The Journey - Pt. II

It Takes A Village to Build a Home

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The Homeowner's Journey - Part II

Now for an answer to last month’s question: where do you start? Logic would dictate that one starts by engaging a realtor, find a lot, then an architect, and finally, a builder. However, we started in a slightly counterclockwise manner by contacting several builders who were building homes in the area we were interested in. Luckily, we found one that led us to a lot in a great location, albeit one with a tear-down already in place.

​With a lot obtained, we commenced the search for an architect. We selected four firms to meet with; two were recommended by friends, one was referred by our builder, and the fourth I found through a web search. In preparation for our meetings, we put together a list or perhaps a small book—it was a four-page document, after all—of the things we wanted in our new home. We also asked for bids from each of the architects. Our final choice was neither the lowest nor highest bid, and we didn’t choose one of the architects recommended to us. As a quick disclaimer: Studio21 Architects gave me absolutely no direction on what to write. If you’re reading this in the first place, there’s a good chance that you might be thinking about using them as your architect, and I find it important to explain why we chose Studio21.

Our initial, unrushed meeting with Bill and his team went very well. The design process Bill explained and documented felt logical and well thought out, and we were impressed with how he stayed current not only on the latest in design concepts and code, but also the latest trends and technology used in constructing a house. While unquantifiable, it was equally important that we felt a high level of comfort during that meeting with Bill and his team. Now, looking back, our instincts proved to be spot on; the design process went smoothly, with productive discussions and never an ill word about our many change requests. Turnaround on design and questions was always very prompt—in fact, it was rare that an email went unanswered for more than 24 hours.

There is a dark side to building a home: bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is very much dependent on the governing bodies (i.e. HOA, city, county) of where you’re building, and because of that, I will only speak to what I have personally been involved with: demolishing a home, annexing our lot, and permitting our plans in DuPage County and the City of Naperville. I have two takeaways from that experience; one: no one prepared us for the time, effort, and cost, and two: all the people we worked with in the city and the county were very professional and extremely helpful. You can certainly mitigate the effort if your builder handles some of these items, but you cannot reduce cost and time. The annexation took six months, and it could not have been done without an attorney. Permitting and demolition took three months each, and those were completed in parallel with the annexation process. While the steps are location-specific, my advice is independent of geography: understand all that is involved in getting from a design concept to breaking ground. We would have moved forward regardless of the time and expense, but it would have helped our planning, budgeting, and mental health had we understood these factors in greater detail.

My second bit of advice? It takes a village to build a home. You will undoubtedly need to select some professionals such as a realtor, lawyer, builder, designer, and architect to work with, but what I also discovered was that random people, both friends and new acquaintances, were very helpful. When you are building a house, it often comes up in conversations and people will relate by telling you about their experiences, which I found immensely helpful. Artfully slip into a conversation the fact that you’re building a home, and you are bound to get some useful information. And yes, Instagram and Houzz were very helpful, especially the former.

If you are building a home, good luck and, above all, remain calm.

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Written By: Jeff Rudolph

We are delighted to welcome Jeff as a guest author in the Studio Pages newsletter, where he offers insight into the homeowner's perspective. He and his wife are working with Studio21 Architects to design their custom home, with the primary goal of aging-in-place.