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Do you currently live in your dream home? If not, what’s stopping you? In my experience, there are two ways to get to your dream house: Either the planets align so that you’re in a position to build the house of your dreams, or you buy a home with potential and create your dream house one renovation at a time. (I suppose there’s a third option – finding your dream home move-in ready on the market somewhere – but I don’t know of anyone who’s ever been so lucky.)

Each time Dear Husband and I have shopped for a home, we’ve ended up taking the renovate-your-house-to-dream-home path.
On the other hand, we have several friends who’ve built their custom dream home from scratch.
Most recently, my dear friend Keisha and her husband built their dream home by gutting an existing home, redoing the entire interior layout of the existing first floor and basement, and adding a brand-new second floor to build their dream home.

Each of these paths toward your dream home has its pros and cons. This post will help you think through the options, and ensure you cover your bases when deciding which option is right for you.

This is a collaboration post. However, please know I stand behind everything written here, and only include links to products/services/resources I’m willing to recommend personally.

Steps to Creating Your Dream Home:

1) Build from scratch or remodel your dream home?

As you begin your search for your dream home, the first thing to figure out is whether you’re going to build your dream home from scratch or use dream home remodeling, by buying a fixer-upper to build the house of your dreams.

There are pros and cons to both choices.

Build your dream home:

Building from scratch – or rebuilding an existing home (such as the interior gutting and second-floor addition Keisha’s family completed last year) can be a great way to get exactly the home you want that is move-in ready by the time the moving van pulls up.

As attractive as this option is, it can cost noticeably more upfront than buying an existing home, in part because everything will be brand new. You also have to be in a position to wait months, or even years, for your dream home to be available – which could mean you’re paying two mortgages, or paying rent on your old home while also paying the mortgage on your new property.

Whether building a brand-new property is even a possibility may also depend on where you live (or want to live). If land is scarce and/or expensive, zoning rules don’t allow you to build where you want, or you can’t find available property on which to build, this may not be an option for you. In this case, your best bet may be to renovate an existing property, even if that means a substantial addition before you even move in.

Dream home remodeling:

If you’re on a timeline, or your budget is more limited, buying an existing home and remodeling as you go may be a better fit for your family. This is what Dear Husband and I did when we bought our current home while I was pregnant with Kimmie. Neither his bachelor pad nor my single-gal condo was big enough to hold both of us plus Baby, so we were eager to find someplace that would eventually tick everything on our dream home wish list, but be move-in ready before Baby arrived.

When looking to make an existing home into your dream home, start by making a list of your non-negotiables and must-haves. Then try to find a fixer-upper that already has much of what you want, as far as the underlying structure goes.

Look for a fixer-upper with good bones as far as your “must-haves” list, NOT one that’s already on its last legs!

When we bought our current house, my “must-haves” at move-in included a two-car garage, central air conditioning, at least four bedrooms, and at least 3.5 baths, to make hosting extended family a breeze. My husband’s included enough sunny yard space for vegetable gardening, and a well-designed kitchen with plenty of counter space.

It’s helpful to make a list of which renovations are must-do’s before moving day, and prioritize the rest for somewhere down the road. Before we moved in, we had professionals replace most of the carpeting with hardwood floors, to accommodate my indoor allergies, and also had pros paint the rooms that we knew would be hardest to repaint later. In the years since, we’ve slowly done one upgrade at a time to make our dream home a reality in every respect.

2) Design-and-build firm or separate contracts?

Another crucial decision, whether building from scratch or planning major renovations, is whether you want to hire a single firm that will oversee the project from designing blueprints to installing the last screws, or enlist an independent architect and later hire a contractor.

If possible, see if you can chat with others in your area who’ve already been through the process – both those who hired a design-and-build firm, and those who had an architect design their dream house before they hired a contractor to build it.

Hiring an architect first:

When my friend Keisha and her husband were trying to build their dream home, they hired an architect whom several friends recommended. As Keisha explained, “We thought the architect would be able to achieve our vision best,” versus a design-and-build firm’s seeing their complete interior remodel plus second-floor addition as just sticking a box on top of another box.

