The 5 Principles of a Successful Build
Building a custom home is truly a dream come true for many homeowners, offering the opportunity to personalize a space to one’s unique lifestyle and tastes. However, without the proper framework this dream can quickly become a nightmare. Here are five guiding principles, the foundation, for a successful build.
Define a Clear Vision
Having a well-defined vision is crucial for guiding every decision throughout the project. It is important to have a clear understanding of your style, specific needs for your household, preferences and any long term goals for your life in your new home. Starting with the negative can be a surprisingly productive place to start vision discussions. What problems do you experience now in your home that a new home can solve? Perhaps you need more robust space to work from home. Perhaps your current kitchen lacks storage a walk in pantry could solve. Does your growing family need more bedrooms or a separate space for teenagers to hang out? Or are you downsizing and desire to focus resources on the spaces you’ll use every day? A clear vision drives the architectural and design choices, and should be the North Star you follow during the build.
Determine a Flexible Budget
A researched and intentional budget that supports your vision ensures that you stay in control of your costs, and enjoy the building process. Custom home construction is not like the making of a widget in a factory, with tightly controlled cost predictions that can be replicated over and over again. For peace of mind, one should prepare a budget with flex, and that budget should be comfortably within one’s grasp. A flexible budget provides the margin to weather the unknowns, to embrace opportunities as they arise, and invest in a new feature that pulls the space together. A good rule of thumb is to set aside a minimum of 15% for contingencies. If you have not purchased land yet, choose wisely. Avoid the mistake of investing so much in the land that your construction budget becomes untenable. It’s also important to consider additional soft costs, such as furniture and décor, window coverings and moving expenses.
Choose the Right Team
Building a home is one of the largest investments one can make in a lifetime, and it is key to work with skilled professionals to bring that vision to life. Trained professionals and experts provide more information about the process and building costs in your area. Their feedback may inform you that your vision and budget are out of alignment. If so, either the budget adjusts, or the scope of your vision should be reduced or designed as phases. During the build, their experience with best practices in design and construction methods, coordination of sub-contractors and schedule, and budget management is invaluable. One should seek out experts in the field who are authentically interested in seeing you reach your goals with the new project, and who care enough to tell you the hard truths while remaining solutions oriented.
Understand the Timeline
Building a home is a complex process and it is wise to understand the construction phases and timeline. Each phase has its own bundle of decisions and material procurement, so not only should one know what to expect in each phase, one should be anticipating the upcoming decisions 1-2 phases ahead. One should also know that various construction activities can be significantly delayed due to weather, such as sitework, foundation and framing. Once a home gets dried in, the schedule is more predictable. However, in general, construction schedules are moving targets. You might lose time in one phase, but gain it in another. An unforeseen condition might pop up requiring a pause in order to seek out the best solution. The complexity of the work might take more time than was originally budgeted. Schedule should never trump quality. Be prepared to wait, and understand that your project is not operating within a vacuum. Not only does your builder more than likely have trades scheduled at other jobs, but those trades work for more than one builder. A builder invested in their customer’s experience will communicate delays quickly, and be planning logistics for other work that can be done to continue pushing toward completion. Perhaps landscaping is installed even though the painter is delayed, or plumbing and lighting is installed in areas unaffected by a delayed cabinetry order.
Prepare for Decisions
Building a home involves making countless decisions. While making as many decision as one can upfront is always wise, it is inevitable that some decisions arise during construction. Being prepared for the critical decision making points is essential in keeping a project on track and ensuring a successful outcome. One of the best ways to make decisions is by keeping in mind the construction timeline above. Certain elements are critical path and the project can’t progress until these decision are made, like locations for floor outlets in a poured foundation. Finish decisions reach their point of no return at different times during the build. You are safe to wait on paint colors until you are midway through the project. Plumbing and appliances and their locations however, must be decided before the foundation is poured to prepare underground mechanicals properly. Other decisions might be tied up in budgetary concerns. One might want to get through framing and see where framing material costs land before splurging on the desired light fixtures. While most custom builders can be somewhat flexible, be prepared to make a decision quickly when it is tied to the overall budget. Work with the information you have at hand and know that you made the best decision you could at the time with the information available to you. Document your changes. A professional builder should have a change order process already in place, even for no-cost change orders, that documents everything. Bear in mind however, that changing your mind always introduces opportunity for error.
By understanding these five key principles, you can navigate your build with confidence with a team you trust. While challenges may arise, being proactive and informed help the project move along smoothly toward completion. This framework ensures that your custom home building journey is as rewarding as the final product itself.
