss the mature garden.

After 4 years my conclusion: We had a tight budget, so sometimes we saved too much. One more Velux would be nice. Two more outdoor sockets. Three more in the kitchen. Instead of solar thermal, photovoltaic modules on the roof. The bedroom window as a patio door would have been nice too. Roller shutters: We never missed them. Not even today.

The problem is, when building new, the needs have usually changed and thus the entire house planning also changes. In this respect, I cannot say "I need a vestibule for the children's wet clothes" – in a few years they are no longer "children" but teenagers, and the currently desired vestibule is already history before the new build.

For me, the most important thing when building a house is ultimately the location. Location and neighborhood are more important than any automation (nice to have, but not vital) or the last power outlet.

Only roller shutters do not help with burglary protection.

Why not?
Ours cannot be pushed up.
Of course, nothing is insurmountable, but everything that makes it harder helps.

So our dishwasher is running right now. I find it very quiet. Often I have to check if it's still running. The girls are much louder even though they are just playing normally.

Kathi walks through your house and analyzes what you like and what you don't. That's the only thing that counts. Listen around the property at different times. Check for distant streets. People have varying sensitivity to noise.

As we established in the OP's earlier thread, disturbing loudness is a subjective perception. Our 10-year-old Beko €200 dishwasher recently gave out. We got a Bosch Series 4 dishwasher. We hear it zero, or at least we don’t perceive any disturbing noise.

I like to point out mentality and origin here. In Poland, there is no such thing as midday quiet time. And at my mother-in-law’s place, schnitzels are ALWAYS made/pounded one floor up on Sundays at noon. It always takes about 30 minutes. Some would freak out, but for us it’s “normal.” This is not meant as a criticism à la Brandenburg is ugly :-) rather an observation/explanation. What is unacceptable noise disturbance for one person is an unnoticeable sound for another :cool: