New construction lighting and low voltage choices are important, and sometimes confusing, parts of planning your dream home. Most people have no reason to have electrical planning experience, and even seeing a wiring diagram can make your head spin! Have no fear! We are sharing the complete list of our electrical and low-voltage choices. Consider these must-have new construction lighting and low-voltage choices for your dream home to make electrical planning a breeze!

14 Must-Have Electrical and Low-Voltage Ideas for Your New Construction Home

1. Perimeter Lighting:

Time and time again, you will hear that you can never have too much lighting. If you tour a builder’s model home, notice the lighting in the bedrooms, offices, kitchens, great rooms, and patios. A well-lit room will have lights around the perimeter of the room in addition to a central light or fan. We stuck to this pattern in our bedrooms, game room, and great room. Getting flush mount lights instead of canned lighting made getting all the extra lighting more affordable. We also made sure our patio is well lit with flush mount lights.

2. Pre-wire for Ceiling Fans

I am a ceiling fan fan! I am one of those people that needs to feel the air circulating around me. My husband, not so much. We pre-wired for a ceiling fan in every room we could (all bedrooms, game room, great room, and patio), even though we may ultimately put a chandelier in place of the fan.  We wanted the center of the ceiling to be pre-wired for a fan so that the bracing would be able to handle the weight of the fan, even if we didn’t put a fan there.

3. Pendant and Sconce Lighting

Nothing makes a statement like a nice pendant or sconce light, especially when put in unexpected places, or when grouped artistically. Do try to work this into your new construction lighting plan. I usually do well in making decisions, but I have to admit, I was a little indecisive with this type of lighting couple of looks and decision-making that I honestly did not want to make at such an early stage of the game.  However, there were a couple of looks that caught my eye during model home tours that I had to try!

We put two pendant lights in our master bedroom that will be on either side of the bed instead of lamps. Instead of a single light above the dining area, we grouped five pendant lights there as we saw in a model home. We also planned for three pendant lights over our kitchen island. However, because I will have a cooktop on the island, and the range hood coming from the ceiling above, we don’t know if we will put the pendants there. However, because I didn’t want to decide not to do it, the house is pre-wired for three pendants over the island. The use of pendant and sconce lighting takes a bit of planning, and measurement, but the look is well worth the extra effort.

4. Chandeliers

These are fantastic statement pieces for any space because they come in a wide variety and there is a chandelier out there for everyone! Although we pre-wired for ceiling fans in just about every room, there were two areas that were perfect for a chandelier, so we worked chandeliers into our new construction lighting plan. We have one chandelier in our foyer/entryway and another in our master bathroom, above the tub. Our master bathroom design plan has a free-standing wall with a circular shower on one side and a bathtub on the other side. I saw this at my cousin’s house and a few model homes and I love the look! 

5. Under-Cabinet Lighting

Now, this is one that is worth doing as part of your new construction lighting plan, even if you do it yourself after you move in. Because we had the option to include it in our plan, we got hardwired undercabinet lighting in our kitchen and pantry. We considered doing this in the utility room and then decided not to. While we thought we would need focused lighting in the kitchen and pantry, we ultimately decided that we probably wouldn’t be doing anything in the utility room requiring focused lighting.

6. Independent Switches

I have no idea if this is a legit electrical term, but we made sure that just about everything can be turned on and off independently.  This was especially important for us to be able to turn on only the lights we wanted, without illuminating the entire room. Also, we wanted to be able to independently control the fan and the fan light. So for instance, we can turn on the patio lights, or patio fans, or lights in the patio fans separately.

7. Switches on Either End of Rooms and Hallways

Have you ever lived in a house or apartment where you had to walk back across a room to turn a light on or off because there was a switch only on one end of the room? We live in a place like that now, and we were determined not to do that in our dream home. In our new construction home, we wanted to make everything as convenient as possible, so this was an area that we considered, and re-considered.

To figure out the placement of switches, we did pretend walks through our not-yet-built some to simulate what we would do when entering the house through the garages, and the front door. We thought about how we would turn on the lights in front of us, and how we would turn off those lights behind us. Also, we thought about how we would turn outside lights on and off, in front of the house and the back patio. We probably went a little switch-crazy, but better too many than not enough switches. The only place where we have an auto-switch is the pantry. We figured we may have full hands walking in and out of the pantry, so we wanted the pantry light to automatically go on and off.

