Gradual electronic updates keep this prairie-style home fresh without breaking the bank.
Building a house is a great way to see how far you can stretch a dollar. Most people find that their money doesn't go very far, especially when they start adding sophisticated whole-house music, automation, and home-theater systems to the plans. However, there are ways to economize. For instance, it's very popular to put every imaginable system in while the house is under construction. At this stage, installers can more easily thread wire, plant speakers, and hang video projectors. After all, we all know that the less time it takes to put something in, the less you'll spend on labor. This do-it-now-not-later philosophy sounded unreasonable to homeowners Jim and Pam Katz, however. "To us, it made more sense to make sure we liked certain items before we spent the money to put them in," Jim explains. "We didn't just buy art for the sake of having art on the walls. We waited until we found what we really loved. It was the same with the landscape plan, the furniture, and the electronic systems for the house. We may have done things in a different order than many people, but staging the additions really helped us with our financing." See this slide show

 To see more Hot Houses such as these, subscribe to