When Building a Custom Home, Don’t Let the Selections Overwhelm You

When building a custom home, you will be making selections from the very beginning of the building process and will do so through the completion of the home. This can be very overwhelming, but you do not need to have every decision finalized before you begin the process. When you are going through the process, your builder will walk you through the steps and help you with the selections.

To begin the process, keep notes on what styles, materials, colors and look and feel you are going for. This will make it easier as you begin making the selections. Early on, you will be selecting things like windows, roof color, exterior doors, and garage doors. The next round of selections becomes more specific and detailed and starts to create your home; this includes things like: plumbing fixtures, cabinets, appliances, lighting, shower doors, mirrors, and similar items for the home’s interior.

When you begin making these detailed selections, this can seem daunting. Your builder should make it easier for you. At Colby Construction, they will help guide you with their experience and expertise to make this as easy as possible. You will have a budget for each area, and you will have guidance on how to stay in that budget. Other ways that will help make this easier are things like remembering to simplify. When selecting things like plumbing fixtures, stick to one style and carry it throughout the entire home. If there are multiple in-suite bathrooms, have the same fixtures throughout all of them. This goes the same for the style of cabinet doors and hardware. With each selection, you will begin to see your home come to life.

Once you’ve started making your selections, remember, it’s not set in stone. While you want to try to make the best choices upfront, it’s normal to second guess the choice. After spending a few hours visiting a showroom, looking at the options, and then making a selection on what you want, you think about it for a day or two and suddenly change your mind. You have some time and flexibility(within reason). You want to be able to look around your home 15 years from now and still be comfortable with the selections you made.

While it’s too late to change your mind on the tile color after the tile’s been laid, you generally do have a window of at least a few days to make changes after making a selection. So relax and enjoy the process.

The clearer the picture in your mind of what you want your home to look and feel like, the faster you will get through the selection process. If you have a pretty good idea of the basic colors you like, and other choices that involve personal taste and style (such as: tile vs hardwood, brick vs stucco, contemporary vs farmhouse, oil rubbed bronze vs brushed nickel, shiny vs matte, warm vs dark, etc), then it should be relatively easy for you to make your selections based on that. However, if you wait until you’re in the throes of building a home to look at wall coverings for the first time ever, you might find it is more difficult—and time consuming—than it needs to be.

Create your vision board going into the project and be open to change and flexibility! Try to have fun, and allow your builder to help guide you.