Building Your Dream Home: Key Steps From Start to Finish

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Building your home as opposed to buying one offers a great many advantages, and these mostly pertain to the huge degree of flexibility you have. Where purchasing a pre-built home involves several sacrifices no matter what you choose, building your own allows you to pick the number of rooms, the exact style you’d like, and the perfect location.

That said, the process does take a huge amount of work and will have you facing a lot of learning curves. In this article, you’ll gain an overview of the process as a whole in a few key steps.

Note: Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means I receive a commission if you click a link and then make a purchase.

a two story new construction home on a quiet street in the evening with lights on inside

Image Credit: Pexels

Determining What You Want

Every ambitious project requires a great deal of thought and planning, so long before the first brick is laid, the process of building your own home takes place in the mind.

You’ll need to establish a very concrete idea of exactly what you want, and it’s helpful to split this process into the following sections:

Deciding on the Size

There are certain aspects of building your new home that have to come before thinking about anything else. The first is size: how big is your family? Do you need a certain number of bedrooms and extra if more children might be on the cards? Do you frequently entertain guests? Is a large kitchen a must? Will you need a double garage to boot? Go through each possible use case for your new home to determine the best dimensions.

Picking an Ideal Location

The location you choose for your new home is just as important as the building itself. Consider whether you prefer a rural, quiet life, or something close to the lively atmosphere of a city; you should also take into consideration how close you need to be to local amenities, like stores and schools.

Choosing the Perfect Style

Deciding on what style you’re going to go for in your new build can be a lot of fun, but it can also be difficult. There are a huge amount of different architectural styles you could go for, and the best way to figure things out is to look for inspiration. Go look around homes that are for sale so you can get a feel for the options available, and sift through magazines and websites like Pinterest to cement your feelings.

On Budgeting

You won’t get very far until you’ve properly taken a stab at figuring out your budget, and naturally, there’s a lot that goes into that final estimate. You should estimate the cost individually for each element, and then bring it together at the end: start by segmenting your budget into land, construction, and interior design elements. When dealing with amounts this large, it can help to speak to a financial advisor.

Talking To the Professionals

Once you’ve crunched some numbers and have concrete ideas, it’s time to approach the pros. Custom house builders will take your ideas and, via an in-depth consultation, formulate a structured plan to execute them.

three story home being built with construction truck and workers on scene

Image Credit: Pexels

Some Final Tips

Prepare for Mishaps

With a big project like this, it’s important to have a contingency budget of about 10-20% to account for any problems you might encounter.

Prioritize Communication

Right throughout the building process, strong communication between all involved is crucial. You’ll be dealing with a large team, and everyone needs to be on board with the overall ‘vision’ in order for things to go smoothly. Have regular meetings with everyone to make sure all are on the same page – from beginning to end.

Focus On Quality Over Quantity

When you’re designing your home, you may be tempted to add as much space and as many fancy features as possible, but you should remember to focus on the quality of each element as opposed to simply how many rooms and separate areas you’ll build in.

This will ensure that you only take on as much work as is necessary. It’s easier to focus on a few parts and really work on making them special, than it is to spread the team out across a ton of different aspects of a build – it’s impossible to give everything the same level of attention, and the more moving parts, the worse that problem becomes.

Wrapping Up

Building your own house is one of the most exciting projects you can take on, but it’s no walk in the park. Put in the work during the planning stage, though, and take things one step at a time, and you’ll be relaxing on the couch in your new home before you know it.

This is a contributed post.

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