Start planning and designing your custom home in the winter

You should start the planning and design of your new custom home in the winter.

If you want your custom home to be build in a time efficient manner then you want it to start as early as possible in the spring. The earlier you start your home the more of it will be completed before the following winter starts. Winter slows the process of building a home and also can restrict certain building processes such as outside stonework.

Getting your permit, design and finding your contractor should all be done in the winter time. There are several reasons that you should do all of this in the winter months;

• Designers, architects, draftsmen, contractors and building departments are all less busy in the winter time.

• Starting all these processes in the winter allows you to take your time with the design and the choosing of your contractor. You will be under a lot less pressure to make a decision.

• Quality contractors in the spring usually run out of space, especially in busy construction years. Looking for your contractor in the spring will almost certainly lead to you having to wait till the middle of the summer to start your custom home and in rare occasions your home could be delayed till the fall.

• Starting in the winter will allow you to make all your decisions like the colour of the walls and the floor types. You will be under little to no pressure to make choices and can take your time to find the best prices on items like plumbing and lighting fixtures.

A lot of times in today’s building rules and regulations you will start the designing of your home and find out some rules and restrictions that will slow down the process of you getting your permit. Starting your home design process in the winter will give you a little bit of cushion (so that if and when you run into permit problems) it won’t affect the start of your custom home.

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.