The Custom Home Building Process
For most, building a dream custom home is often a once in a lifetime experience. It’s a significant investment in time and resources, with a lot of decision making and pivoting along the way. To ensure a positive experience and exceptional outcome, it’s vital to spend time up front exploring your lifestyle and unique style to guide the design and building process. From exterior architectural features to elegant interior finishes, we consider every detail so that you truly love every aspect of your home.
In this article, we’ll go through the below steps in more detail to help you prepare for your custom home building journey.
- Consultation
- Lot selection
- Architectural drawings and home design
- Specification and pricing
- Home construction
- Welcome home!
Step 1: Consultation
Every custom home project is unique, so we begin by identifying the needs and wants of each of our clients. Proper preparation and planning are critical to a successful project. We will take you through our consultation process to discuss location, budget, design, timelines and any other important details of your project. This step is highly collaborative as we learn more about you, share solutions and narrow down your priorities. Spending the time up front understanding what your dream home looks like will guide every step and help manage expectations along the way.
Step 2: Lot selection
Once we understand your dream vision and discuss location requirements, it’s time to select the lot for your new custom home. If required, we will work with you to find the perfect lot in your desired Calgary community that fits all the requirements of your custom home. There are quite a few aspects of selecting a lot to consider. Depending on your desired neighbourhood, there may be guidelines on the size of homes in the area, aesthetic finishes of the home and placement of your home on the lot. It is also important to consider if the lot has access to utility infrastructure and if there is an existing home on the property. All of these factors will influence the overall budget and timeline of building your dream home. Whether you are looking to build an inner-city luxury home or an elegant estate home on an acreage, our knowledgeable team can help identify any concerns or requirements of build lots.
Step 3: Architectural drawings and home design
After you find and purchase the perfect lot, it’s time to secure an architect to begin designing your home. Having the lot already identified ensures the architect will know the parameters they need to consider when designing your dream home. Either working with our in-house architect or an architecture firm of your choice, the design team will start bringing your ideas together from step one with the selected lot. Our design-build team works closely with you throughout the entire home design process to ensure your vision and budget are met, while advising on what’s functional and realistic. It’s at this stage where the architect will create blueprints of the home’s general layout to go through with you until the architectural specifications are to your liking.
Step 4: Specification and pricing
At this stage, we take the blueprints one step further by working with an interior designer to specify all materials. After the layout of the home is established, an interior designer will work with you to recommend materials and finishes based on step one to bring your vision to life within your budget. Before construction and material procurement begins, we’ll carefully review all specifications with you to develop a detailed budget.
Step 5: Home construction
Working closely with your dedicated project manager, we take the project from conception to completion. This is done with scheduled walk-throughs of your custom home at specific stages of the home build. Depending on the complexity and scope of each project, construction time can range, but most projects can be completed within 8-12 months. Home building requires flexibility as some of your ideas may need to be adjusted based on what’s viable for the physical space and your budget. Experts from each step will continue working with you throughout the custom home building process when ideas need to be shifted.
Step 6: Welcome home
We celebrate your new custom home and pass you the keys to a place you’ll love for years to come! It really is all about the details for us. From exterior architectural features to elegant interior designs, our team of experts consider every detail to deliver exceptional results. We’ll provide a detailed walk-through of all the features of your new home and address any finishing touches and any questions you may have before sharing a final congratulations.
Our custom homes speak for themselves. View our custom home gallery to see the luxury residential properties we’ve built over the years, or for some inspiration for your dream home! When you’re ready, contact us with any requests, ideas or questions.