8. Outlets, Outlets Everywhere!

This is one area where we probably also went a little crazy, but I’m comfortable with it. When we initially made our electrical plan, we added extra outlets inside of most closets and in the hallway near one of the garage doors. We also added floor plugs, wall outlets for TVs, ceiling outlets for future LED lights inside of tray ceilings, and outlets low on the wall near the toilets. We put a floor plug in the game room for our reclining furniture, two in the great room (an open floor plan means less wall space), and one in each of the two bedrooms we will use as offices (so we can plug in computers). In addition, we have patio outlets and soffit outlets so we can plug in lights such as Christmas lighting! The outlets near the toilets are for these awesome bidet toilet seats.

9. Don’t Be Afraid of Change Orders for Late New Construction Lighting Ideas

After we did our initial electrical plan, we wanted to add more outlets that we didn’t think of before. Although my husband and I made a pact with each other to avoid doing any change orders (they can cause delays and add money to the overall cost of your home) because we had several extra outlets we wanted to add, we decided it was worth it. I think we paid $175 for each extra outlet. We were early enough in the process so that the wiring had not yet been done, so time delays were not an issue. In addition, the change order management fee applies to the total amount of items you have on one change order (I think ours was 10%).

We added outlets inside of our master bathroom vanities (and I added one behind the drawer) so that we can charge things like electric toothbrushes and razors inside the vanity, or leave a frequently used item like a hair dryer plugged inside a drawer, instead of leaving them on the countertops. Also, we added outlets underneath our master bathroom vanities: they are floating vanities and we wanted to put our own led lights underneath the vanities after the house was done.

We also added outlets underneath the counter in the utility room where we don’t have bottom cabinets. We left this space open on purpose so we can have a more versatile use for the space: such as getting one of those cool vacuum and mopping robots that need to be docked somewhere. While we were at it, we made sure we had an outlet in the utility room closet and extras in the pantry.

10. Hard Wired Internet

Because my husband and I both work from home, we decided it was important for us to have ethernet ports in the two bedrooms we will be using as offices. We added two CAT6 outlets in each office; one for the computer and another on the wall for a Smart TV.

11. Coaxial Cable Ports

We have not had cable for a few years now, so we opted not to have any coaxial ports in the house. Instead, we added CAT 6 ports for every room that will have a TV in it. If your family watches cable TV, you may decide differently. Even if you are like us and don’t use cable TV, you may want to add a few coaxial cable ports anyway to help with resale. We are closing in on retirement and are making decisions solely on what we want, like, and need. If we had a different life situation, we may have gone ahead and added some coaxial cable outlets.

12. Security System Wiring

Most new construction homes include wiring for a security system in their low voltage package (along with a few coaxial cable ports and/or ethernet ports and pre-wiring for a sound system). The low voltage contractor that works with your builder will have some suggestions for you regarding home security.  However, as with every other aspect of your new home, I advise you to do some research and have ideas of your own as well.  Your home’s shape, amount of stories, and square footage will help inform your security plan.

13. Speaker System Wiring

This is another thing that most builders will include in some form or fashion in your new home low voltage package. Many builders will offer things like pre-wiring for surround sound in certain rooms (or maybe a media/theatre room package) and also for in-ceiling or wall speakers. The builder may include wiring for certain rooms, and if you’re lucky, the whole house. Our builder did not include enough pre-wiring for the whole house and we were torn on whether to upgrade it. Anytime I visit a home that has a whole house speaker system, I really enjoy it! However, because there are so many smart home systems available, we ultimately decided to skip the upgrade. We got the included pre-wiring for surround sound in our game room (this will serve as our theatre room) and got additional in-ceiling speakers in the dining room/great room area.

14. Soffit Lighting

These are the lights that give your house that luxurious appearance at night by shining down from your eaves/soffit area. I think it looks better when you have a two or more story home or a home with a high ceiling/roofline. When you have soffit lighting you can also get smart lighting and change the color of your lights.  We didn’t do soffit lights in our new construction lighting plan because our house is a single story and we didn’t think we had a high enough roof line to pull it off. However, everywhere I go I see these lights and it always provides great lighting and looks awesome. if there was anything that I think we will regret not doing, I think this is the one.