Are you thinking of building a new house? it's hard to know where to start!
In this series, I'm sharing our process and hopefully help answer some of your questions!
Tip #1: play around online & find houses you like
The first thing I did was jumped on Pinterest to look for inspiration.
At the time, I wasn’t active on Instagram, but I now know that this social platform is also a fantastic place to get ideas.
You don’t need to know exactly what you want before meeting with builders, but I’ll be honest, it helps A LOT!
The first thing a builder will ask you is, “What are you thinking? What style do you like? One story or two? Walk-out basement? Attached garage?”
You get my point! They ask a lot of questions right away, and they have to. How else will they understand what you’re wanting and what you’re budget is (budget will be a whole post in it’s own)!
Yes, there will be times you feel like this cute kid below! But, I promise you, with the right builder (huge shout out to our builder Nordaas American Homes) and some guidance, building a house can be sooo fun!!!
Having an idea of what you want also helps you “vet” builders.
For example, we knew we wanted a Modern Farmhouse. When we spoke with one builder, he said they’ve never built one and that they focus on ranch walk-out styles. While that builder is good, this comment was an indicator that he may not be for us since he doesn’t build the style we wanted.
So how do I know what my house style is?!
This was the question I got asked the most! Well, this and how my marriage is holding up during the building process! LOL!!
My number #1 tip for knowing your house style is:
Do not care one bit what everyone else is doing, what they think of your style or what the trend is!! This is your house, you and only you should love it!
So start looking at pictures on Pinterest and Instagram.
Scroll at a brisk pace and don’t analyze every picture to death. If something catches your eye, it’s worthy of a pause. If you pause and you don’t instantly love it…keep moving!
If it’s not an instant “Heck yes!” then it’s a “Heck no!”
Go with your gut and only pin/save the images that make you feel like you could jump into that picture and live in that space!
Remember, this is just a starting point, things can & will get tweaked to your liking.
As you can see below, the first picture was our inspiration for our new farmhouse. The second picture is what we actually built.
We kept certain elements that we loved but also tweaked lots of things to fit our style and function of the land and our family…and that’s okay to do! You want your home to be your own!
Coming up next...A style show of houses!!
The next blog post will have examples of different styles so you can discover what you like and the terminology that goes along with those styles.
It does help communication with your builder and architect if you’re speaking the same lingo (or at least trying to)! Hopefully that made my architect smile! 😉