Fair point on the garage—-I don’t have a lot of toys but the mower and snow blower will need a home.
What about pouring a driveway? Insulate the garage? Use composite deck material? Standard vs high end windows? Ceiling height? Bedrooms all on one level or spread out? Again, I don’t plan on selling this home anytime in the next 30+ years, but I appreciate any advice.
I would pour a driveway
We skipped insulating, it's on our list of things to do on our own at some point
We have decent windows, don't think they are name brand
We did 10 ft main rooms, 9 ft hallway, master, sunroom, other bedrooms, bath, laundry are 8. Basement is set to be 9 ft.
Our bedrooms are all one one side of the house. Space for another in the basement. Our builder hated hallways and considered them wasted space. Works well now when our child is very young but I can see it being less great as they get bigger. Ultimately decided the that it was a tradeoff we would make. Something else we nixed is a little coat closet inside the main door. Haven't missed it, have guests throws stuff on bannister or spare bedroom.
For landscaping, we did all the planting ourselves (and continue to do so) in the years since we've moved in. What I would recommend is finding a landscaper you like and having them look at the hardscaping/edging plan you are given. That's usually pretty quick and dirty and in our case, we've had to redo tons of it to give us space to actually put in plants and such around the house. I wish we could have had someone look at it before they put it in to say bump this out here, do this section as mulch instead of stone, etc. It wouldn't have cost much but would have saved us a TON of sweat equity over the past 5 years. And if you're looking to save a bit, don't have the builder put in any trees or plants. It'll be ugly for a minute but wait until you can get a landscaping plan and then you can eat away at that over time.