Electric

One of the things we knew we would be giving up by building with RH was the opportunity to have my father, an electrical contractor, wire our home. We completely understood that it wouldn't be an option, and we understood why. Even though he's not doing the wiring, his input has been really helpful. Thought I'd share.

Now vs. Later
We went in to the electrical looking for what was easier to have RH do now, and what we'll do later. We are not finishing the basement yet (which will give us much easier access for adding wiring on the first floor) and hopefully we'll have luck getting our PM to install a pipe from the basement to the attic (to run future wiring upstairs).
What RH is doing:
- Recess lighting. Price per light was pretty standard for this area. And it's a lot easier to do now, rather than cut in later.
- Prewire for ceiling fans. Same as above. We got rough-ins done in each bedroom and the bonus room.
- Flood lights. This surprised me. I initially thought this would be an easy add later. But the expert (Dad) said no. Hard to access those roof lines. We got two.
- Prewire for four pendant lights over the kitchen island. We'll buy and install our own later.
What we'll add later:
- Upgrading light fixtures. We either skipped fixtures all together (fans, pendant lights) or are getting RH basic. So many more options available either at Home Depot/Lowes or supply house.
- Extra plugs. Those are pretty easy adds (according to my father).
- Under-cabinet lights. We did get the upgraded trim package on the cabinets -- which provides an edge to hide the lights. There are a lot more options in under-cabinet lights than what RH offers.
- Garage door opener. Ditto on options.

Lighting placement
One thing we did note in walking the house with my dad was that RH's placement of both recess lights and switches were a little off. Small example: Eyeball lights above the fireplace are typically placed 3 feet from the wall -- RH put them more like 2 in our model. The model had a million recess lights in the kitchen -- and yet there is a large dark area right in front of the extended laundry. We plan to work closely with our PM to make sure our lights are placed most effectively (ditto on the switch placement). Fingers crossed that they are accommodating. We've added:
- 4 recess lights to the family room, plus 2 eyeballs above the fireplace
- 4 recess lights to the living room
- 6 recess lights to the morning room
- 1 extra recess light to the backstairs (they were dark).
Our kitchen upgrade already came with 8 recess lights.

Other than that, we're just packing and counting down to build!