Tips before starting construction - What should you urgently pay attention to?

Is it common for clients to want to make numerous changes during the construction phase? What kind of ideas come up then? If one has spent months beforehand dealing with the floor plan and the features, everything should be clear by then, right?

What kind of ideas do you come up with there? If you have spent months beforehand dealing with the floor plan and the equipment, everything should eventually be clear, right?

Why? Equipment only comes after the shell construction in solid construction.

very important if the principle of finality by @11ant is not consistently followed: ask about the "price tag" attached to every change / order!

I interpret the title and the wording "shortly before/during the construction phase" as the stage "all stamps dry, concrete mixer is about to start" and thus clearly beyond sample selection issues. Looking ahead, I only see the question of the floor tiler whether the joints should be parallel or diagonal to the walls. I consider everything else settled - hence the note, now it should stay that way. Once the wounds of compromise have crusted over, I would not reopen them. Labor doesn’t come any faster if the expectant father paces back and forth in front of the delivery room. There are phases on the construction site where, as a client, you only sit on the bench (and shouldn’t trash-talk the referee if you don’t want to be sent off). You have to get through that.

The point is, 2D or 3D drawings naturally look completely different than when you stand in the finished rooms, feeling the haptics, optics, and acoustics. It is in the nature of things that you have ideas, discard old ones, and then revisit them. If you then have the opportunity to soften the finality of the detailed planning again, that's nice.

The question, of course, is crucial: how do you build. If you have signed everything and are building with a general contractor, you should avoid subsequent corrections. That can only become ultra expensive and will no longer be proportional to the benefit unless there were really serious planning errors. If you plan that in advance and these small things are part of the requirements, that's something else. And you should definitely invest a lot of brainpower upfront and feel free to ask in forums and, of course, friends and acquaintances. Totally legitimate and good! Just as when you build yourself, you can of course lay an additional supply line to a floor box at any time. It costs you a bit of time and a few Marks and Fifties for cable + desired box. Another change for us was that we wanted a pellet stove in the living area. Masoning a chimney afterward is obviously not so easy anymore, so a stainless steel external chimney had to serve. But now we have also chosen the cross-section so that, if needed, we could connect a real chimney if we wanted...

We stumbled into building like the virgin into the child. From the price negotiation for the existing failed construction project to the start of our construction, we had just 4.5 months. Our floor plan was finalized in practically 3 weeks. We are very satisfied with the (hopefully soon) finished house, but would we have had to decide every little detail in advance? That would have gone terribly wrong. With a lot of brainpower, you can certainly achieve an 80%/90% solution... Even large IT projects are built agile today ;)

Is it common for a client to want to make numerous changes during the construction phase?

Certainly, that is more the rule... or has everyone already forgotten the BER again?

The point is that on 2D or 3D drawings everything of course looks quite different than when you stand in the finished rooms, feeling the haptics, optics, and acoustics. It is in the nature of things that you have ideas, discard old ones, and revisit them. If you then have the possibility to soften the finality of the detailed (finest) planning once more, that’s nice.

The question, of course, is crucial how you build. If you have signed everything and are building with a general contractor, you should refrain from later corrections. That can only become ultra expensive and will no longer be proportional to the benefit unless really major planning errors have occurred. (...) We fell into building like the virgin to the child. From price negotiation for the existing failed construction project to our construction start we only had 4.5 months. Our floor plan was basically ready in three weeks. We are very satisfied with the (hopefully soon) finished house but would we have had to decide every little thing in advance? That would have gone terribly wrong, but with a lot of brainpower you can certainly get an 80%/90% solution... Even large IT projects are built agile nowadays ;)

Although we are building a solid wood house, small changes were still easily possible for us once the shell was already standing. Without costs. It also depends on the company after all – that’s why my tip: the choice of the general contractor is extremely important. And: how you deal with them. Bringing cake now and then and putting something to drink might possibly increase the willingness to still make minor changes in addition.

Regarding the construction matters, one can hardly say anything because of the subjectivity, I think. Moreover, I believe that a 100% solution does not exist, or at most can be the 100% solution for ten years. Then taste and personal needs usually change significantly again.