After nearly six years in our home, we’ve had plenty of time to reflect on what works—and what we’d change. While there are many things we love, there are also design choices that, in hindsight, we’d approach differently. From functionality to aesthetics, here are the top things we’d do differently in our next home.
Quick back story: We designed and built our home in 2018, moving in just weeks before our daughter was born.
Building a home was never part of our plan, and only happened after a house fire destroyed the original home we were renovating.
While we were incredibly grateful for the opportunity to design and build a new home, our budget was limited to our insurance payout and savings put aside for the previous renovation. As first-time builders, we did the best we could within those constraints.
With that said, here are the top 5 regrets we have:
Jump to:
Not enough kitchen storage
When we designed our kitchen in 2018, it was just the two of us, and our storage needs were pretty minimal. Our kitchen footprint was on the smaller side but I wanted a light and minimalist feel with open shelving.
For the first several years, it worked really well for us. We added smart organization features and maximized every inch of our cabinet space.
Now with two kids, our pantry is overflowing and we wish we had more space for small appliances. Building extra pantry storage in the adjacent laundry room has helped, but a few more cabinets would make a big difference (and no, the space is not quite large enough for an island!)
Too many ceiling lights
This one is pretty minor, but it’s a common decision that has to be made whether you’re building or renovating a home.
In my opinion, most builders and architects tend to overdo it on the lighting, particularly in kitchen, dining, and living spaces. We have ceiling lights on four separate circuits just in our small kitchen/dining/hallway area and it’s completely overkill.
I avoid using the “big lights” whenever possible. Sconces, lamps, and chandeliers create a much cozier ambiance compared to the harsh, institutional feel of overhead lighting (yes, I have strong feelings about this topic). I talked more about the impact of bulbs and color temperature in our evening home tour post—the right lighting is a game changer and worth paying attention to!
No curbless shower
Fun fact: you have to make this decision early on, before your foundation is even poured. Our builder didn’t ask us and by the time I brought it up, it was too late.
Curbless showers are certainly more of a “nice to have” rather than a necessity, but in our case, the tile has made it that much worse. Rather than using a threshold, we tiled the top, and it has been a pain to keep clean between the hard water stains, grout lines, and exposed rough cut edges.
Apart from the extra maintenance, curbless showers just look cleaner and more streamlined—would you agree?
No front porch
I can’t decide if this is truly a regret or just something I’d do differently next time, because I adore our turret. When designing our house, Lucas and I both had our heart set on this specific look and nothing could change our mind.
While it’s unique and charming, it has come with its challenges. Our solid mahogany door is exposed to direct sunlight and unforgiving weather all year long, and it has warped and cracked, allowing bugs and rain inside. We’ve had it professionally refinished, but the only fix is a new door.
The kids also love playing out front, and it would be so nice to have a covered area for all of us to hang out in.
It’s not really possible to add a front porch with the current design of our home, but its something we’d love to have in the next house.
No balcony
This is my #1 regret and honestly the main reason this can’t be our forever home. One of my greatest pleasures in life is watching sunsets and thunderstorms while breathing in the tropical Florida air (that’s mostly why we moved here!) but we currently have no place to do that.
Our house sits under a massive oak tree, and we don’t have any western facing windows with a clear view of the sky. I dream about the day when I can curl up with my family on our balcony while watching lighting in the distance, hearing the rumbles of thunder and feeling the warm wind on our skin.
I know this isn’t most people’s fantasy and not everyone wants a balcony, but for me, it’s everything 😉
Honorable mention: no covered outdoor area, period. We’ve tossed around the idea of adding a pergola to the back of our house, but it would reduce the limited natural light we get in the kitchen, and it wouldn’t be fully weather proof. I would love a proper covered seating area in the next house!
And there are our top five regrets/changes/wishes for the next house. Can you relate to any of these? If you built your home, do you have any regrets?
Next week, I’ll be sharing the things that were 100% worth the cost when we built our home—stay tuned for more!
