Whether building a new or renovating an existing structure, there’s a strong temptation to plunge straight into home building projects.
The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll be done, right? Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way if you haven’t done some essential planning up front.
Creating a home is more than building “three bedrooms, 2½ bathrooms.” It is so much more than the sum of a few parts.
Creating a new home is a journey of discovering who you are, what you want, how you want to live and where you want to be in your new home.
As with any journey, you’ll want to do some research and plan your trip. You’ll want to have a sense of what the end result should be and how much it’ll cost.
Here are seven crucial steps to help you plan for a successful home building and the reasons they’re so important for any project.
1.Choose a design professional:
Selecting a design professional usually starts with an in-person meeting, which can take a few weeks depending on how many companies you are interviewing. This is your opportunity to understand the services that each firm offers and make sure they match up with what you are expecting.These people will act as a guide, therapist, advocate, and counselor throughout the journey in creating your new home.
It’s also critical that you have a budget for your project in mind that you communicate clearly to the firm you hire, so the design can align with what you are planning to invest.
To create a plan and detailed scope of work, most homeowners hire either an architect or interior designer, or sometimes both. Each design professional and contractor runs his or her business in a different way.
Many designers work on projects that don’t involve major structural work or additions. Architects may take on a wide range of work, or work only on floor plans and permits.
2.Create a plan.
After choosing a design firm, it’s time to start making a layout plan. There are usually at least two and sometimes three good ways to reach your design goals.
The plans are called schematic designs; they usually involve a rough layout of the floor plan and some simple views of the exterior of the home if there is an addition.
It takes time for the design professional to work these out, and then usually another week or two for the homeowners to consider them and make decisions.
3.Interview contractors.
Contractors are frequently brought into the process once a final schematic design has been selected. Usually, there is at least a general idea of how the home will look from the outside.
A dimensioned floor plan and some preliminary material selections. With this much information, it’s possible to provide preliminary estimates of cost.
Contractors are often asked to estimate the schematic design as part of the interview process.
It may at least two to three weeks after interviews to receive the estimates.After that, you may want to call references, visit job sites or do additional research before making a decision about the contractor you will hire.
Also read our previous blog all about basic guide to Interior designing
4.Go Shopping while Others are Engineering.
Love to shop or hate to shop? This may determine whether you recruit a designer to help with your material selection.
Do not underestimate the number of things that need to be selected, from doorknobs and windows to countertops and light fixtures.
While you are shopping for tile and hardwood floors, your architect or designer will finalize construction drawings, work with a structural engineer on how the project will be built and put in the details required for permitting.
5.Get your Permits
One of the most important steps in home building is permits.Depending on the capacity of your project and where it’s located, permitting can take a day, months or even years.
You should have some idea ahead of filing for permits about the length of the process, which will allow you to identify a likely start date for your project.
6.Ready, set
With the plan submitted for permits and material selections made, your contractor will be able to finish up pricing and write up a contract for construction.
The planning process can be a lengthy process, but each step you take will put you closer to starting your project with a clear vision of what’s to come, means your entire construction team — design professional, contractor and you — can start the project on the same page with a clearly articulated plan.
By the time all of these steps are complete, it may be four to six months or even more since you started talking with design professionals.
7.Enjoy your new home.
You’ve worked hard and spent more than a few million to create your new home, so enjoy it to the max. Discover how this place gives shape to your life and allows you to become the person you want to be.
In the end, you’ll be amazed that your new house is so much more than the sum of just its three bedrooms, living room and so on. It’s the place you get to call home and make uniquely yours.
