The Process of Building - Step by Step
Steps to Building
When asking my home building help group on-line about the first step to building, answers varied wildly from buying a lot, to having a floor plan or having a large savings account (to hiring a psychologist and having a divorce attorney!) You might think that the first step in building is pouring concrete for your foundation, or starting with ground prep for your push-out (or, you might be asking, “What’s a push-out?”) Maybe it’s finding a floor plan or financing your build.
As Your Home Construction Advocate, we believe it starts back when you have the first idea to build/improve your home. Why are you building (remodeling, or improving?) What is your purpose to it all? This is not an easy process. Deciding to build is a long process in more ways than one.
You’ve already done a portion of the hard part. Maybe you want to live closer to your kids/grandkids. Maybe you want a style of home that is not offered in the school area you’d like to have your kids attend. Maybe you’ve been searching forever for that, “right” home, and you can’t find it. You’re ready to take the plunge and just build exactly what it is you want, where you want it to be. Any way that clients come to this decision and decide to take that first step, comes down to understanding your lifestyle, your identity, and how you want your home to reflect that. A Beautiful Build understands that the first step to building is just the thought that you want to build. It’s defining and remembering your original purpose for your dream. As Your Home Construction Advocate, we begin by getting to know you and learning your story. Understanding your goals and what’s most important to you. Is it staying within your budget? Is this a forever home you can retire in? Is it knowing that a home is a home, and not an alter to someone’s ego? These are important details that help us understand the picture of what you want. Communication is key. What type of communication? The one where everyone understands your needs and desires. We will guide you every single step of the way.
Steps to Communicating
What is the first step to communicating during building? Calls, emails, texting, and various construction organizing apps were all the ways that my home building help group suggested when I asked them what the best way was to communicate with your General Contractor (GC). However, all method’s fail if someone is not listening to you. We’ve all heard someone say, “You’re not listening to me!” Another version is, “You’re listening, but you’re not hearing me!” The step to hearing or listening to someone is comprehending what they are saying. You can take all the steps you want to improve your method of communication, but if someone doesn’t comprehend what it is you are saying, it won’t help improve anything.
Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, seeing things from their perspective, that’s what A Beautiful Build does for our clients. That unique perspective that we have of having walked in the clients’ shoes from the beginning. We were brand new to the building process too. Everything for us from the ground up was literally new. New lingo, new understanding, new experiences, a new story, was expressly ours.
Many experts (GC’s, Electrician, Concrete Sub, Cabinet company, etc.) in the construction business have been in the field for years. They may have grown up in it (child of a builder, nephew of a concrete company, daughter of a HVAC company), while some have gone to college for a construction degree or worked in the industry for years. These experts generally don’t understand what it’s like to be on that client’s side of things. Clients can have difficulties asking questions when you don’t know what the right questions are to ask, or when you’re overwhelmed with so many decisions to make all at the same time. When you are relying solely on the experts to take care of things, or experts insist that they will take care of things for you, but they are going along on autopilot getting things completed. Details can get overlooked because those experts are so familiar with the process, they don’t stop to ask clients what they would prefer.
Builder/GC experts sometimes skip informational steps because they already know what all these things are, and want to help you handle it, but in fact might take away from a choice you need to make. They can be so busy with the twenty projects they’re working on that updating you on what comes next gets lost in the shuffle. They are the experts after all, and you’re supposed to listen and trust them to just “do the job.” When building, we don’t want the client to feel like you are a “bother” to your GC because you are asking questions. Your Home Construction Advocate is here to always speak up for you during your building story. We are there to be a voice for you, to ask the difficult questions that you might not know how to ask, and ask you about the details experts assume they can just take care of. A Beautiful Build understands clients are spending their hard-earned money on more than just a home, you are building a dream and you deserve to have everything you want in that dream.
Steps to Your Dreams
Imagining what your home will be is the first step to your building dreams! Many people’s home dreams from my Home Build Help Group reach for the stars when they talk about building or improving their dream homes. Many in that group know exactly what they are talking about, because they have built before. They have had to sacrifice living situations or make do with the basics at times. Others have been able to squeeze every last drop of joy and planning what they want into their build.
What do you want to see in your home? How do you imagine that space will be? What is the lifestyle you live? What kind of flow do you need? Will you throw big parties with friends and guests every month? Will you use the quiet study for your sewing room? Will your kids run up and down the hallway, slamming the doors? Will pets make a comfy bed near your couch? Will roses align the walls of your exterior? Will a rock path lead your neighbors to your front door? Will your kitchen counters be stuffed with food, family-style, during Thanksgiving?
Any, all or perhaps none of these are what you envision in your home. Whatever your dreams are to each client, become our dreams as well. Our dream at A Beautiful Build is to make your home dreams a reality through your build or remodel. Our dream is to create the best and most beautiful building story unique to our client. We know that building stories for so many clients are more horror stories than beautiful ones. Difficulty with the wrong contractor (that was the first person you spoke with!) can ruin a story.
Other experts telling you what they believe you should do and caring too much about what your home will reflect on them instead of realizing in the end it will not be their home they come to every day. Clients are the ones who are left with the wrong choices, shoddy work, broken trust, overrun budgets, and shattered dreams. At A Beautiful Build, we work hard to ensure from the beginning you're working with trustworthy, reliable companies. We help clients with the vetting process, the design process, the month by month, day by day, watching your build evolve process. We believe that hiring Your Home Construction Advocate is the first step to your building dreams and achieving your own Beautiful Building Story.