I should add that we might like an internet-enabled video camera thingie so I can see if my burglar alarm is chewing on the gate while I'm away.

But I don't want to be able to turn on the lights from across town with my phone. (Not "I don't NEED to be able" but "I really don't WANT to be able." Luddite!)

Cat6 ethernet. You don't have to hook it all up but put it in. You will need it to check on your burglar alarm (lol!)

What about electronics wiring?

You can do a lot with a wireless modem. Just make sure you have power for it near where phone lines or cable would enter the house.

I upgraded my 1880s adobe abode by removing all but one phone circuit and connecting a wireless modem. We now have computer access all over the house.

The other house has fiberoptic cable (Ethernet connections) into all the bedrooms because wireless wasn't good enough when the computer system went in.

The advantages? None, really. I use Ethernet connection there, and wireless here.

If you want whole-house music and such, sit down and plan how you will use it. We have a wireless music device that I can send music to from my computer ... forget the name and it's not here.

air switch for garbage disposal

There is an awesome (2 threads) on the build forum about the little things that get forgotten.

Hardwired smoke/carbon monoxide detectors so that there is no need to change batteries annually. If you are going to be doing wiring at all in the attic, get these into the bedrooms, too. If you ever rent out your house, you may have to have a smoke detectors in every bedroom that is able to communicate with the other detectors. Come to think of it, your burglar alarm probably already does this, but just in case it does not, or just in case you want it to be separate so that you still have it if you drop the alarm service, you might want it anyway.

Consider whether you have an isolated bathroom that needs to get its own small tankless water heater. If you have to wait five minutes for the water to get warm enough to brush your teeth, or you would like a bidet wand; then on-demand warm water is needed. I am thinking of one just for the vanity and toilet in the main bath. Who puts the water heater on the far side of the basement from the main bathroom?

You can put ceiling fan supports where those nice ceiling lights are in case you decide to add them later. Of course, any bathroom wall that is opened should get any blocking needed for appropriate handrails. Even a half bath with handicapped rail next to and behind the toilet is a godsend to someone who is mobility impaired. Of course, a "comfort height" toilet is always welcome for we less-mobile folks.

I have seen some pretty nifty little dim lights that sit just above stair steps. One every few steps really lights the way in the dark. Some are also rigged for battery in case of a blackout. Speaking of blackouts, battery-powered safety lights that automatically come on in the dark in a power outage would be a great safety feature. Built-in spaces in the walls for fire extinguishers would be nice, too, unless you have a fire-suppression system. You could make little closets for the extinguishers with doors that match your woodwork. Beats leaving them sitting around the house, like I do!

In a garage, GFCI circuits at a workbench would be a luxury for some of us, but should be standard. I would also have a spot with room for lawn equipment that has more GFCI outlets because we are going to see more and more electrical lawn equipment. I would put this station near the door the mower will use. You might also run a separate line out to the garage for your electric car of the future, but leave it in a blank box, with the circuit breaker "off" until it is needed someday.

A kitchen-to-garage and kitchen-to-poolside and kitchen-to-garden or office-to-wherever intercom system is always nice if one of you spends a lot of time in one area and the other of you in a different area and they are not near each other. Especially if dirty hands are involved in either or both person's pursuits! I imagine this is now a wireless proposition, but the neighbors can listen in on their baby monitor! Wired is private.

Don't forget to wire the garage for smoke and CO detectors, too, and put a big fire extinguisher in there. And one in the laundry. Detectors there, too.

A thermostat that gives the outdoor temp, too, is cool.

You are going to vent the kitchen stove and oven to the outdoors, right? Not just a recirculating fan in a microwave above the cooktop? Don't forget that bathrooms also need to be vented to the outdoors. Consider an air make-up system if your house is going to be tight when you are done remodeling it. Fresh air needs to enter the home, but it can be warmed/cooled/conditioned/filtered properly and not just let loose inside. I like a thick media air filter on my HVAC. The electrostatic ones create ozone with every particle they zap, and ozone puts tiny little microscopic holes in lungs. That is why my first DH had to wear an ozone monitor in a certain lab in grad school.

I think I am running out of ideas...

Great ideas, all of 'em! I am adding onto my list. I'll check the building forum, but it seems somewhat tilted towards rather large tall overly-gabled structures. :P

We do have some of these items already but not necessarily to code.

