CUSTOM HOMES

Building a dream

Follow these tips to save time and money in building your custom home says Jonathan Weston

There is a lot of excitement and emotion when you are building your dream home. However, it may already be a whirlwind of a process, if you don’t follow certain steps, not only will it cost you more than you budgeted, but it may be a lot longer before you can actually move in. In my book Twice As Long Twice As Much, I discuss not only how to avoid these issues, but how to truly optimize the experience of building your custom home. Here are my top tips on how to save money and time when building your dream home.

Hire an architect

One of the most exciting parts of building your custom dream home is designing it. However, so much more goes into this process than just that way your house looks. As a matter of fact, as architects, we know the ins and outs of what actually goes into designing and building a home. More often than not, after the designing and initial planning of the home is done, architects leave the project and let all other contractors do their parts. However, by keeping an architect on the project from beginning to end, they will be able to guide you through hidden costs, timelines, secrets, how to negotiate on certain aspects of the home, how to take your neighborhood into consideration on certain design aspects, HOAs and more. After designing and being part of numerous projects, we have essentially created a bulletproof roadmap of what to expect through the entire process. Essentially, it is more cost-effective to keep your architect on the project from beginning to end, rather than leave each contractor to do their various parts. That way, not only will the quality of your home be better, but it won’t break the bank and hopefully be done sooner than expected.

Why it matters which way your house faces

Designing a home isn’t as simple as wanting this area to be the entrance, and this room to go here, and this to be the backyard space. Actually, it is much deeper than that because of every house’s location. It is important to be conscious of which way your house faces, the layout of every room, and where windows are placed. You need to take into account how the sun rises in the east and lowers in the west, will follow the southern sky in the summer, and gradually lower in the winter. All of these factors will change how the sunlight

hits your home, which rooms will have more sunlight for longer and which will have more heat. In terms of your yards (front and back), depending on the direction your house is facing, if you have it facing south, your front yard will maintain light for longer while your backyard (presumably where you, your family, or company will spend most of your time) will have shadows overcasting it, making it less pleasing and enjoyable.

Understanding everyone’s roles

Assuming you hire a general contractor for the entire process of building your home, the first thing to understand is that you don’t have control over everything. While your dream home may be completed as promised, your contractor is actually in charge of who does what and when they do it. Unfortunately, the reality is your general contractor most likely does not have an entire team in his employment. With so many various aspects of the construction process, there are a number of people involved depending on the type of project. From the architectural design, laying the foundation, drywall, electrical, plumbing, flooring, inspections, and so on, it would be not only extremely expensive to have a large enough crew for each aspect of the job, but would be hard to manage with multiple projects. Therefore, most general contractors have subcontractors who manage the various aspects of the project.

So what does this mean for you and building your home? First, there is no solid price. While the general contractor may have set prices for his part of the project, subcontractors have their own prices for labor, and whatever the cost of materials are for them. This can lead to continued costs as well as an unknown completion date depending on how many projects the subcontractor has. So how does one combat this issue? When interviewing and ultimately hiring your general contractor, make sure to state in your written contract that you would like them to procure various bids from subcontractors rather than leaving the decision with them. Not only will this allow you to have more control over the quality of your home, but also over the price as well as the negotiation of terms. This is critical for those who have a strict budget and want control over the quality and timing of completion.

You’re in control of your home

All in all, understanding the importance of these various aspects of your project will not only help you create a high-quality finished project, but will allow you to have transparency throughout the entire process rather than being in the dark, or getting small updates here or there. This is your home, your complex, your project. You deserve to have it be what you want at the best price and quality possible. F

Jonathan Weston is an expert architect of 40+ years and is the Founder and CEO of Jaydub Inc. Jonathan has designed countless homes all over the world in the high-end luxury market - ranging from Australia to the UK and the US. Having designed homes for the majority of his career, Jonathan now focuses on helping individuals in the remodel process, showing them everything from the design and construction to hidden costs and time savers. You can find all of his secrets and more in his book Twice As Long Twice As Much. www.jaydubinc.com | www.twiceasbook.com