Phase One: Communicating & Designing the Perfect Vision of Your Custom Home
These past few months, we’ve talked about our entire design-build custom home process from beginning to end—specifically, what it looks like financially, what we expect of our clients, getting started, how much time is invested in each phase and more.
Last month, we talked about phase zero of the custom home architectural process—aka, the steps you’ll take to contact us before a contract is in place. This includes ways to reach out, initial meetings to see if we’re comfortable moving forward, and even reviewing inspirational photos of your vision. So, what’s next?
Full transparency: Phase one is very emotional. Not to mention, it takes a little longer than the others. This is what we like to call our “design phase,” where a lot of our creativity comes into play. We also balance the budget and consider the square footage and structure. For us, it’s about answering the question, How do all of these things go together? For you, this time is about describing the home you've been dreaming of since day one.
Let’s dive in a little deeper to see how phase one begins, and when it’s time to move on to phase two.
Step One: Communicating With Your Architect
Now that we have a contract in place, it’s time to get things started.
We consider phase one the most important time to communicate with us—think of it as your number-one job.
As you know, communication comes in many different forms. As the artists and visionaries behind your project, the least effective form of communication is solely vocalizing what you want. True, we talk and describe things all the time, and we certainly pick up on a lot of cues when you speak to us. That being said, a photo that pairs with your description is going to inform us in the best way possible—even if it's a picture of something you don't like.
If you were to communicate your vision using only your words, we’d probably picture things differently in our minds. For example, you may say you want a modern farmhouse—because at one point you may have seen a photo that was labeled as such—but the images you bring to the table are more mid-century modern or modern lodge, in our opinion.
We need to know the nitty-gritty details of a particular style you’re asking for. Communicating with both pictures and words is the only way for us to create the house you actually want. Our rule of thumb? Less labeling, more photos.
Step Two: Walking The Land
Before we begin, we walk the land to gather information from you. If we haven’t done this already during phase zero, we’ll most certainly do this in phase one. During this time, we discuss the size of the lot, the neighbors, the street, the back of where your home will be, privacy concerns, the possibilities of the property, construction details, and even how beautiful your entrance will be onto the property.
Ultimately, there’s only so much you can get from looking at a site plan—as architects, we really want to feel the site alongside you. This means being there in real life.
Step Three: Room Details & Lifestyle
Once our walkthrough is complete, we’ll meet at our office to talk about every single room you envision for your new home—how you want it to feel, the styles you like best, and most importantly, how you live. This usually involves what you’d like to change about your current situation—and the discussion isn’t limited to the number of bedrooms and bathrooms you want. Do you want to entertain? What stage of life is your family in right now? Do you plan to stay in your new home forever? Will your parents ever live with you?
Step Four: Home Size & Budget
Once the style and use conversations are out of the way, we’ll want to talk about the size you want your home to be, as well as your preliminary budget. Although we briefly discuss these details during phase zero, we’ll want to revisit them in more detail during phase one.
Not to mention, we want to get to the heart of why this is so important to you. The truth? This isn’t an easy process, and it’s certainly not cheap, either. In fact, it’s becoming more expensive every passing day. We want to know about the years you’ve been dreaming of building your custom home—all of the ups and downs and what you’ve gone through to get to this point. Using our experience, we can talk through your fears of expenses. We may not be able to deliver everything you’ve ever dreamed of (spoiler: that’s not even possible in the first place)—but we can definitely deliver a home you love. We can get you to a point where it's more than you ever thought you could have—not in size or cost, but in experience and living.
The only way to make this happen is to sit down and have an honest, vulnerable conversation.
Step Five: Preliminary Design
From this point, we’ll take all of your input—your dreams, budget, size, lifestyle—and work behind the scenes to sketch, draw, and model your custom home. Depending on the size and complexity of your home, this step will take anywhere from a few weeks to a month. During this time, we have an intermediate meeting with you to present what we’ve done so far. From there, we’ll go back to the drawing board with your edits, then meet again in our conference room or via Zoom. We’ll go through this process as long as it takes to get exactly what you want within your budget.
Once everyone is happy, we’ll meet once again so you can officially sign off on the preliminary design. Then we’ll move on to phase two!
Have any questions?
Although we covered a lot in this post, you may still have some other questions about phase one of our design-build architectural process. Whether you’re involved in the custom home process now, or even just considering it, join our free Facebook group—we’ll help you answer any questions you might have! Also, feel free to invite anyone that you think would benefit from this collaborative. You’ll not only get advice from me, but from other people who have been through this, too.
Start the process.
When it comes to designing and building a custom home, nothing beats having a trusted, experienced team of architects on your side. Let’s set up a call to meet, discuss your goals, answer your questions, and settle your fears. We can’t wait to meet you!