What’s It Like to Help Design Your Dream Home and Have It Built?
On average, homeowners move between 4.5 and 5.5 times throughout their adult life. While the reasons for this vary (work relocations, moving for a relationship, etc.), it’s often due to the simple fact that properties are rarely a whole-life fix. Finding a dream home that stands the test of time for those of us with specific requirements or just a growing family is almost impossible.
Unless, of course, we design and execute that property ourselves!
For obvious reasons, homeowners involved in designing a property that keeps their current needs and long-term goals in mind are likely to spend longer enjoying that space. Unfortunately, with many of us not understanding what’s involved in designing a dream home and building it, this reality can remain out of reach in many instances. But, before you jump into your next temporary house move, you may well benefit from considering what it’s like to design and oversee your dream home using this crucial step-by-step guide.
Step 1: The Financial Side of Things
Finances are always the first consideration for a new home, and designing your property is no different. However, instead of worrying about mortgages and down payments, financing a home build typically means thinking about alternative building-specific routes such as:
- Construction loans: Short-term, high-interest loans intended to pay for land and homebuilding that typically require a detailed timeline, budget, and plan to ensure approval.
- Savings: Selling an existing property or saving ample funds in the bank allows you to pay for your home build upfront, ensuring the best investment and more easily allowing you to cater for overspends.
Regardless of your funding route, you’ll especially need to start this process with a clear budget that takes into account –
- Lot price
- Building Size
- Interiors
- Landscaping
- Labor
- Permits
- Insurance
- Etc.
Step 2: The Design Process
The design process is perhaps the most exciting element of this experience and is the stage on which you’ll likely want to spend most of your time. Again, there are different options which can help you to achieve this goal. For instance, some companies take care of every design element for you and come back to you with a plan that they think will work. However, many homeowners find this stage much easier to handle when they work with a custom home builder who considers their needs.
Bringing the right team on board can undoubtedly turn the design process into a lot of fun. You can see your dream home coming to life through a comprehensive brief, a complete list of requirements (including room information, size requirements, etc.), and even an outline of architectural style (e.g. traditional vs contemporary).
Once you’ve laid those initial plans and have the dream home team behind you, the design process will be a continual back and forth involving as many design drafts as it takes to help you settle on the ideal home. If you have a clear vision, this may be a short process. If not, then you can rest easy that the right professional team of custom home builders will keep refreshing those ideas according to your comments until you finally settle on that property you didn’t know you were even dreaming of.
Step 3: The Building Stage
When considering what it’s like to design and oversee a dream property, most homeowners will have one pressing question – what will the building stage be like? After all, while design processes on your favourite property programs always look like a lot of fun, the building stage is where things always seem to get stressful. Though, there’s no reason why that needs to be the case, especially if you’ve taken ample time during design.
Perhaps the main thing to understand about the building stage, and the best way to remove stress from this process, is that Rome (and your property) wasn’t built in a day. In fact, on average, a new home build can take as long as 12 months from start to finish. However, you can minimize this period by always making sure to take care of things like permits and licensing in advance. From there, the building process will be all about –
- Managing timeframes
- Ordering materials
- Site upkeep
- Organizing contractors
- Etc.
Luckily, as is the case with your designs themselves, working with the right custom home builder can help you to enjoy ease at even this typically high-stress stage, with professional teams not only being well experienced in ticking all of those building boxes but also taking the helm so that, in many ways, waiting for your new build home needn’t be all that different to waiting for the keys on a property that’s nowhere near as perfect a fit.
Step 4: The Finished Product
Seeing your dream home in real life is undeniably the part of this process that makes the whole pursuit worthwhile and is one of the best experiences that any homeowner could hope for. This is where you’ll realize that all the work, effort and dedication you and your custom home builders have put into that property was worthwhile. Even better, with no previous owners to worry about, you’ll be able to move right in and begin making that finished product a home that truly comes alive to provide you with a better living situation than you’d ever imagined.
While it might seem like another world, this simple breakdown highlights the reality that designing and overseeing the creation of your dream property can be a simple, exciting process, especially when you seek the help of a trustworthy, client-oriented custom home builder like our team here at Timber Haus. Our elegant, award-winning homes across Edmonton prove that you, too, could enjoy our simple design-to-creation processes.
Just get in touch today to start discussing your project with our fantastic team at 780-695-0245.