I think that the builder needs his fingers flattened. I really wanted to put a 42" front door in just to make appliance moves easier. Garages, basements, laundry rooms all NEED at least a 36" door.
I am about to pull an eight pound pork shoulder out of the smoker after eight hours at about 225, meat thermometer says it should be done. I am looking forward to some good eating this week.
I'd start with previous owners, and work my way backwards. The house is 31 years old, and before we bought it, the only *real* update was a granite vanity top in the halfbath on the first floor.
Builder wtfs:
There's not a cricket on the roof, to divert water around the chimney. The door to upstairs from the basement/garage opens to your left as your're coming up - putting the opened door between you and the kitchen (so you either have to then close the door, or loop through the dining room). The doors on the first floor are all solid wood (a plus), while all of the doors on the second floor are all hollow fiberboard (not so much). There's no attic access. Certain rooms could use more windows than they have. There's probably more, but that'll do for now...
Previous owners wtfs:
Most of the siding is the masonite stuff that had the lawsuit - never replaced. The aforementioned removal of the support column in the basement (for the rest of my life, I will never understand *why* someone would do that, and not build a wall to code to support the floor

). The top half of the chimney is not pointing in the same direction as the bottom half, and two sections of the (non-original) flue pipe were installed upside down. There's a hole in the fireplace I can see the framing through (my wife had the forethought to have the fireplace inspected before we used it the first winter, and the inspector found the flue pipe issues; I found the hole - we were advised *not* to use the fireplace). Most of the vanity cabinets (stain grade solid wood) were painted badly (in one case with black Rustoleum (we found the can)), and in the master bath they did not paint the toe kick. Visibly bad jobs of painting the ceiling in the master bedroom and the living room. A few doors were primed, but not painted (including the hinges, btw). Moulding/trim painted white throughout the house - until you get to one room, where for some inexplicable reason, it's brown (including the door). Last time they painted the upstairs bath, they didn't bother to take down the springloaded shower curtain rod, and painted around it (the bathroom is currently grey, previously, it was sky blue).
/rant
A lot of this will be easy to fix, but some of it will be expensive as hell (siding(!!). Luckily, a good chunk of it I have the skills to do myself (short of siding and cabinet-building (and I might embark on learning the second)).
The house has (mostly) good bones, it just hasn't had any love for 30 years. We'll fix that. *cracks knuckles*
The bbq sounds good - what'd you use for a rub? I need to get my smoker back in order... I haven't smoked since we moved in.