calmloki
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Re: pre-wiring a house: when we did a full gut and renew on our home we ran multi-pair phone lines, network cable to three locations, and tv coax to something like a dozen locations including the garage. Ten years down the line we use two network prewires and ran new wire to another location. We can plug in phones about anywhere but mostly use multiple cordless phones and a base station. The painstaking tv prewire with amplifier and resistors every so many boxes is unused - satellite tv has it's own co-ax cable of a higher grade than the stuff I used. One good thing I did was to run an empty plastic electric conduit from the house to the garage as well as a couple empty conduits into the breaker panel for future electrical add-ons. Also stubbed gas lines to potential barbecue as well as to dryer, stove, and fireplace locations.
Innovative/interesting/unconventional construction/materials cost time and money. Lack skills? Build what every other builder in your area is building. That way you can get help from them or Home Depot at a reasonable cost. The more custom you get the more cussing you will do. It was amazing to me how much easier building a new garage (even with board and batten barn board siding and old windows and a church door) was compared to rebuilding our home with very little square or of common modern dimensions.
Innovative/interesting/unconventional construction/materials cost time and money. Lack skills? Build what every other builder in your area is building. That way you can get help from them or Home Depot at a reasonable cost. The more custom you get the more cussing you will do. It was amazing to me how much easier building a new garage (even with board and batten barn board siding and old windows and a church door) was compared to rebuilding our home with very little square or of common modern dimensions.