Home Build Q+A

Thank you so much for all the questions and excitement over our home build. We’ve been working with our builder since January and I never felt comfortable mentioning it because it’s a common joke to make online about anyone on IG talking about building. It’s often shared with a lot of tone-deafness or their home includes features that are so outlandish that you can’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness (ie. Rachel Parcell’s Package Room). Spoiler: I do not have a Package Room.

“What led to the decision to tear down and build?”

The most asked and a very reasonable question. Why tear down a perfectly fine house? Our home is 70+ years old and while she’s been updated cosmetically by past owners and by us, her age is starting to show and at a quicker rate. Everything behind the walls is original and causes quite a few annoyances and problems. The biggest one being our electrical. I can’t blowdry my hair past when the morning sun is shining into the bathroom, because if I blowdry with the light ons, the lights flicker or I blow a fuse lol. This problem happens throughout the house so often that we end up keeping the lights off about 95% of the day unless we really need to use them. Next problem, insulation. It’s so poorly insulated, I question if it is insulated at all. Our bedrooms are on one side of the house and they are generally at least 10 or more degrees warmer or colder than the living spaces of our home. The list of issues and quirks could be a mile long, so I’ll spare you the rest. Bottom line: everything that looks pretty in our house is essentially lipstick on a pig.

We always knew we would need to move from this house due to it’s size (3 beds, 1 bath), age, and layout not being great for long term-living especially if our family grows, but we loved our neighborhood so much. We started to look at homes on sale in our neighborhood and near by and every house was either too big, not our style, out of budget, or needed a complete remodel. We then thought about building onto our house and interviewed a handful of construction companies who specialize in additions and while they had good ideas, they couldn't fix the layout issues and we would need to update the all electrical and plumbing, which meant opening up every wall in the house — so essentially a complete gut.

The only other option to explore was building. We loved our neighborhood, our corner lot, and our very quiet street. This option allowed us to keep all of that. They say location is everything and our situation has proved that to be true.

“How did you start? We’re in a similar situation and overwhelmed.”

You know when you are looking to buy a new car, you start to see it everywhere?That’s what happened with finding our builder. There are many custom home builders in Denver and with our housing boom, it’s impossible not to see the most popular companies on build sites on a weekly basis. There was one builder in particular whose houses always caught my eye and always made me think, “That’s exactly what I would build.” I started following them on IG even before we even thought to move or build because I hoped they would maybe put a house on the market that we could then buy some day. After we decided to look into building, we set up a meeting and they checked every box we had. The price being the most important. We assumed they would tell us it would be multiple millions to build on our lot and if that was the case we could definitively know that building wasn’t going to be for us. Surprisingly, the price was actually attainable and cheaper than we had expected.

My biggest tip: make the meetings! Don’t assume you can’t afford it. You might be pleasantly surprised by what they tell you. In those meetings you will also find out what their process is. Many of the popular builders in Denver call themselves “custom home” builders, but when you actually go through their process their design team picks two options of everything and you pick one, you don’t actually have a say in the floorpans, finishes, etc. That process was not for me, so those companies were easy to remove from our list. Thankfully the builder I already loved, does truly custom homes for great prices!

“How did you find a builder you trust to put in the quality of finishes and materials you want?”

I believe this is the most important and hardest part of the “finding a builder” process. Once we eliminated the companies whose processes did not align with our desires, we asked the remaining builders for tours of their past and current builds. I don’t love this about myself, but I am the person who will look at the state of your baseboards when I come to your house (I won’t judge if they are dirty, but I’ll still look lol). Tours allowed me to nitpick the finishes and craftsmanship. I also made my expectation of quality known up front. In past renovations of our house I was not vocal enough when I saw something I didn’t like and now I am much more comfortable saying something immediately even if it makes me look high maintenance. Remember, you are the customer and you’re paying for this work. If it’s not what you want, demand for it to be done again. Don’t settle for something you don’t want or like!

“Curious about pricing!”

Unfortunately, this varies drastically depending on where you live and what builder you choose. This is why it’s so important to make the meetings regardless if you believe you can’t afford it. Go in knowing what your budget and ideal square footage would be if you were to move to a new house and let that be your limit. The builders we met with quote build prices by price per square foot, once you know that information you’ll be able to quickly compare if that is more or less than a new home at your top budget. In our situation, our builder’s price per square foot included the house itself, but also their in-house services (architecture, interior design, project management, etc). I also can’t not mention that a very big reason this is possible for us is because we are building on our current land. Having to buy a lot and then build on it will make your overall build cost more expensive.

“What changes are you most looking forward to with the new build? What room are you most excited for?”

We currently live in a ranch style home, which I know a lot of people prefer, but we have been craving a basement for forever! My husband is very into fitness and our architect has designed us an epic gym that can hold all the equipment he loves and a Pilates reformer for me — yay! I can’t wait for the basement, but I’m looking most forward to our bathroom and closet. Our current home only has one bathroom and it is TINY. To give you a visual, you can use the ledge of our tub as a Squatty Potty. Not only will our toilet be in its own room, but as a daily bath taker our architect and designer have planned a beautiful tub for me that I know will be hard to leave each night. Any closet will be an upgrade from the four-ish feet of linear space my husband and I currently share. We actually asked the builder to give us the bare bones in our walk-in because we will have so few clothes to fill it in that I want to wait about a year to add to our wardrobes and then hire a closet company to customize the organization for us.

“Biggest design inspo?”

Is it weird to say the house I grew up in? My parent’s home is very traditional and while I won’t decorate exactly the same French Country taste of my mom. I have always loved and appreciated homes with a lot of character: crown molding, trim work, not everything being white. Designers I love and pin and save often are: Jean Stoffer, Tuesday Made, The Makerista, and Studio McGee.

“What’s been the most surprising thing about home building?”

Honestly, the cost. My husband and I thought we wouldn’t be able to build for years or ever, so finding out it was attainable to us was the biggest surprise. Learning about the process gave me a lot of clarity about building in general. I won’t lie and say I haven’t rolled my eyes watching an influencer share their home build, but now I feel like I’ve seen behind the curtain and it’s not as crazy as I had imagined. Yes, there are people like Rachel Parcell, whose husband is a builder, or just insanely rich who can build dream homes with a seemingly unlimited budget, but I don’t compare my situation to theirs. It’s people who are more “normal” (I use that term very lightly lol), like Kathleen Post, who recently built and her home is a very realistic expectation of build process that is custom to her family’s needs, but doesn’t have $3,000 kitchen faucets or a heated driveway.

(Also I want to make it clear that I am not bashing Rachel Parcell. She is a favorite and one of my oldest follows, but she lends herself to this conversation the most easily.)

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I hope you enjoyed this first Q+A about our home build! The process is very slow. When we start the demo process in January it will have taken us a year of planning and waiting for permits to just start the actual build process! The build life is not for the impatient. These updates will be few and far between for a while and once we are in the thick of it will most likely tick up in frequency. Leave any new or clarifying questions below and thank you again for being so excited about this!