Ethernet wired all over is a good idea--I have some lag while playing video games while keeping half an eye on the kid in the (pink) bathtub. :P

I'm pretty up on kitchen stuff (remodeled one a few years ago) and am definitely a fan of the air switch and kitchen ventilation. Currently I have neither, unless you consider downdrafting into the crawl space to be ventilation. Best performing downdraft ever thanks to the super short "duct". Eww.

Classy fire extinguisher niche! Like!

My current detectors aren't connected and I don't know how my burglar alarm would react--probably ignore them and go back to sleep. (We have the canine variety of burglar alarm/deterrent which is best for our local type of crime--daytime break-ins and squirrels.)

This is a one story ranch with a crawl-around attic and a crawlspace so adding things isn't all that tricky, just physically uncomfortable. We haven't decided yet if the new bit will be on a slab or not but it seems that if I want to switch to gas cooking in the future or add plumbing or something like that I should avoid the slab (perhaps I shall discuss that with architect).

My house originally had an intercom system. Are those things back in fashion? I'll have to check the plan when we get it drawn up to see if it's reasonable. Right now yelling works pretty well because it's just not that big. I bet the neighbors already hear that, though!

Frankly, the only high tech gizmo that's come along in the past 20 years that's improved my homelife has been the wireless router. I love my tankless water heater for the endless showers that are possible, but that's not "new" technology at all. In CA, solar for power is pretty pricy, but you can probably produce all of your domestic hot water with solar and use a gas tankless as a backup/superheater. I think you're up to date on warm floor systems, but again, that's not new either. My 1973 ranch has that as well.

I have a long driveway, and we're thinking of a driveway alarm, which may or may not happen. If we had your canine type of alarm system, it wouldn't be needed, but the feline version just isn't quite loud enough.

If I lived somewhere that it didn't freeze and were planning a renovation that maybe touched on the outdoor space, I'd plan an outdoor potting station with water and a touch faucet. I might integrate it with an outdoor kitchen by using one of those big stainless 3 compartment restaurant sinks. You can usually get those cheap at a used supply house. (The *touch* faucet brings that into the "tech" category. LOL!)

And there is one thing that I would add to a kitchen redo if I could find any sane way of justifying the expense, and that would be a Meile coffee and espresso system. It's a cruel twist of fate that you are at your worst mentally when you're making coffee in the morning and need to think about proportions and measurements and not dropping your glasses in the burr grinder, etc. It would be fabulous to roll out of bed, grab a coffee cup, and have the magic elixir dispensed. The fact that it costs more than the last used car I bought is what is holding me back. :(

Edited to add: I thought of one other thing that's high tech, but it doesn't have much to do with the nuts and bolts of the renovation. It's a Roomba. If you've got hard floors and pets and kids, you need a Roomba.

This post was edited by live_wire_oak on Wed, Aug 14, 13 at 13:40

We really don't lack for technology stuff I guess (except for the TV cable mess which can be dealt with by cabinetry and wireless--we're halfway there). Wireless technology IS getting better and the nerdy spouse tends to stay on the cusp of that.

The coffee system. Ah yes. The spouse has expressed interest in the past but we could never justify the space. I don't see the need. When I get up, the coffee is already ready. Maybe if I woke up first it would be an issue. =D

The Roomba, well, I had one once and I don't remember why it didn't work for me but it didn't. I've been thinking of trying it again though. Ever slip on a mound of camouflaged golden oak colored fur?

For some reason our ~2000 sq. ft. house has two gas water heaters in different spots. It's almost like instant hot in the bathrooms. Best darned thing ever. It's ridiculous in a house this size but that's one closet I am NOT converting to storage! I can imagine dumping the furnace in the bedroom area though. It makes me nervous for no good reason.

I'm not really familiar with warm floor systems but will look into whatever has come along since running ducts under the floor (in the uninsulated crawl space).

The outdoor potting station is on the reno list we've given the architect as a "nice-to-have". We are actually tearing out a large greenhouse and potting room for this. It's sad because they are kind of neat but we don't use them (we do use the potting room for lawn mower and garden tool storage) and they are in the way of progress! Also I can't help but feel paranoid that we have what looks like a pot farm on google maps. Pot growers are always getting robbed. Why else would you have a big greenhouse in our climate? As if that weren't enough paranoia, we are located on a major overdue earthquake fault. If we don't remove that glass greenhouse soon, we will be removing it with a broom and a dustpan.

