If there’s one thing homeowners love, it’s spending money to renovate and spruce up their houses. Just this year alone, nearly 60 percent of homeowners indicated that they plan to spend money to improve their homes this year.
For some folks, spending money and renovating means building their own custom homes. If you’re thinking about taking on such and project and wondering what you need to know about building a custom home, the first thing you need to know is there are plenty of benefits to doing so.
- You can personalize your home any way you want.
- You can incorporate unique features and finishes into your home.
- You can spend as much or as little as you want to spend.
- You can make your property as welcoming and inviting as possible, or you can have the ultimate privacy with fences and trees.
- You can have the finest quality when it comes to construction.
There’s no doubt that building a custom home for yourself and your family is a huge undertaking and can be very stressful. But if you know what you need to know about building a custom home, it doesn’t have to be impossible. Working with reputable home building services, you can hammer out all the finer points and make sure that no detail, no matter how small, is overlooked.
To build your dream home, here are some useful tips to help make it a reality.
Pick The Right Spot
If you’ve ever bought or sold a home, then you’ve likely heard a real estate agent talk about “Location. Location. Location.” The same rings true if you’re building your own home.
Before you lay down a foundation, you need to make sure you pick the right location. Let’s say for example that you want to build a home in the country. When it comes to location, you want a home with a breathtaking view, perhaps overlooking a lake or the town you’re closest to. If you’re building closer to the city, you want to visit possible neighborhoods and get a feel for your surroundings.
But location isn’t all about views and who your neighbors are. As you embark on a thorough home property search, you need to think about how close a spot is to your job and other things that are vital, such as shopping, grocery stores, and schools. You also need to think about how close it is to major roadways and even hospitals.
Pick The Right Contractors
As you figure out what you need to know about building a custom home, one of the most important things you need to decide is which contractors to hire for the job. Even if you’ve got some construction skills, you’re going to need some help and it’s important that you’ve got the right help.
There are any number of contractors you can hire for the job who will take care of all the necessities of a house. But you need to look into the reputation of prospective builders and possibly even their financial status. The reality is that the right custom home building company can make all your dreams come true for a custom home. The wrong one could turn the project into one that ends up being more difficult than you’re planning on.
As previously mentioned, building a custom home can be a time-consuming and stressful undertaking. But the right custom home building company can make everything much easier and much less stressful.
Start Simple
As you learn what you need to know about building a custom home, it’s a good idea to start with the simplest steps. You might be excited about living in your dream home, but you need to start from the beginning and start slow if you’re ever going to live in it someday.
Maybe you’ve been thinking about your dream home for many years, envisioning all the bedrooms you’ll have, your backyard pool, and even a four-car garage. But before any of these ideas are turned into reality, you need to be able to communicate them to your builders. The more you can communicate, the more builders can help you.
Talking over your ideas with builders can help you iron out any kinks you’ve got in your plan. For example, you might have your heart set on metal roofing for your house, but experienced roofers might show you that asphalt roofing works better for the home you’re looking to build. Builders can also help you get a handle on the basic blueprints for your home: how many bathrooms you need, how bedrooms you’ll have, how big those rooms are, etc.
Think Ahead
Part of learning what you need to know about building a custom home means you also need to plan for the future. If you plan to expand your family, for example, you may want to add an extra room or two. If you plan on working from home in the future (and it’s something many folks are doing right now), you may want to plan on building a home office. If you’re a workout fiend, then perhaps your custom home should include a home gym.
Ultimately, it comes down to what’s doing to work best for you and your family. By planning for the future, you won’t be left feeling disappointed or lacking with your new custom home. There’s nothing wrong with having some extra space at your disposal and the last thing you want is to try and do more renovations after your new custom home is up and running.
Think About Energy Use
If you’re wondering what you need to know about building a custom home, one area you don’t want to overlook is the energy usage your home will require.
These days many homeowners, including those with custom homes, are doing whatever they can to be more energy-conscious and environmentally-conscious.
