When you are looking to build a custom home there are 3 professionals that you will require to make your custom home build go smoothly, that it looks like a proper custom home and that it gives you the most bang for your buck.
Those 3 are an Architect, a General Contractor and an Interior Designer.
Those 3 are the most important professionals, they will all cost you money, but they all have the ability to save you money in the long run.
The process of building a home basically goes as follows when you are the homeowner;
1. You find and buy a piece of land.
2. You employ an architect to draw your custom home.
3. You hire a general contractor to price and construct the home. (The hiring of an architect can actually come after your hire your general contractor, especially if you are having trouble finding the right architect)
4. You hire an interior designer to help you with the decisions that you must make for what you want the interior of your home to look and feel like.
What most people don’t realize is that all three of these professionals work together to help bring your dreams of a custom home to life.
The architect and the general contractor will work together when drawing and budgeting your home. This will help get you your custom home within the budget that you require and also reduce the sticker shock when you are handed the initial estimate for the home.
The general contractor and the interior designer work together so that the choices you do make in finishing the house doesn’t affect anything as it pertains to the actual construction, having to move walls, electrical or plumbing because of new visions for spaces can become costly. Since the general contractor is the one that created the detailed budget for your home they will have to communicate with the interior designer into what the different allowances are for the finishing’s. If the interior designer knows the allowances for things such as tile and hardwood then they can direct the homeowner to choices that will fall within the budget.
One of the biggest problems when building a home is when the clients do not make choices quick enough for the general contractor that is constructing the home. This causes delays in the construction of the building and pushes the timeline of the complication date further back. Depending on the size and scope of the home there are literally 100’s of decisions that will have to be made once the building of the home has started. A lot of these decisions will have a tight timeline so as not to slow down construction.
In construction time is money and the slower a build goes the more it ends up costing the homeowner. The cost of hiring professionals like architects, general contractors and interior designers will save you more money as the build commences. Most often than not when the final cost is reviewed it shows that the mighty 3 saved more money for the homeowner then what the fee’s for their services cost.
In every other business people rely on professionals to give them advice and to help them with decisions that they know little to nothing about. This should be the same thinking when it comes to constructing homes, you should rely on professionals to help you make the appropriate decisions in a timely manner.
Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.
