What You Can Explore on a Hard Hat Tour

When you search for a new home, you spend a lot of time looking at floor plans.

Dark black lines that draw out a two-dimensional representation of each home.

Often, they have measurements or even drawings of some furniture, but they are still flat.

The first time many people get to experience what their new home will look like in three dimensions is when they walk through a model home.

BUT there’s a special type of tour you can take sometimes which lets you see a step in between.

An adventure that takes you through a three-dimensional version of the two-dimensional floor plan.

It’s called a Hard Hat Tour (sometimes, a Muddy Boots Tour), and it’s a big step in the building of a home and community.

A Hard Hat Tour happens before the home is complete: sometimes, even before the dry wall has gone up. It lets you have a real inside look into your home. You’ll see it before it’s made fancy with all its finishes and fixtures. You’ll get to see more of the structure and engineering that makes your home stand strong. But that’s not the only benefit.

Here are our top 5 ways you can make the most of a Hard Hat Tour of your new home.

1. Experience a truer sense of room sizes and home configuration

Moving beyond the two-dimensional floor plan in your new home exploration is a big deal. During your Hard Hat Tour, you’ll be able get a better sense of the actual room size instead of trying to use a tape measure to estimate dimensions.

You’ll also get a better feel for how the home is configured. Though you may be able to see through walls, you’ll be able to walk around and see how far it is, for example, to sneak down from the owner’s suite to the kitchen in anticipation of many late-night secret snack times.

 2. See what’s inside the walls

There are very few (if any!) times in your home’s life that you have the opportunity to see what’s behind all your walls. Many Hard Hat Tours take place before the walls have been completed. What you’ll get to see, then, are all the pipes, electrical wiring, and any network or cable wiring. Why is this important? For pre-planning your room layouts.

By being able to see what’s in your walls, you’ll know where you can easily position lamps and televisions. You’ll understand more about which lights and outlets are on which circuits, so you don’t overload any by accident. And you’ll see which walls NOT to put nails or deep screws into to hang pictures. All very important benefits for this x-ray peek into your home.

 3. Preview where the windows will be located

This one might sound silly at first, but it has more than just visual value. Sure, it’s fun to see what sights you’ll be able to view from every room, but that’s not all. By looking out, you’ll also realize where people can look in and plan your window coverings accordingly.

You’ll also be able to judge where rising and setting sun will impact the light in your new home. Take the Clarion at The Retreat at Westfields, for example. If you have an end-unit townhome and your television over your fireplace in the great room, the setting sun will be coming a little more strongly through the windows to the right and left of your television. You might want to plan for some blackout curtains so you can still enjoy the light, but not have it impact movie night.

 4. Appreciate the expert craftsmanship that goes into every Miller & Smith home

Miller & Smith homes don’t just pack the features and care into what you can see: That precision is built into everything behind the walls too. A Hard Hat Tour is your chance to see a bit more of the skill and technical artistry inside your new home.

Behind every wall and beneath every floor are quality building materials designed to maximize structural integrity, energy efficiency, and of course, your family’s comfort. From the HVAC systems to the weatherization systems, to every truss and beam, every piece of your new home is a virtuoso performance of construction. You also might be able to meet some of our talented team who are building your new home, connecting you to it even more.

 5. Generate questions for our team

One of the best things that can come out of a Hard Hat Tour is a list of questions. Questions you have about the construction process, questions you have about how things will work, and questions about other aspects of your new home will be formed as you walk through your not-yet-finished home. Bring a notepad with you and jot them down. Take some time to reflect after the tour and write down more questions.

Then, contact our team because we have answers! We’re ready to make sure you understand everything that happens during the building process of your new home from the ground up and inside out. Because to be honest, we’re proud of all that goes into making a new Miller & Smith home, and we want you to be proud of your choice too.