Now that you have learned from Part 1 of this series that the designing of your home with us is without charge, you’re probably wondering what’s next. What is the process of designing your home with us?
How To Begin
If you are like most of our customers, you have ideas of what you want, but they are scattered about. You have some pictures, maybe a couple of designs from a magazine, or a sketch or two, or you may have started with one of our simple plans off our website. The problem is, that you need help putting that all together into a home design that has all the features you want.
To take advantage of our design service, the first step is to call us at 618-995-2288, or contact us by using the website contact form or our email address. One of us will respond to you and set up a time to meet you at your convenience. We can then look at all those scattered ideas together and talk with you about bringing them all together into the design of your new home.
We are available during the daytime hours of the work week, but if you need to meet in the evenings, we can do that too. We can even meet you on Saturday if you need. We will set a time to meet with you wherever you like, whether at your house or at our design office where we have set up shop.
If you have a site for your house already, we can start by meeting there. We should meet there at least once during the process. The shape of your lot will help us make some important decisions together about the orientation of the house, possible tree removal, drainage, and the possibilities of a walk-out basement, and the like. You can tell us what you want in your home and we will go over the details of the design thoroughly together.
The Design Process
After this first meeting, we will draw up a preliminary design for you. We then send you this design to see how you like it. This can be done by email, regular mail, or by meeting together again – whichever you like. This first shot at the design will include a floor plan and some simple exterior renderings to help you see what the house looks like from the outside.
At this point, after seeing the first design, you may want to ask for design changes. It’s okay, this usually happens. Who gets their home designed just right on the first try? It is no problem. We will make those changes and show you how it will affect the outside and inside of the house.
We will send the updated design to you again. You may then want more changes. Then we make those changes, and send them to you again, and so on, and so forth. We go back and forth until the design is just how you like it. This can take some time depending on whether you like a change you asked for or not.
When the design is just how you like it, we can then price the home for you.
Even at this point, the design and price changes can continue to happen depending on whether you want to spend more or less on the home. We will continue to work together with you to adjust the design to fit your budget.
And that is how you get your home designed and priced with us, without charge!
Our next blog entry in this series will be about ideas to keep in mind when designing your home with a budget.