What does ‘custom home design’ really mean?
Whether it’s a semi-custom or fully custom design, a custom home is typically defined as a unique home that takes the homeowner’s desires, needs, and tastes into consideration. This requires significant input on behalf of you, your builder and your new home consultant, allowing you to change everything from the floorplan to the finishing materials.
In reality though, custom home designs aren’t necessarily created from scratch, and for good reason. Reinventing the wheel is likely to lead to a home design that just doesn’t work, has wasted space and poor solar gain. Most architects/designers and custom home builders have a series of frameworks and patterns that they work from, based on the brief and input you provide.
There are of course boutique architects/designers that will design you a truly unique, full custom home design. But for the everyday American family, this isn’t the reality.
How do I create a custom design?
When selecting a custom home with G.J. Gardner Homes, our new home consultants will introduce you to the concept of a G.J. Plan. This option gives you the proven functionality and practicality of an existing home plan, while allowing you some of the flexibility that comes with a custom home design.
The process of starting a G.J. Plan is uncomplicated.
Step 1: Book an initial consultation with our custom building experts
At G.J. Gardner Homes, we have custom home builders throughout the USA, including California, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, and Texas. Attending an initial consultation at one of our offices will give an understanding of what you want and what our team can achieve within your budget and timeframe.
Step 2: Select your base
Start to envision just exactly what your dream plan will look like by selecting one of our existing floor plans to start as a base. This can take a lot of the worry out of customizing, by starting with a a tried and tested template.
Step 3: Work with your home consultant to customize the design
You will have your consultation with a home builder. We recommend coming with a list of all the important aspects you would like added to your home, such as your number of bedrooms and budget. Our home builder will then start to draw up your home with an estimated price. This is called a purchase agreement.
Step 4: Select your finishes and fixtures
This includes selecting countertops, flooring, hardware, lighting, windows, trim, cabinetry and more.
Step 5: Build your custom home
After reviewing everything with your home building consultant, your construction will start. You can expect our team to clear the site, build the foundations, landscape the property and more.
If you love your community, but aren’t in love with your home, our team of custom home builders also offer knock down rebuilds. These rebuilds involve replacing your current home with a new custom one, so that you can enjoy a home and lifestyle that you love.
Benefits of a G.J. Plan
We believe a G.J. Plan is the best option for the majority of buyers, because you’re starting with a solid foundation. By selecting G.J. Gardner Homes, you are choosing:
Expertise
G.J. Gardner Homes was founded in Australia in 1983 and have since built over 36,000 quality, customized homes. When combined with our worldwide experience, we have been able to perfect the custom home building process:
- Our building designers work in a team with 3D designers, collaborating in fully interactive 3D. This means that the home designs are created in extreme detail with great care given to all aspects, from your open plan entertaining area right down to the ensuite toilet roll holder!
- The designs have had hundreds of hours of professional input to maximize space, light, usability and importantly buildability.
- Many of our home designs are updated yearly based on both local and global building design trends.
Make your money work harder
With a G.J. Plan, all of the hard work is done, and you can spend your hard earned dollars on choosing the ‘fun’ stuff such as features, fittings and finishes. You will also have a variety of facade options to choose from, such as Traditional, Urban and Hamptons.
This selection process is also likely to be easier and faster than starting a fully custom home design from scratch. That means it’s likely to be more affordable. This is because your new home consultant will help you narrow down your choices more quickly.
To get inspired
Browsing home designs is also an opportunity for you to be inspired. Sometimes it’s difficult to put your finger on what exactly you want in a home until you see it. Our home designs have been carefully crafted to offer a range of options that appeal to a variety of household sizes, locations and tastes.