What does that mean for you and your home? If you’re thinking about being as green as possible, then you can have smart features installed in your home to make that possible. For example, when it comes time for your HVAC installation, you can have a brand-new energy-efficient unit put in that will heat and cool your home when you need it to without driving up your energy bills. You can also have use building supplies from sustainable sources in the building process and have other energy-efficient appliances installed.
Think About The Look
If you’re totally in the dark about building a house, experienced builders can give you the rundown on what you need to know about building a custom home. One thing many of them will surely tell you is that you need to think about your home’s aesthetics.
You may not know it, but the flow, light, and color of a home play major roles in your home’s overall mood. For example, having big windows in your home are an easy source of natural light. If you’re looking to establish a certain mood in your home, you can work with flooring contractors to install the right kind of carpet or flooring in different rooms of your home.
Don’t Overdo It
A custom home means you can do just about anything you want. After all, it’s your dream home, so why not do what you want?
While there is certainly an element of truth to this, one thing you’ll learn about what you need to know about building a custom home is not to go nuts with customization. What’s the reason? Customizations and unique features that you put in your home are unique to you and your family. Because of that, it can make it extremely hard to sell your home, should you ever want to.
An extra-large kitchen, a big master bathroom, and a uniquely-shaped swimming pool might be unique features a prospective buyer could be interested in, but anything too much beyond that could make your home almost too unique to get a fair price for.
Think About The Outdoors
Building a home is obviously your main goal when you pick a piece of property, but builders and landscapers will tell you what you need to know about building a custom home is to also consider customizing the rest of your property.
Sure, you can have a well-manicured lawn and plenty of flowers planted in your yard, but your property can be much more than that. With the right residential landscaping material, you can build a perfectly landscaped patio, or add a spa or outdoor kitchen. You can even build your own greenery, to build the garden of your dreams. With so many materials available, the possibilities are endless when it comes to landscaping.
Map Out Utilities
So what do you need to know about building a custom home? For one thing, you need to sit down with builders and map out where all the utilities are going to go. That means mapping out all of your home’s electrical outlets and figuring out your home’s plumbing system.
With plumbing, you want to make sure you’ve got plumbing where you need it; namely in all the bathrooms and the kitchen. For electrical outlets, you need to make sure there are plenty of outlets (especially if you’ve got a family who loves electronics). You need to make sure there’s room for all the TVs, tablets, phones, appliances, and other gadgets your family uses. You can even have outlets installed that come with USB ports.
Map Out Studs
Another step you’ll have to learn as you figure out what you need to know about building a custom home is determining the best placement for your wall studs.
Like your plumbing and outlets, finding the right spots for your studs will keep your home structurally sound and safe. You’ll also be able to hang pictures and other items wherever you need to inside your custom home.
Get The Right Permits
As you discover what you need to know about building a custom home, you’ll also find out that before any building begins and any movers truck your belongings to your custom home, you need to make sure all the proper paperwork is in order.
That means you need to get all the necessary building permits, flood plans and anything else is to make sure your home is up to code once it’s finished. This is where experienced builders can be a big help.
Hire A Designer
On that note, it’s not a bad idea to hire a designer if you’re aiming to build a custom home. No matter how large or small your home might be, designers have experience with this sort of thing and can help you in your ultimate goal. Even if you’ve been mapping out your dream home in your head for years, a designer can help it come to life in ways that are both unique and practical. It might be that some of your ideas are doable, but conflict with other aspects of the building process, and a designer can help you sort all that out before any work is done.
Talk With Other Home Builders
Talking with contractors and designers is a good idea when building a custom home, but it might also help to talk with folks who have custom homes of their own. They will be able to offer some first-hand tips and tricks about what works and what doesn’t. If you know any of them personally, you might ask for a tour of their home, just to get a feel for how their design plans came together. You might even get inspired to add an idea to your blueprint.
Get Excited About Your Home
Building a custom home seems like a lot of work, and to some extent it absolutely is. There’s no doubt that it takes some time and money to pull off correctly. But by hiring the right people and learning all you need to know about building a custom home, you can make the home of your dreams become a reality. By hiring experienced designers and contractors, you can let them bring your house to life, while you and your family pack up your numerous moving boxes and get ready to enjoy life in your new home.