Is there any greater personal expression you have than your own home? Who wants to live in a home with cabinets and fixtures they can't stand just because the previous owners loved them, and who wants to go through the headache and hassle of having the room ripped apart just to get that personalized look.
This is where hiring an architect comes into play. You can actually get the home of your dreams, not after endless months looking and searching for it, but because you work with this architect to bring that dream to life from the ground up.
Using an architect for your home gives you two options; you can get a total build or you can go with a completion of another home. With a total build you start with a piece of property or lot and decide how and what you will build on it. With a completion, you have another home that is partially constructed to one extent or another and then add certain finishing touches to it so that it finally becomes your dream home.
With a completion, you can typically:
- Choose the types of walls that you want to have put into the home, whether that be drywall, stucco, fiberboard, stone, and so on.
- Choose your own flooring. You may prefer carpeting over hardwood or vice versa, or may be searching for an environmentally friendly option.
- Choose our own cabinets for the kitchen and bathroom, as well as the fixtures - faucets, hardware for the cabinets, towel bars, and lighting as well.
- Choose your own colors!
Typically a partially constructed home has framing and walls in place and it may just resemble a skeleton of a home. You and the architect go from there to make everything about the home's appearance truly unique and truly yours.
The advantages of hiring an architect would include:
- Being able to choose economically sound options for the home, whether for your own personal reasons or to earn tax credits as well!
- Saving the money it would cost to remodel a completely finished home so that you can make it yours.
- Saving the headaches and disappointments that come with remodeling, simply because a home does not suit your personal tastes.
Of course there are considerations to working with an architect, including:
- A long wait period to work with him or her if their calendar is already booked.
- The expense of a custom home rather than one you buy as is or over the cost of a so-called fixer-upper.
- Delays that may occur when waiting on building materials and custom fixtures, which may keep you out of your home longer than expected.