Sandi says
What a fantastic post! Thank you for being so honest and vulnerable and sharing what you would do differently! This post could be so helpful to someone building or doing a major renovation!
Jenna Sue says
Yes, that’s the goal! A lot of great advice has been shared here.
Sonja says
I love posts like this – so many people say they’d change absolutely nothing about their homes, which isn’t useful at all. Thanks for the honesty and the tips!
I’ve got an almost 100 year old house and there are lots of things (like a primary bathroom) that I’d love to tackle someday; hearing opinions from people living with their current design choices is so helpful.
Jenna Sue says
I’m loving all the input everyone is sharing! I hope it’s helpful for those who are in the planning/construction phase.
Sandi says
Loved reading this. Your home is beautiful and your blog is one of my all-time favorites. The next house you do for your family will be spectacular when you address how you want to live differently.
There is always something in every build that isn’t exactly the way you want it but you will make it amazing for your family and I look forward to the projects and design!
Jenna Sue says
Thank you Sandi! We knew going in that we would have “regrets”, and honestly I was expecting to have more, so we did pretty well!
Victoria says
I completely agree about the covered outdoor space. Where I grew up in Michigan, we had a home with a huge deck in the back (about 1,800 sq. feet), but none of it was covered. Where we lived, summers weren’t that hot, but we almost never sat out on the deck.
Two moves later, both of our subsequent homes have had covered outdoor areas against the back of the house and we spend a lot of time out there in the warmer seasons. There’s just something psychologically appealing about a cozy tucked-in space where we’re outside, but still sheltered. It feels great. I hope you get back to that one day, despite your otherwise-lovely current home.
Jenna Sue says
I’m glad you are able to enjoy your outdoor space now! We can do that for about 6-8 months out of the year here, when it’s not too hot/humid/mosquito infested 😉 Looking forward to getting the chance someday!
Holly says
I lived in a home with a front porch and it made our living room so dark, I hated it. I would never want a front porch again because I like the sunlight streaming into our windows.
Jenna Sue says
That’s valid! I guess this would vary depending on the location of the porch.
Karen Reno says
We have a new build from 2017. I love our home as it has loads of natural light and a large kitchen with a massive storage island. We have a huge walk-in shower and love it. But I echo regrets from way too many canned lights in the kitchen and great room. We don’t have a front porch either and I sure wish we did. And the one odd design that I really dislike is that there’s a door to the garage from the foyer. I wish we had a separate room with storage before entering the main living area. By the way I love your IG account. You are so talented.
Jenna Sue says
Thanks for sharing those, Karen! We also don’t have a storage area when entering our home but it’s on the “someday” plan to add 😀
Mirror says
Our regrets:
1. Not checking how big our cars are for the garage space. We really wish the garage was about 5 feet deeper. We can’t fit our truck inside.
2. Too big pantry. We chose that over a coat closet (we have a mudroom with hooks). Now we have a half empty pantry with one side converted to hold coats. We really need a good place for the “coat closet junk” (like vacuums, mop, etc)!
3. Biggest mistake: removing a bedroom from the plan. We didn’t save any money removing the 4th bedroom and making bedrooms 2 & 3 bigger, and we massively hurt resale of our home. I love the extra space we got in the bedrooms but it’s really not needed. We thought we were being smart because we don’t need to clean, heat, and furnish a bedroom we don’t need. But now we regret the loss in home value and the convenience we could have had for extra space for guests. (We have an unfinished basement that we plan to add the 4th bedroom to eventually, but still.)
4. Using irregular pavers that stain easily. Really wish our hardscaping contractor had pointed out the issues we would deal with like water pooling (despite a slope) and how easily the pavers would stain. We would have paid extra for something better. And they convinced us to use mortar, which cracked immediately. This was a very VERY expensive project with now a ton of maintenance needed 1 year later.