We looked into getting an outlet for the electric car when we brought it home but the "free with state rebates" charging station wasn't free enough. But it plugs into a regular outlet if you're patient and gets charged at work 95% of the time which is a big part of the appeal.

My list grows! Thanks Y'all!!

No, intercoms are not back "in," it is just that I have been laid up a lot lately and DH is not a yeller!

If you do a slab floor, be sure to install a floor safe. Meds! You never know when a cleaning assistant, handyperson, friend, or relative becomes addicted and there go your meds! Addicts are too persistent for most locked boxes. Floor safes are best.

My idea for the car charger was for a regular electrical line, just dedicated and in the right spot. Good to hear it will be a regular outlet, too!

Sorry to hear that, Nancy. Can you make him carry a cell phone?

I will add floor safe in the garage to my list. We'll have to have a slab in there! I was thinking of a safe in the kitchen or tucked into a closet or something, more for fire than burglary but a floor safe is certainly better.

They do have car charger lines that charge 'em faster. That would be an easy future retrofit for us the way the electrical and garage are set up. (Think old school and visible.) But for now I'm happy having the spouse charge up at work where there's a state of the art solar system like you'd expect from a large tech business that wants to look good.

You'd think with all the whole-house stereo systems that are available now that some intercom function wouldn't be a big thing. (Nah, we don't want a built-in stereo! I thought we had one but it turned out that the POs had just painted over a recessed light--it looks like an old ceiling speaker until you flip the switch and it glows.)

I looked at the building forum for that thread on what stuff to get and I saw a post on garage floors and I became confused and scared. Garages have flooring now? Not plain concrete? When did this happen and why wasn't I aware of it?

Wire the walls for TVs. you need a recessed ac outlet and either 2 HDMI connections per TV going to where cable box and DVD player will be or a large conduit 1 ¼ min. Size. Cable box does not need to be any where near TV. newer remotes have signal goes through wall

Fori,

Our cordless phones have intercoms built in. They work great. Put a belt clip on the phone and I can literally be 150 feet from the house and my wife can still reach me.

When I finish remodeling, we will only have one old-style wired phone in the house (for power outages). The rest will all be a cordless base station with handsets.

To do my ethernet, I ran large conduit from the basement up to the attic and then in each room I put in as many outlets as I wanted and ran a piece of conduit from the outlet box up the wall into the attic or down into the basement. I don't have to wire each one but it's there if I ever want to. It all goes back to a 24-outlet patch panel in the basement.

I am running minimal coax for TV to each room. I already have TV over ethernet in a few rooms and I think that is the future, but that's just my opinion. It works for me.

There are some wonderful ideas in this thread. Glad I found it.

Thanks guys. There really are a lot of good ideas in this thread and even though I can't use them all, there they are for whomever wants 'em.

Looking at my phone, it does have a button labeled "int'com". Whatever could that be? Hmmmmmm.

We have coax EVERYwhere. Holes drilled in the floor in every bedroom. We aren't planning on redoing the bedrooms at this point so those holes can probably serve for modernization at that end of the house without doing further damage.

While we have phone lines in every room also, only the one in the garage is functional so by necessity (some might call it laziness) we have one corded base station with a bunch of portables elsewhere. I'm actually not sure that's worth fixing...

Hi!

A couple of things my hubby worked into the plans for our big remodel that now I love:

- Speakers in the ceiling of virtually every room. His plan is to eventually hook them up to a wireless Sonos music system. We can't afford to do all that now but the ceiling speakers aren't actually that expensive (they aren't particular to any system,) and it's A LOT easier to put them in when a ceiling is open or house is being worked on than later! In the few rooms where they are hooked up, I LOVE it - my favorite is the music in the master bath when I'm getting ready! Hubby listens to sports and news podcasts.

- TASK electric strips under our cabinets instead of wall outlets. It's easy to install and then outlets run along under the cabinet like an angled power strip. It means the tile looks nice and there is no cutting or ugly outlets in your tile pattern. We also put it along the whole side of our island under the granite overhang. My iphone battery is dead but let me know if you want photos (b/c the ones on the web don't match very well, in my opinion!) We got cocoa (dark brown) for dark wood cabinets and then a white (called "snow") for under our cream pained cabinets/granite. Match like a dream!

