Jacob Baranski on Building a Custom Home: How to Save Time, Money, and Stress By Jacob Baranski founder of Hartman Projects
Jacob Baranski
1 hour ago·9 min read
Jacob Baranski — Exterior View
I think that everyone, in one way or another, would like to live in a customized home. Whether you live in an apartment, a small country four-over-four, a mansion, or any other kind of dwelling, it is hard to resist the lure of customization. Even people who have built their dream homes from the ground up may one day find themselves overcome with new ideas for remodeling and expansion. What I find funny is that every single dreamer who wishes to build a custom home knows how complicated and difficult it can be. They know how stressful it will be. They know it will very likely take longer to build than they thought it would, and will be more expensive than they had planned. But they do it anyway, because the dream of a customized home is just that strong. As someone who chased that dream, I wanted to convey some of the complications and rewards of my experience. I hope my experience building a customized home will prepare you for what’s in store and help you create a plan that will, in the long run, save you time, money, and stress.
Building a custom home: Details, preparation, and more details
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from building my own customized home, it’s that you are going to have to make choices — many choices. The risk of decision fatigue is very real, and after a while everything starts to blur together. Getting lost with the endless small decisions about tiling, fixtures, cabinetry, etc., can exhaust you from dealing with big issues such as layout, lighting, windows, and other things that greatly impact your home experience and can’t easily be changed later. The solution to this is simple: thorough preparation. Building a custom home is all about moving detailed plans into the real world. Check, double-check, and triple check. Plan the work and work the plan. Have a complete timeline of what the home building process should look like — from meeting with the architect to putting the locks in the doors — then think about where snags and delays are likely to occur. Your plan should be thorough enough that if you’re ever unsure about what to do, you can refer to it for guidance. There are plenty of ways to prepare for the unexpected. A neat trick, for example, is to buy a good 16-foot tape measure, some masking tape or string, and actually start measuring out the spaces of your home. You can do so in your yard or any open space. Being able to “see” the layout and shape of the rooms can be very enlightening, allowing you to make adjustment before the first drop of concrete is poured. Measure out ceiling heights as well. Proportion is hard to understand before anything is built. Compare them to the
ceilings of your current home. Ten foot ceilings are amazing for central living areas, but too much space can feel too big, like a warehouse. Bedrooms with high ceilings can actually feel smaller and more cramped, as opposed to the cozy atmosphere most people want from their sleeping areas. Jacob Baranski | Be a Woodtrepreneur! — YouTube
The inevitable risks of customized home building One of the biggest risks of a customized home build is actually temptation. As the project progresses, you may find yourself struck with a new idea or feel like the current plan isn’t exactly what you imagined. Stay on track. Changes that come later in the home building process cost more and add additional time on a process that already takes way too long. Any changes to your overall design must come early so that, instead of having to move an entire wall or reshape a foundation, all you have to do is move around some lines on a blueprint. There will be enough problems to deal with, even in an ideal home building project, let alone one with big, lastminute changes. Don’t make things hard on yourself. Overprepare for your home vision early, so you won’t find yourself drowning in changes and challenges later. Remember your outdoor space. Your home will be situated in a built or natural environment. Take inspiration from the area around your home, whether that is urban architecture or green
spaces. It may be worth it to have your architect create a 3D rendering of your exterior, and consider recommendations for exterior look and fixtures. You may even want to get your new neighbors involved, so that your stylistic choices will be properly integrated with the aesthetic of the surrounding area. No one wants to live in what everyone around you considers to be an out-of-place eyesore. The same can’t be said for a 3D render of your interior. It can be time consuming to create, and is usually built independently of original floorplans, leading to a render that doesn’t exactly match up to what you envisioned for your home. I find it preferable to avoid that kind of confusion. Additionally, interior finishing are some of the last details finalized in a built, so those depicted in a 3D render may be unavailable to buy or unfeasible to include. A render with a beautiful herring bone tile pattern may be forever just that, a rendering. Working with an professional interior designer or doing your own legwork visiting a lot of design and furnishing outlets are better and less stressful options.