5. Not enough wall!! Our front door is flanked by 2 open rooms. I don’t mind that, but the openings are TOO large. I wish the bump outs in the openings were 4ft wide to make fitting furnishings easier. As it is, they are only 18″ wide so not even a regular cabinet can go next to it without sticking out.
6. No soundproofing the bathrooms with insulation. Enough said.
Not enough people talk about house orientation and windows. I don’t regret it, but I wish we had more natural light. Adding more windows is on our “maybe one day” list.
***
We designed our house to be able to add a balcony later. We aaaaalmost put down a deposit to do it this year (we decided to tackle boring quality of life improvements and add sprinklers and expand our driveway). I have always wanted one despite people saying they don’t use theirs. I hope you get it one day!
SH says
Yes to the lack of insulation in bathrooms! Why is this not standard? Why don’t more people talk about it? Thanks for mentioning it; I thought it was just me😊
Jenna Sue says
I’ve never thought about it but I agree, it should be standard. It really doesn’t add much more work/expense at all when the walls are already open.
Jenna Sue says
Thanks for sharing your regrets. Ouch, that garage regret is a biggie! Maybe you can build cabinetry to hold the cleaning supplies instead of the coat hooks? Having a good place to store those makes such a difference.
I hope you get your balcony soon, too!
Taylor says
The over doing it on the lights is spot on. But I would also be worried about under-doing it. If you could, which lights would you take out/not have put in in the first place?
Jenna Sue says
Yeah, you have to find the right balance. I would have just done 4 lights in the kitchen (which I still would never use) and simplified the rest of the electrical plan so we only had 1-2 circuits for the dining/hallway area.
Sydney says
Jenna,
I found your blog right after the fire and read along as you built. What a beautiful home, and you’re always coming up with unique and gorgeous additions to your decor!
Would you guys consider a kitchen version 2 upgrade to add upper cabinets? The cabinets that go clear to the ceiling are such an upscale and beautiful addition.
Jenna Sue says
Thank you, Sydney! I don’t think it’s worth it for us to renovate this house since we don’t plan to live here long term. I do enjoy aspects of our open shelving so it’s not enough of a pain point for us to put time and money into changing it at this stage.
Amanda says
I love when people are honest and share these kinds of regrets! Building or renovating top is bottom is a huge undertaking so learning from others is a huge, huge help!! Thanks for being so open and humble to share!
Jenna Sue says
Yes, the amount of decision making is enormous and I’m sure we’ll have regrets in the next one, too. Hopefully they’ll be small enough to live with though!
Alicia says
This is all great advice, as we are going through a new build right now. There are already things I didn’t realize I had to think about or know right off the bat and have maybe made a couple small mistakes already. I definitely don’t want upper cabinets, but we do have a 9×4 ft island. That was a must.for me because we do SO much on our island, from hanging out/serving meals for parties and holidays to having a huge space to do craft projects with my kids, it’s one non negotiable for me!
Jenna Sue says
An island will be a non negotiable in our next kitchen too. They make such a difference!
Susan says
We completely renovated a 1934 house and had some of the same challenges. Our builder put in oodles of canned lighting when we weren’t on site. I hate them. Luckily we have other lighting so we hardly use them and we insisted the contractor put them on a dimmer switch to keep the impact as low as possible. We toyed with the idea of a curbless shower and I’m so glad we didn’t do it. Many friends have water issues spreading out from the shower to the floor. As a retired senior, that would spell trouble. 🙂 I love your dream of a balcony. You have impeccable taste.
Jenna Sue says
That is a great point that I hadn’t thought of! Having the right threshold on a curbed shower is really the key here.
Joanna says
I hear you on the porch. We have an L shaped porch on the front and another covered one in the back off the kitchen. It’s the second house that we’ve had a porch and I wouldn’t be without one. It’s great to sit with coffee in the morning or a glass of wine in the evening. Watching storms is a favourite pastime of ours.
