Buying a new home is a big investment. You could spend months or even years searching for the right home. And odds are that once you find it, it still won’t have everything you were hoping for.

You could turn to home renovations to make the property better suit your needs. But this only increases the cost of your home. In fact, the average Canadian spends nearly $12,000 on home renovations each year.

Rather than wasting your time on finding and renovating a home that only partly suits your needs, why not design a house that has everything your family wants, with no renovations needed?

Building a custom home is a chance to get the features, layout, and style that matches your family’s current needs, as well as any future needs you might have.

If you have a dream home in mind that you’re thinking about building, keep reading. We’re breaking down a few tips for working with custom home builders to design your perfect home.

Start by Choosing Your Build Location

Before you can start working with custom home builders to design and build your dream home, you need to start by choosing where you’ll build.

A home can be customized to fit perfectly on a property. But its harder to adjust the land itself.

If you’re planning to build within a neighbourhood or gated community, you may be confined by home association guidelines on architecture and styles.

If you buy a narrow or small piece of property, you may need to choose a different home layout in order to make sure you aren’t building too close to the edge of your property line.

The soil of the property may make it impossible to build a basement or may require you to raise the home up on stilts.

By choosing your property first, you can then adjust your custom home designs to fit the property’s specifications.

Set a Realistic Budget

You don’t need to have a limitless budget in order to get a beautiful custom home (we’ve all seen the tiny homes trend). But when it comes to designing your dream house, it can be easy to get carried away. When you start looking at add-ons and features, the costs can add up incredibly fast.

That’s why it’s important to set a realistic budget right from the start.

Once you’ve decided how much you can spend and looked into the amount of financing you might be eligible for, talk to your custom builders. They will be able to tell you what type of home you’ll be able to get within your budget.

The last thing you want to do is move into your custom home buried in debt. Setting a budget right from the start will help ensure that you and your wallet will love your new home.

List Your Must Haves

The benefit of choosing to have a custom home designed and built rather than moving into an existing property is the chance to create a space that fits your family’s unique needs.

So before you ever meet with your custom builder, you need to talk with your spouse or other home occupants about what your home has to have in order to meet your needs.

Maybe you need a certain number of bedrooms to fit your growing family or accommodate visiting family and friends. Or perhaps a home office is a must.

Don’t confuse must-haves with wants. You’ll also want to let your custom builder know what kinds of features you’d love to have (we’ll discuss that in a moment). But the things your home has to have in order to fit your family and its unique needs should be the first thing that you discuss with your builder.

During the design process, you may decide that additional features aren’t in your budget or timeframe. Or you might find that adding those would affect the rest of the design of your home.

Whatever the case, additional features you’d like to have can get dropped, just as long as your must-have items are still included.

Consider Other Features You Would like to Have

Once you’ve listed the features that your home has to have, it’s time for the fun part.

Building a custom home gives you the chance to get all of the features you could ever want in a home. As long as it is in your budget, you can add nearly any features you can think of.

Would you love to be able to drink your morning coffee in a bright sunroom? Would a large entertainment room be the perfect spot for your family to spend weekly movie nights? Does your inner-chef dream of a large kitchen with plenty of counter space for preparing gourmet recipes?

Make a list of the features that your dream home would contain. Make sure that you have this list, as well as the list of features your new home has to have when you meet with your custom builders for the first time. These lists will help them bring your ideas to life in a custom home construction plan.

Check Out Existing Plans

When you meet with your custom home builder, they’ll likely have plenty of existing home blueprints available for you to look for. Before you reject them in favour of creating your own unique plan, give them a look.

You might be surprised to find that some of these plans have features or layouts that you like, and that you may not have thought of on your own.

Even if you decide to create a custom plan for your home designer later, these blueprints can be great inspiration for your own plan.

Working With Custom Home Builders

Choosing to work with custom home builders to design your dream house is an exciting process. Unlike buying a cookie-cutter home with no character or an existing property with a range of problems, your custom home will be brand new and perfectly suited to fit you and your family’s wants and needs.

If you’re ready to start designing your dream home, view our gallery to see a few of the beautiful homes we’ve built for other families. Then, request a consultation to see how we can help bring your ideas to life in your new home.