- USB outlets in our power outlets in our Master BR - I put the link below b/c it's a little hard to explain. But in addition to regular outlets, you have two USB outlets that pull off the same power supply. That means I can plug in to charge my iphone or iPad without taking up a plug, so alarm clock or bedside light still has plugs available (without a yucky power strip.) Honestly, there are a few more places I wish I had that, including one outlet in the kitchen and family room. Electrician hadn't installed them before but didn't find it to be a problem.

- NuHeat tile floor heaters in bathrooms - it's just heavenly to have a warm tile underfoot. It is electric and then hooks up to a timer/thermostat on your wall. One word of warning, we did only part of the floor in our guest bath thinking it would radiate and warm the rest of the tile near it (just like 2 rows.) It does not. Half the tile is ice cold and half is warm - bizarre. We did every part of our floor in our new master bath. Much better.

- This one is fairly everywhere but we did "bonus" outlets under every bathroom sink and we did them inside the tall cabinets next to the sinks in our master bath. Hubby plugs in his razor and I plug in my Clarisonic face brush INSIDE the cabinet instead of it having to sit out on the counter - I don't like anything on the bath counter if I can help it! That's super easy to do but has to be planned for when they are pulling the lines.

- Moen MotionSense faucet. That little guy is really convenient and works so well! You can put your hands under and it runs for 30 seconds (or longer if you leave hands there) or swipe over and it stays on until you move your hand over it again. We actually put it in our laundry room b/c I'm always getting detergent on my hands or other mess so then I don't have to touch the faucet to clean my hands.

- If you have walls open, my hubby put in these little recessed boxes that have the power and lines for a flat screen tv, then the cable, HDMI or internet runs down in the wall. You don't have to see a single cord which I especially appreciate in our family room over a fireplace mantel and in our master bedroom (where I resisted a tv in the first place but at least didn't want a bunch of dangling cords!)

- Dimmers on EVERY light switch. So easy to do, so much nicer for lighting your life.

OK, that's all I can think of for now - let me know if you want pics or more info on anything! Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: FastMac USB Outlets

Oh - forgot one!

- LED lights under cabinets that are actually affixed with a sticky tape on the back! They are incredibly easy - there's a tiny transformer and then they just link together and stick up underneath the cabinet. MUCH easier to install than the traditional under counter lights, more subtle and great light. We used the Ultra Bright but have them on dimmers. Also ran it up the sides of a glass cabinet for lighting.

Not sure if this is our exact brand - I'll have to check but here's the idea:

Here is a link that might be useful: [LED lighting strip / tape[(https://www.houzz.com/products/undercabinet-and-accent-flexible-led-strips-prvw-vr~1634277)

Thanks! Those look great. (Nice cabinetry, too!)

Floor heat...that could be too modern for us! =) We'll only be putting in a guest bath (saving the old bathrooms until they fall apart even more) and we don't want guests to get the wrong idea and overstay, but I'll look into it anyway.

Thanks!

Ha! My parents, who are our most common visitors to the guest bath, do crank up the temp for the floor which makes me laugh. It's on a thermostat where you can set it to be on only certain times of a day (or days) and then can go off or a lower temp (just like a regular thermostat. But they make the floor warm to the feet all the time!

It's actually also a great solution for a bathroom that tends to be cold. It's not really heat but the warmth on your feet when you walk helps.

My parents actually put a regular heat vent down vertically under the cabinet (in place of a toe kick) b/c their bathroom was cold and the tile was already down when they remodeled. Keeps the toes toasty too! :)

Definitely go for the extra outlets under the bath cabinet if you can - it's so handy, we even have a dustbuster plugged in under one! :)

Good luck!

Put in a Nest thermostat. It's fantastic! For me, I travel a lot for work and sometimes forget to turn off the a/c or heat when I leave, and can now do this from anywhere in the world. Also, when my plane lands and I'm on my way home, I can turn on the a/c or heat and have the place at the right temperature by the time I get home.

Here is a link that might be useful: Nest Thermostat

One thing I could REALLY use is a drip system controller that I can set and change when I'm out of town.

Ideally it would be a plug-in adapter for existing Toro or Rainbird systems.

Thanks y'all. Yes, even more than a thermostat I can set from a distance, I would totally enjoy a long distance control watering system! Or at least a camera so I know when to call my neighbor and tell him to turn off my @#%& malfunctioning lawn sprinkler. :P