Watch Out
5 Steps
What are the big overall parts involved in creating my own dream custom home?
Check out the five big steps you go through in the creation of your own custom modern home: 1) buying a property to build on, 2) designing your home, 3) choosing the right builder for you and your project, 4) putting the financing into place, and 5) finally watching your home being built.
The Wedding Planner
Who will guide me through the entire process? Whom do I need to trust to take me from A to Z?
Task your design team with guiding you through the entire process; with making you aware of all the risks, clarifying the costs, setting up a timeline, assembling all the specialists, directing every moving part, and taking you to the move-in date with a genuine huge smile on your face.
The School Bus
What is the square foot number all about? What should be important to me instead? Part 1.
Sweating about the cost of square feet as a measure of the value of your home is intrinsically completely nonsensical and useless. Don’t pay for square feet, pay for what is important to you.
5 Things You Need To Know
What are the considerations I should have before getting into the creation of my own custom home, designed just for me?
To cut through all the nonsense that is being suggested to you by heartless building industry, consider these 5 simple mindsets that will lead you to a successful creation of your own unique home: 1) Start with a clean slate. 2) Ignore the real estate metrics. 3) You can ask and be provided the special and unique living environment you are yearning for. 4) Realize what you are asking for is art. 5) Love the process to enjoy the ride and receive a better outcome.
How Much Does A Custom Modern Home Cost?
Can I afford this? What am I paying for?
You wonder what it costs to design and build a custom modern home from scratch. Your budget will mainly cover 4 areas of allocation: 1) the lot, 2) the design, 3) the construction, and 4) financing. In all of them the choices are largely yours. The questions for you become about what you value in each of them and what you can afford.
How Do I Make My House High-Performance?
Can my home be more green, sustainable, and energy-efficient?
To design and build green is to design and build better. How?: The short answer is -consider these 4 areas 1) The Quality of Materials, (2) Smart Design Practices, (3) Systems, (4) and Certification Programs. Design it right. Build it right. Live right. Go high-performance!
Will My Budget Grow Out Of Proportions?
How to finish the design and construction of your modern, green, high-end home on budget?
The key is our guidance and financial check points before and during the entire process, as well as throughout all the decisions our home owners will have to make. Not everything has to be gold to shine. For those items that do, we plan for them from the beginning.
The Design Process
What does the design process look like?
At the core of the design process for your own home lie 3 distinct phases. 1) In the Schematic Design we discover your home. 2) In the Design Development we figure out how to build the madness. 3) In the Construction Documents phase we create the set of construction drawings necessary to communicate to everyone involved how to do it.
What Does The Timeline Look Like?
How long does it take to create my dream home from scratch?
The short answer is, it will take at least two years before you’ll move in. To lay this out briefly on the back of a napkin: the design will take 6-8 months and the construction 12-14. Besides those two big chunks, there is a feasibility study up front and a block of time between the end of design and start of construction. Finding you a plot of land first, will add a few months to the equation.
Why Not
What are the pitfalls of a custom, energy-efficient, modern home?
Let’s face it - when you are embarking on the quest of designing and building a modern, custom home from scratch, it is going to be more expensive than you think, will take longer than you anticipate, and will provide you with simply too many decision points along the way. On top of it, you are creating a prototype for a home that will be built only once. Chances are you will feel you are taking on too many risks. Last but not least, what you are manifesting for yourself lies outside of the generic real estate metrics, which means that you will end up contributing more hard-earned cash to the adventure than other choices require.
How To Begin
Where do we Start with our Custom Modern Home?
In short - Start with our Design Starter Guide and follow our 5 simple steps; 1)Information 2)Feedback 3)Property 4)Diagnosis 5)Proposal
The Lot First
Why do I need a site first for my custom home?
The short answer is: The design of your home will be influenced and defined by its setting. The 5 most important considerations usually are 1) The Direction of the Sun, (2) Views, (3) Topography, (4) Privacy, (5) Progression.
To start the process, we need to find you the right lot to build on. Here are your options: 1) Work with our dream team of hand-picked realtors. 2) Do your own online search. 3) Drive through the neighborhoods and areas you fancy. 4) Check out tax foreclosures. And if none of that works for you, just call us.
How To Find A Lot
What options do I have to find the right property for my future dream home?
Your Money Your Habitat
What does the conventional real estate market value and what should I pay for instead? Where lies a lasting value to my investment?
They tell you your home will appreciate. The truth is, it doesn’t. It’s a money pit. However, if you design it right and if you build it right, you will create lasting value. In simple terms: build your wealth, protect it, lessen your carbon foot print, and supersize your bliss - all to improve your life.
HERS Is Yours
What is one way to measure energy efficiency? What is the HERS index?
Check out this primer on the HERS index, a measuring tool of the energy efficiency of your home. By way of a couple of examples we share how it can be helpful in creating a better home for you.
How Do You Handle Our Budget Concerns?
Will you guide us through the budget planning and the costs we will face?
A quick look at how to gain control of the expenditures in the design and construction of your own modern custom home.
No Plan
Do we start with a floorplan or how does it work?
You don’t want us to design floorplans. You are tasking us with creating extraordinary spaces, living environments that will leave your breathless. You are asking for the best possible stage for your life that will provide your with lasting joy. Floorplans show bathrooms. Spaces are what you live in.
Square That
What is the square foot number all about? What is important instead? Part 2.
This is another rant about why the cost-per-square-foot metric is useful for fairly little. It’s also a quick look at the mass building industry vs. the custom process to design and build the home you are asking for. The former should not be confused as the playing field for the creation of your own custom modern home. One is an assembly line, the other an creative act. One is to pump out cold carcasses of industrial thrift, the other is there to make your life better.
Good Design Is Empathetic
How can a home see me and respond to me?
Good design should be empathetic. Your home should respond to your dreams and aspirations. It should understand you and lean toward you. Your home should listen and be there for you when you most need it.