3 questions to answer before building a custom home

What’s my vision for this home?

You may be tempted to think this has to do with the style of your home. We’ll get to that soon enough, but I think the most important question to answer before you start is one of purpose. What is the purpose of your custom home? What vision do you have for how you’ll live in it one, five, ten years from now? Getting clear on your vision will make every design decision easier—from deciding the floorplan to picking out finishes. What’s trendy right now might not age well ten years down the road. Casting a vision for your home will help ensure that your home will grow with you and your evolving tastes.

What’s the style of the home?

The question sounds simple enough until you consider all of the options and interpretations you have to choose from! Perhaps you’re drawn to a Spanish aesthetic, but is it a modern, traditional, or transitional take on Spanish? Or is it a completely eclectic style that borrows from several genres.

For some people, it’s easy to articulate their style. For others, it’s a real challenge. When this is the case, I suggest creating a mood board for styles you love and another one for styles you hate. In my experience, knowing what you don’t like can be even more helpful than knowing what you do like when you’re getting started. Use Pinterest to save inspiration images or tear images out from magazines to make physical mood boards. Do this until strong themes about your likes and dislikes emerge. Even if you can’t “name” it, you’ll develop a sense of your own personal style and that’s one of the most important things you can do before starting the custom home process.

Am I building my dream?

After you define your style, it won’t be long before other people’s opinions start to chip away at your dream. There is such a thing as too much input, so before you start building decide who’s opinions are going to matter throughout the process. Any decision that you can’t fully “own” you’ll end up resenting. Custom home building is a labor of love. It would be a shame to come to the end of the process only to realize that you built someone else’s dream, not yours. So our mantra for clients is “keep it close, keep it you.”

The custom design process with Thomas James Homes

Whereas traditional custom building requires you to find and purchase a homesite, work with an architect to design the new home, assemble a construction management team to oversee the build, and retain the services of an interior designer and landscape architect, we bring all of these functions together under one roof.

When you build with us, you can select from one of 38 home plans designed exclusively for TJH. Each has been conceived to conform to city requirements, maximize buildable space, and complement the character of your neighborhood, making permitting a seamless process.

Each plan comes with a selection of suggested design packages that have been meticulously crafted by our Design Team to complement the architecture of your new home. Our packages are intended to give you a platform from which to make desired changes and upgrades while helping to ensure your home’s final design remains cohesive and considered. Common customization options include lighting plans, windows, wall coverings, tile and stonework, cabinetry, and fixtures.