After we decided on a lot, it was time to get with a builder. We had been talking to our builder Daniel while looking at lots, but it was time to get serious and start on the design phase.
We have known Daniel for years. He helped us when we did the massive remodeling (floors, kitchen) on our last house. My parents and him just built this commercial building. They have a real estate investment company together and have built, remodeled, and sold numerous homes together over the years. (Daniel being the builder and my parents being the realtors.)
Honestly I did meet with another builder, but I felt more comfortable with Daniel. I know the quality of home he builds. Plus I trust him which is huge when you are looking for a contractor!
So we sit down and start talking about what we want. It went something like this:
Daniel: So what kind of house do you want to build?
Us: One with walls??
Here’s the deal on a completely custom home you are in charge of everything – daunting yet exciting all at once. We knew the basics of what we wanted – square footage, bedrooms, etc. (I mean we do have a pinterest clearly that qualifies us to some degree.) In fact I think everyone has a vision of what they want in a house, but it’s totally different when you are on the other side of the desk about to make that vision a reality. It’s a lot of pressure (not that anything we said then has any permanent standing yet but still).
So this picture isn’t exactly related to meeting with Daniel, but it pretty much sums up how we felt. Part excited and part nervous like we did at our first auction only on a much grander scale.
We brainstormed together what amenities we wanted like fireplaces, flooring, exterior features, etc. Daniel gave us ballpark prices, so we had an idea of what was feasible when we met with our architect. I felt significantly less clueless after the meeting which is always a good thing. We had a lot of thinking to do before we started hammering out the floor plan and elevation.
What are some of your must haves? Do you think it’s awesome to be in charge of everything or do you prefer to have your choices limited for sanities sake?
I’m glad we built pre-Pinterest. Our house would still be a hole in the ground.
I looked at a bunch of different house plans on-line and pieced together all of the good pieces to make our house. Our must-haves were a mudroom, open living space, master and laundry on the second floor.
We generally prefer fewer choices. Our very small budget helped with that. 😉
I can’t wait to see this all come together!!!
Pinterest has played a huge part thus far. Mostly good but definitely a ton of over thinking happening.
We had to piece house plans together too since we felt we might as well make it exactly what we want. I think fewer choices is easier. It will be interesting to see how we narrow things, and how quickly we can make decisions!
I love to be in charge of everything and the list of what I would want is long and at the initial planning stage is all about practicality. There are so many things that you can put in a house to really make it custom.
One thing I would definitely do again is to do an “intelligent” house system where you wire all outlets and celiing boxes in a “star-pattern” instead of from box to box. It’s only a bit more wire if you are building from scratch, but then you can hook up the computer at the end and program each outlet to each light fixture, so for instance we programmed ours so that at the front door and by our bed in the master, with one switch you could turn of and on all lights in the house. I loved that and would do that in a minute again.
The list is so long for what I would do…LOL another important thing to me is to think in trash handling. Maybe people forget that and then end up with a gorgeous kitchen and then a big trash can on the floor – don’t like that. In our new kitchen we have both a big trash can for regular trash and then two more hiding in another cabinet for re-cycling, so all the card board and milk cartons don’t pile up by the door waiting to be taken out.
Another thing: the laundry room: think in hang-to-dry space, so you don’t have to have wet sweaters etc all over the house while drying. I had a line going back and fourth giving me about 60-70 ft of drying space in my mud room. I have not seen that anywhere else and it was something we used all the time.
My cousin just built a house and she really wanted a laundry shoot inside a closet from the master going to the laundry room downstairs, so she had that as part of her plan. The sky is the limit
Can’t wait to see all that you think up with this house. It’s going to be so great!
Intelligent house huh? Listen Katja, some realtalk here: I in no way intend to build a house that is smarter than I am. Since I am not intelligent, my house won’t be either.
All I really need is a big ole’ slide in the backyard.
Hahaha
Sorry, I overestimated you. I thought you were going to at least have swings as well 
Next time you will just estimate me
Oh goodness! A ton of things I haven’t really thought about! Our old house was wired to be an intelligent house before they figure out how to do it right I guess. It was always a giant pain when we had to wire for new things. My in laws can control their house via a computer, and it’s awesome. I have no idea how the set up works. Definitely something to look into!
Got the trash part covered! We almost put a trash drawer in the last kitchen remodel but couldn’t get the cabinet doors to match up without replacing all the fronts. It just wasn’t worth it.
I feel like you have thought more about this than us, so I’m glad you can help us!!
Ah, I have just done it before. That’s all
I am excited to see what you do 
Open floor plans are a must for me on both floors and even though I wasn’t sure what to do with it at first, our loft space/second living room upstairs has turned out to be one of my favorite rooms in our house. Also, our upstairs laundry right off the master is super convenient!
Our pantry in the kitchen with a pocket door has been great for food storage (obviously) + storage of other things we buy in bulk like paper towels, toilet paper, extra cleaning supplies, etc. If it gets too messy, you just pull the door closed and pretend it’s all organized! 😉
Also, if you can get them, get tall ceilings! Ours are 10′ on the first floor and 9′ on the second and it’s amazing at how much bigger the rooms feel just because of that extra head room!
Spolier alert: we’re actually building 2 stories with 5 feet ceilings each, because it was the same price as 1 story with 10ft ceilings! Look for that post next week!
Damn it Nick I told you to keep that under wraps.
Building a new home from your imagination is crazy! And so exciting! I mean, you can walk through model homes, and do “upgrades” and crap… but actually deciding everything from head to toe is so wild! Aaron and I talk about it all the time. We always say it will probably take us a year or more to just design the dang thing. I’m really excited to see y’all’s house come together
There’s so much to do. We have a list that all we can do is stare at and blink.
We probably should have done more pre planning since I know there’s a ton we are missing. I just figured building wasn’t in our near future, so I didn’t think a lot about it. Nothing like a crash course right!
We went with a home builder in a development, so our options were limited in a good way. We mostly got what we wanted and decided against items that we knew we could do ourselves at a later time. Things like granite countertops, high end bath tile and fixtures were all skipped. We’ll do those later. We opted for higher ceilings and exterior brick.. things that would either be impossible to do later or just not worth it.
Good luck on your decisions!
Good advice! Luckily the builder won’t upcharge us for certain choices, but we still have to weigh what we splurge on and what we can save for later.
Sounds super stressful but also REALLY fun! You guys are in such an enviable position right now. Enjoy it, my friend!!
It’s pretty stressful now which is why I’m grateful that we have such a great relationship with our builder (and our marriage is pretty great too). I can only imagine the stress sky rockets as the process unfolds.