Tips for Buying Land, Designing and Building A Custom Home Part 1 of 3
Virgil Carter Fine Art
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
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Virgil Carter Fine Art
6 years agocpartist
6 years agoRelated Discussions
Tips for Buying Land, Designing and Building A Custom Home, Part 2
Comments (2)This is a great thread for those contemplating building a new home. Clients are often bringing me sketches of floor plans or plans they've found online. Such plans can be helpful as a point of departure but almost always require a complete redo. What helps me more is a detailed conversation about lifestyle, philosophy of art and design, and a deep understanding of the site....See MoreTips for Buying Land, Designing and Building A Custom Home, Reposted
Comments (2)Hi Mr Carter. I’m interested in the first part of your Post about “Tips on buying Land” and the beginning of your “Designing a Plan”. You said searching Houzz I can find them. How might I do that please? I appreciate the quality of your commentary. Thanks Marilyn...See MoreBooks for Building and Designing a home
Comments (22)Hi, Becky, I certainly applaud you doing some "homework" before setting out to design and build your new home. It will help ensure a better outcome. The challenge is to distill the universe of reference materials down to a couple that will give you appropriate insights and which don't require you to learn everything your architect, engineer, builder, and interior designer have learned from the time they graduated from high school. To that end, I'd recommend the following three (if a sermon should cover everything in three points, then your reading list should, too) : Patterns of Home (The Ten Essentials of Enduring Design) by Max Jacobson, Murray Silverstein and Barbara Winslow (yes, I know this is the one you're having trouble getting through.) The House You Build (Making Real World Choices to Get the Home You Want) by Duo Dickinson, AIA The Brand-New House Book (Everything you need to know about planning, designing, and building a custom, semi-custom or production built house) by Katherine Salant. I'd also recommend a homework assignment before meeting with your architect. Your home should be designed for the way you live. Spend time documenting your daily activities, where you spend your time doing them in your home, and those features of your current home that either enhance or detract from your ability to do so efficiently. Best wishes for a success project....See MorePrices and where to buy inset cabinetry
Comments (119)The windows MAKE this room. House Beautiful had an article on overly large islands. As in, why? and how to clean them and how your kids will be far away from you on the other side. and so on. So the moral is that bigger isn't better, and you must find the "tipping point" where spacious and functional become bloated and unwieldy. An overly large pantry, a built-in coffee/beverage set-up, a desk with shelves for cookbooks - these things make sense. Large for the sake of being large or because you have the bucks for it - will never pay off in the long run. Either in resale, function, or aesthetics. Yes ... don't just draw cabinets and cabinets and cabinets for the sake of wanting a big kitchen. Inventory what you have to store /what tasks you want to complete ... and assign a job to every cabinet you include. Ideally you will move into your new house and NOT stop to say, "Now where will I store this item?" You'll already have assigned a spot to everything. Noor, you have been very gracious in accepting all the feedback here. I think you are gong to build an amazing house with your willingness to grow and evolve. Absolutely, and your prize will be a kitchen that'll suit you well. Even at wholesale prices, you do NOT want to know the cost of the stone bill. The cabinet bill was 95K, frameless modern, with aluminum doors at the top. I wanna know ... in a train wreck kinda way. And the ability to have a single cook You're focused on large family cooking, but you'll also find yourself working alone in this space sometimes. You want your kitchen to work both ways. I wasn't privvy to that end figure and it became a battleground, with a divorce ensuing. One of the nicest spaces I've designed, but so much bad energy in there. So not worth it....See MoreVirgil Carter Fine Art
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Virgil Carter Fine ArtOriginal Author