There are few things better than a beautiful, custom home thoughtfully designed to support your family’s unique lifestyle. However, while building from the ground up can be exciting, it’s also important to know that it’s a significant undertaking requiring thousands of orchestrated details along the way. I guarantee you’ll have to make decisions on details you’ve likely never had to consider before. This is what we do every day!

For example…

What is the best floorplan to create an effortless flow for an active family?
Which type of countertops, flooring, and cabinetry will stand up to daily use?
Should I put two or three pendants over the kitchen island?
What type of window is best over the kitchen sink?
And so many more…

These, among many other meaningful design decisions, need to be considered in order to create the home of your dreams. And believe me, it’s best to do it right the first time around. This is where the experts are worth their weight in gold.

Today, I’m sharing 4 essential steps in order to streamline your new build and produce beautiful, lasting results. Let’s take a look…

Step 1: Hire Your Team in the Right Order

Selecting a great team of dedicated professionals in the correct order can significantly impact how you experience the process. For most families, building a custom home is a milestone event. It’s a process that should be interesting, engaging, and exciting. When you plan ahead to assemble a coordinated team that understands your vision, you’ll gain advocates with the know-how to tackle any challenges along the way.

Who Should You Hire First?

Answer: Interior Designer. Then your architect, then your builder.

Hiring an interior designer as a first step will take stress and frustration out of the picture. From selecting and sourcing materials, creating floor plans, and coordinating with the construction team, your interior designer will provide invaluable guidance using an organized, streamlined approach.

However, it's imperative to hire a designer who has worked on architectural design and construction projects before. It’s so much more than choosing the color and finish selections. We specialize in leading and guiding you through the process from start to finish. (Plus, with our personal “mama bear” approach to representing you, we promise to be your best advocate in navigating the many decisions to be made with compassion and guidance.)

Bonus? Your designer will quickly facilitate the hunt for other talented and trusted professionals, including architect and builder recommendations.

Step 2: Design Phase

Here is where it starts to get really fun! You and your designer will discuss your style and your goals, create a floor plan that works with your routine, design functional rooms that embrace the unique lifestyle of your family, and start to budget your overall investment. It consists of a couple sub-phases:

Discovery

First, we begin with the initial discovery process. We’ll discover the inner workings of how your home will be used and put a heavy focus on function by asking questions that an architect or builder wouldn’t. For example, we will…

Ask questions like, what do your morning and evening routines look like? Where do your kids do their homework? How often do you entertain guests?
Discuss any technology features you’d like added, such as security, AV control systems, app-controlled lighting, and whole-home automation.
Discuss special features you’re considering. Dreaming of a secret playroom tucked under a staircase for the kiddos? A mudroom for coats and shoes? A home bar or wine room to showcase your expansive collection? Tell us!

These help us get a clear picture of how your family will use your home and ways we can design the space to support your lifestyle.

Planning

Next, we will collaborate with the architect to create and adjust floor plans, melding all of the pieces together to bring you and your family a cohesive, purposeful, and perfectly custom home.

We will also create design boards with your selected colors and finishes to provide a visual reference guide showing the style and aesthetic of the project. These are presented and approved by you before any further action is taken. (It’s always easier to make edits on paper than to a constructed house!)

Once your design plan is in place, it’s time to bring the rest of your team up to speed. As your project manager, your interior designer will make sure all of your bases are covered before moving forward. I highly suggest leaning on our expertise to help navigate this process with ease! We’ll bring in the right trades, communicate the design with them, get materials ordered and ready, and then, it’s time to move on to Step 3…

Step 3: Construction

Simply put, construction involves the physical transformation of the project. What started as your vision now becomes a flurry of activity. It’s important to understand that the initial stages of the building process will take time, and it will look like there’s not much happening at first. Trust the process! Once the drywall goes in, the home will take shape quickly.

An Important Note on Managing Trades

As each construction phase nears completion, the designer will manage the interior trades, such as the flooring contractor, cabinet maker, and window treatment installer. Be sure to ask questions during the process and document progress with photos that can serve as a reference later if needed.

It’s also important to expect “punch walks,” which are a review process where the contractor, homeowner, and designer walk through the project together to catch any issues.

Most builders want to do this just once, but we suggest doing this anytime a subcontractor wraps up their portion of the project. This is the best time to look at the details of your home with a fine-tooth comb and tag everything you see. The longer an issue lingers, the more difficult it is to fix down the road. And as construction progresses, we’ll be working on Step 4…

Step 4: Furnishing & Wrap-Up

This is one of the most overlooked steps but it is SO important. Once construction begins, it’s time to hit the ground running and start selecting the furnishings and accessories that make your house a home. Why?

The goal is to have all your furnishings and fixtures shipped, delivered, and installed for the grand reveal by the time your custom home’s construction is complete. Without this final layer, new homes either feel empty and sterile or, if you bring in your old furniture, feel like version 2.0 of your last home instead of something new and exciting.

For example, the custom home above looks stunning…but can you imagine moving in worn, outdated furniture that doesn’t match the style or scale of the home? Feels like a big step backward, right? The last thing you want is to invest time, money, and effort into building a stunning custom home and have it fall flat.

Ahhhh…now that’s better! Working with us from the beginning will ensure that there is a place for everything and that everything in its place. As a result, you can feel confident that you’ll be delightfully welcomed into your thoughtful, personal, cozy, and beautiful custom home that is more than perfect for your family…and everyone else you want to share it with, too.

After you move in, you will continue to see things that will jump out, so keep a running list to review with your builder. Around 6 months after completion, they should still be willing to return and take care of those items. Additionally, the builder will check-in at the one-year mark to do a final punch walk. At least the ones we work with.

What’s next?

Last but not least, I want you to know that we always aim to provide sound guidance and make the process as fun and worry-free for you as possible. In all honesty, there will be bad news along the way.

However, a well-matched interior designer will be your personal problem-solver. We will roll with the punches and support you by catching issues before they become problems, keeping the project's wheels in a forward motion, and ensuring you are beyond thrilled.

The results? Fresh, personalized spaces to gather friends and family. A customized, stylish home that promotes comfort and ease with everyday functionality. Creating a haven with heart, where life is so good that time stands still.

If our mission sounds like yours, we’d love to help. Reach out to us here to schedule a discovery call.

— Susan

4 Steps to Building Your Custom Family Home