Industry

Four Steps to Building a Custom Home

Whether you are building a completely new property or renovating an old, existing structure, building a new home is a journey of discovering who you are, what you want, how you'd like to live and where you want to be located. Building a custom home is seen by many as a chance to define your relationship to the world, your family, and even yourself, and consists of much more than simply deciding on how many bedrooms you'll need. As with any journey, it's important to ensure that you do some research and thoroughly plan your trip. You will want to know where you want to end up and how much you're prepared to pay. Let's look at the steps involved in building a custom home.

Set Goals

Creating a new home for yourself is all about setting a series of goals and ensuring that they are met. You will need to establish the answers to a whole range of different questions so that you can best set these goals. Your list of goals should include two sides - a practical, ‘need-to-have' side, and an emotional ‘want-to-have' side. Each is important and should be given equal recognition.

Establish a Budget

As with any renovation or building work, a budget should be a main factor of any goal plan. However, your budget is so important, which is why we've included it here separately. When starting to set out your budget, you should begin with how much you can afford, and how the cost of your house fits in with your overall plans for the future. When you're ready to set the budget out, it's important that you include absolutely everything, including the cost of the land, design and engineering fees, and local taxes to ensure that nothing is left out and you're not met with any nasty surprises.

Find Some Land

Before you begin the building work for your new custom home, you will need to find a place in which to build it. Find some land or a neglected older house which you could renovate or demolish. When looking for land, it's important to consider where you'd like to live, how you want to live and any other specifics that you are looking for.

Find a Team

Hiring an expert team of professionals is crucial when it comes to putting together your dream custom home. The most important team members which you should have building your home are an architect and a builder. Sometimes, these two team members are one and the same. At the beginning and throughout the project, it's important to keep on top of plans, realise that sometimes not the first answer is the right answer, and remember that sometimes dreaming big and having grand ideas is the best way forward. Click here for more information on custom homes design and build by a team of dedicated professionals.

Have you designed your own custom home? Or, are you currently in the process of putting a custom home together? We'd love to hear from you in the comments.

If you have any questions, please ask below!