Importance of good communication with your building team Many people building their own dream home want to simply “get on with things.” They have a vision and want to see it become reality as soon as possible. But no one builds a house all by themselves. It takes a team that works well together while
keeping your goals in mind. That means constant communication and careful coordination. Start with your architect. Everyone wants one with heaps of design skills and a great imagination, but how well do they answer your questions? Do they brush off the details or dig into them? And during the building stage of the project: How much do you trust your contractors? Do they communicate with you regularly about their progress? Are they honest with you about delays and supply issues? Do they ignore your questions and concerns? Do they follow the details of your plan and vision? There are so many things that can go wrong when people aren’t communicating with each other. Creating a septic system, for example, requires extensive planning and communication between partners. Septic systems are usually designed and planned by the architect or builders, but actually built and installed by a plumbing/septic specialist. It may be necessary for you, your architect, your builder, and the septic installer to all visit your site together to plan things out together. Otherwise you may find yourself nearing the end of your build with a septic installer gravely informing you that your plans are completely unworkable. Jacob Baranski on Custom Home Building: Foundations and Frameworks By Jacob Baranski Founder of Hartman Projects, this is a piece of what Jacob Baranski gleaned from his personal… jacob-baranski1.medium.com
Realities of the custom home-building process Oddly enough, one of the first and most useful mindsets of building your dream home may be to give up on the exact idea of your dream home. Something I’ve come to understand is that there is always a divide between what’s on an architect’s blueprints and what builders and contractors can actually make for you. It is a process familiar to anyone who has had to bring an idea for a big project into the real world. Unless you have unlimited resources to expend on every single detail, compromises must be made. It’s as simple as that. Complications and delays are inevitable, from the first hole for the foundation being dug in the wrong place, all the way to the perfect fixtures for your home being out of stock. Projects can be derailed by the discovery of a previously unknown underground pipe, the site being zoned incorrectly, or supply lines becoming clogged and backlogged. It can be incredibly difficult to maintain the overall feel and intent of your home vision when there are thousands of details to consider, and even more decisions to be made. I’ll say it again: compromise is inevitable. But that doesn’t mean your dream home won’t still be your dream home. For every choice ask yourself some basic questions: How much does this change the overall design? Does it interfere with the practical aspects of the house, like utilities and layout? How easy
would it be to fix/update later? This is where proper preparation can save you a massive amount of grief later on. Jacob Baranski on Customized Home Building: All the Details You Never Imagined By Jacob Baranski Founder of Hartman Projects jacob-baranski1.medium.com
The little things that have a big impact There are an abundance of seemingly small, yet wildly impactful details, methods, and practices that can ease the challenges of customized home building. Here are a few tips and tricks:
Concrete Specify where on your foundation you would like finished concrete. Many modern homes feature the smooth, clean surfaces of finished concrete as part of the overall aesthetic and design, but the builder will leave the concrete of the foundation rough unless you specify.
Humans for scale When your architect is showing you initial plans for you home, ask that they include a generic, scaled human form in the drawings. Many architects already do this, as it provides an easily comparable and recognizable way to see very basic, yet very important things like the narrowness of hallways and staircases, or the overall size of high-use areas like living rooms.
Clients can, at a glance, get a feel for how cozy or how cavernous a space will be and adjust accordingly.
Furniture early You should also have a general idea of the size and type of furniture you would like to include in your home. Tell your architect and builder, as well, as it can help clarify the overall vision and “feel” of a place, and make future decision-making much easier. For example, knowing you want an abundance of bookshelves in a home gives the architect the option of including built-in shelving or customizing one room as a library. If you have kids, get their input on what they’d like in their own spaces (within reason, of course), or get them to draw their own dream homes. What they come up with might surprise and inspire you.
Up or down? An expensive but incredibly utilitarian choice may be to include a simple elevator in your plans. It may seem extravagant, but if you have a taller townhouse-style dwelling, it can be practical to have that option, especially if older parents or family members may move in with you later in life. An elevator allows everyone access to every level of a house and improves mobility options.
Stay off Pinterest
Don’t go overboard on sites like Pinterest, Houzz, or other design websites. They can be fun and inspiring, but are designed to keep you endlessly engaged. This can lead to a form of “analysis paralysis” where the accumulation of nearly unlimited design and decorating ideas leave you overwhelmed. Pick a few key ideas and pieces, and stay flexible.
Benefits of building a customized home outweigh the challenges The experience of conceiving, planning, building, and finishing my own customized home has been frustrating, stressful, and entirely worth it. Everyone has their own idea of a dream home, and the ability to create your own home shouldn’t be passed up, as long as you feel confident enough to deal with the many complications that come with such a big and lengthy project. If you feel that you are up to the challenge, I can tell you honestly that the rewards are often more than you could have imagined. Jacob Baranski is a passionate entrepreneur and an ardent supporter of sustainable growth companies. A lifelong learner, he believes in investing in himself and fostering relationships on a foundation of mutual trust and respect. Jacob regularly practices yoga and meditation.
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