The only regret I have is letting the showroom person and contractor talk me into large grey tiles for both baths and laundry room. I’ll have to live with it. Perhaps, a runner in each room would hide some and make those rooms more pleasing.
What about building a gazebo? The roof would protect you and your furniture from the elements and give you a pleasing place to sit.
Catherine says
I really love when professional designers share these types of things. Construction and remodeling come with a seemingly never-ending number of (essentially permanent!) decisions to make on the fly. We looked for a house to buy for nearly 2 years and finally found a fixer-upper. It needed a LOT of work, so we have had to stay in our current house while the new house is being remodeled. But we didn’t have any time to spare – construction started two weeks after closing! I’m pretty indecisive and I like to take my time with decisions, but this was not an option. Two bathrooms gutted, kitchen floors replaced, kitchen cabinets painted, new countertops, wood floors refinished, every room painted! So, while it’s not new construction, the remodel is extensive and comes with many of the same types of decisions.
I’m glad you mentioned the curbless shower. The new showers we installed have curbs, but I elected to put stone on top rather than tile, so hopefully, that makes them easier to clean. I wish I had spent more time thinking about my shower niches and had them hidden in pony walls rather than front and center.
I regret putting in a prefabricated painted vanity rather than just splurging on a custom-built stained wood vanity.
We didn’t really have an option in this kitchen, but if I were to build a new house, I would never put my cooktop on the island. It needs to go against an exterior wall with a big vent hood!! I would also put the sink against a wall with a window and have a large island for nothing but food prep (maybe a small auxiliary sink).
I’m putting honed marble (dolomite) countertops in the kitchen because quartzite was just not in the budget… I’m hoping not to regret this decision! I’ve done a lot of research and I’m comfortable with the inevitable etching.
I love your turret and the elevation of your house in general, but I do understand wanting a porch and balcony. I live in Louisiana, where both things are common. I also dream about having a big front porch with a view of a bayou surrounded by Spanish moss draped live oaks… hopefully someday!
Jenna Sue says
Thank you for the insight! I too would love marble but am not convinced the maintenance is worth it at this stage of life. I hope it ends up being the right choice for you!
Michele M. says
I can see your points, truly. But wow do I ever love your home. It is so incredible. I am older – so my regret for mine is simply not getting things the way I wanted them sooner. I am conservative on spending – but I waited to long on some much-needed changes. But as much as my house still needs help I am truly blessed with the brightest natural light and the entire back of the house is full on west facing and I have a little covered patio (want it to be larger and nicer so badly) that I watch sunsets every day. I feel you on that one. It’s seriously my fav part of the day – and then it turns into the Blue Hour, ah, such beauty. Till you get that, hang in there and know the rest of us drool on our keyboards every single time you share your home with us.
ps: getting the primary bath redone in May and I just signed the paperwork yesterday. I went from a very low profile shower front to a medium one…..not nearly as tall or large as yours. Their showroom had both and I initially wanted a low one thinking down the road when we’re super feeble………plus it looked cool……but I liked the medium one with a slightly thicker base for the door. Jenna Sue, do you think I am making a mistake? After reading your post I am wondering if I have. There’s no grout – it is smooth – but I am worried now. If you could respond privately so I don’t miss your thoughts I would certainly appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Gotta love First World concerns, eh? Peace be with you.
Mirror says
We have the same style as Jenna’s and it is a major hard water problem (even with a water softener). We built our home and I told the builder I wanted a solid threshold, but they did tile+grout accidentally. We decided to keep it and boy that was a mistake!
If your threshold is one large solid piece, I think you’ll be totally fine. It’s the individual tiles with grout that holds water that is the issue.
Jenna Sue says
Exactly! It’s really mostly the tile and grout that’s the issue.
Jenna Sue says
As long as there is a solid threshold piece, you should be fine! Someone else brought up another point about clogged drains that can overflow into the main bathroom area and I hadn’t thought of that, so there are downsides to curbless.