Building a home designed entirely around your needs, wants, and aesthetic preferences is a wonderful experience. And, with all you’re going to learn, you’ll complete the process feeling like an amateur home designer yourself!

However, before breaking ground, there are several important planning and design phases that need to be waded through to keep your build-out schedule moving forward.

8 Phases of Your Custom Home Design

There’s no industry standard around the phases of a custom home build, but we’ve divided our process into eight stages to keep things manageable and palatable for our clients.

1. Choosing the right custom home builder for the job

While we appreciate the enthusiasm and energy clients put into creating online portfolios of their dream home designs, choosing the right contractor for the job is the most important decision you’ll make. 

We recommend interviewing three to five different local, licensed contractors to get a feel for their work, personalities, company culture, and client references. You want to work with a firm that is:

• Currently licensed, bonded, and insured.
• Has a good reputation with the local building department.
• Prides themselves on quality craftsmanship and customer service.
• Committed to consistent and reliable communication with clients.
• Reputed for finishing projects on time and providing exceptional post-construction customer service as needed.

Remember that the average custom home takes about one to years from first design consultation to home occupancy, depending on the size of the home, design complexity, and the whims of Mother Nature. So, in addition to the above, take the time during this crucial phase to find a builder you feel will make a good partner. 

2. Lot consultation and selection

If possible, we appreciate being included in our clients’ lot selection process. Not all lots are created equal. In our recent post covering important considerations about where to build your DeLand home, we discuss this in more detail. Ultimately, your lot selection should feature:

• The right size and shape to accommodate zoned setbacks, your home’s footprint, and plenty of room for usable front-, side-, and backyard space
• An orientation that promotes energy efficiency and whole-home comfort.
• Adequate slope for drainage (ensuring it’s not in a primary flood zone).
• Proximity to your chosen schools/community centers.
• Zoning that supports residential builds for the immediate blocks surrounding your street/home, so you don’t wind up in the middle of strip mall development ten years from now.

Working with your chosen contractor during the lot selection phase may prevent you from purchasing a lot that isn’t as great for a home build as you may have thought.

3. The initial design consultation

Here’s where the fun begins. Now that you’ve purchased a lot, it’s time to design a home that suits your location and meets all of your family’s functional wants and needs – as well as paying attention to the extras that make the design even more special.

This is the time we’ll want to see any of the pictures, clippings, or cloud-based design boards you’ve already created, giving us an idea of your general design tastes and preferences. 

We’ll have lots of conversations around:

• Your budget.
• The plan(s) you already have in mind.
• What has and has not worked about your current home or homes you’ve lived in in the past.
• Your current list of wants and needs
• Features  that add functionality, usability, and beauty to your home and landscape.
• Potential future plans (Do you want to raise children here? Will in-laws or house guests be a regular feature? Do you have any desire to age-in-place?)

If we were not working with you during your lot selection phase, we’d want to meet you on-site to get a feel for its size, shape, geographic features, slope, etc., so we optimize your home design to suit its future home.

4. Permit application and approval phase

The combination of the design phase and the submittal/permitting/approval phase can take as long as six months. This requires patience. Your home’s design must be approved by your local building department to ensure everything is being built to honor current code standards. Each phase of construction (soil amendment/grading, foundation pour, framing, roofing, and so on) requires separate permit cards, which are signed off by certified building inspectors a set points along the way. 

Submitting the final applications and the county’s approval sets the stage for our final project timeline/schedule.

5. Initial design and planning

By now, we’ve performed a thorough review of the design concepts you brought to us and that we discussed during our initial design consultation. We’ve also been on-site and established the tenets of what will work and what doesn’t based on your lot’s location, size, and orientation.

Now we’ll take all of that information and begin coming up with the initial home design plans, begin working on the project’s budget. We’ll continue making changes and tweaks to these initial plans as needed until they reflect what you want.

While Fogle Constructors is a full-service design and build firm, some clients prefer to work with their own interior designer and landscape architect. If that’s the case, now is the time onboard them so we collaborate from the start. 

6. Printing up the final design plans

Now that you’ve signed off on the final design, it’s time to print the plans. These two-dimensional (2-D) architectural plans are our building roadmap. Nothing beats the excitement of watching 2-D architectural plans come to life – from the ground up – on your building site. 

If you’ve already worked with an engineer and/or architect or are using pre-designed plans from a website, that’s okay, too. We’ll integrate the designs you’ve rendered with your interior designer and our in-house design team and the final plan set will lead the way. 

The full set of constructions plans have everything we need, including:

• Survey work and topography maps
• Tree/landscape surveys (site depending)
• Plans for each subcontractor (concrete, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, roofing, lighting, landscaping, etc.)
• Floorplan and layouts
• Custom exterior elevations

7. The selections process

Now it’s time to go room by room and begin selecting all of the finishing design elements. This is where you’ll begin specifying the makes/models/colors/textures, etc., for things like:

• Flooring
• Cabinetry
• Plumbing fixtures
• Trim
• Lighting fixtures
• Windows/pane styles
• Siding and roofing 
• And so on

We’ll use in-house technology to show you 3D renderings that change according to your selections, so you can see what each room and living space will look like in “real life.”

Keeping your budget in mind, we’re here to guide the way, helping you to find finishes and fixtures that are exactly what you envisioned, for the right price. Once the selection phase is complete, you’ll sign off on the specification (spec) sheets and we’ll get ready to place orders.

8. Final approval and contract signing

This is the final piece of the design and planning puzzle. You’ve signed off on architectural plans; you’ve signed the spec sheets for the interior and exterior design choices, and now it’s time to finalize the contract. The contract includes a copy of the specifications, projected timeline, and a final budget. 

Once you’ve signed the solid line, it’s time to break ground. 

Ready to work with a Deland custom home builder who keeps every phase of the design and building process as simple and stress-free as possible? Schedule a consultation with Fogle Constructors. 386-279-0901.