When it came to then choosing a contractor to build the dream home their architect had designed, their architect was able to recommend builders, and one name in particular also came highly recommended from friends they interviewed. This made choosing a contractor easy, as the firm they selected had both positive reviews from peers and a solid track record with their architect.

According to Keisha, one of the top advantages to hiring a separate architect for the design phase is that their architect “already had the relationship with the contractors, but could also serve as a backstop and do walk-throughs with us [or] go back and forth with the contractors on our behalf.” In other words, their architect served as a private advisor long after designing their dream home, and helped negotiate with the contractors on their behalf.

Hiring a design-and-build firm:

On the other hand, when we renovated the back of our house several years ago, we hired a design-and-build firm to manage the project from start to finish. In addition to demolishing several old exterior staircases and a back porch that was literally falling off our house, this remodel involved building a new patio and integrated storage shed, replacing several doors with windows, and building a new back porch that included both an external deck for grilling and an enclosed three-season room.

We interviewed several firms based on recommendations from friends. The designers of one firm in particular seemed to be most in tune with the vision we had for the overall project. While this is one reason we ultimately chose that firm, there are several other qualities you should consider when looking for a design-and-build firm to build your dream home. Namely,

Do they seem knowledgeable and thorough?

The firm we hired warned us upfront that local zoning laws and building codes would require an exception and special permit, since regulations had changed in the decades since our house was first built. They also handled the entire permitting appeals process for us, so all we had to do was collect signatures from our adjoining neighbors and attend our own zoning hearing.

Are they meticulous in their attention to detail?

If the building firm is also designing your dream home, you want a company who will pay attention to every last detail to make sure it’s not only built solidly, but matches your tastes and wishes. As one prime example, Zak’s Building creates custom on-site homes and cottages on the Canadian prairies that are tailored to each client’s stylistic tastes as well as their functional needs.

Will they do the job right instead of cutting corners?

Companies like Zak’s Building, that prioritize using quality materials and employing their own skilled craftsmen, are a much better bet than those that will get the job done “on the cheap,” especially by using subcontractors. When the company you work with has their own workers on staff, there is more accountability to ensure the job is done right the first time. And while you can expect that your contractor will use their professional discounts to get you the best possible prices, a firm that uses substandard materials can never be trusted to build something that will last. If after soliciting bids from several firms, one seems suspiciously low, this is probably why; run as far and as fast as you can in the other direction.

Can they build my vision sustainably?

Whether you’re building a new home from scratch or renovating an older home, make sure the builder you choose is on top of the latest trends in eco-friendly design and sustainable living examples. Using sustainable materials in building and decorating your home are essential for a healthy environment and future. Designers are rapidly adopting materials like bamboo flooring and recycled glass countertops for both their durability and their minimal environmental impact. A cutting-edge design-and-build firm will be happy to partner with you in conscientiously minimizing the ecological footprint of your project.
Energy efficiency remains a core tenet of eco-friendly design. As you plan your dream home design or remodel, high-performance insulation should be a no-brainer in helping you save on future energy bills. But also consider more energy-efficient heating and cooling options, such as installing a heat pump or going geothermal, as well as fossil-fuel alternatives like installing solar panels.
Water conservation is another important consideration in sustainable home design, with low-flow faucets and dual-flush toilets becoming more common. Besides helping to conserve this precious resource, making low-water-use choices in your home design will make the household management more cost-effective.

3) Should we hire an interior designer?

Interior design is about so much more than the proverbial living room fake plant that seemed to be in every single home-for-sale my husband and I viewed, before settling on our current family dream home. The bigger your building project – for example, a build-from-scratch custom home or the complete gutting plus second-floor addition my friend Keisha undertook – the more helpful contracting an interior designer can be.

When my friend Keisha and her husband were trying to decide whether they needed to hire an interior designer in building their dream home, “talking to people who had used her before convinced us that it was worth it.”

Pros of hiring an interior designer:

As Keisha explained, hiring an interior designer for their home building project had several critical advantages that saved them money in the long run:

Working with an interior designer meant having a constant “back-and-forth to help us refine our vision, because sometimes we weren’t sure ourselves what we wanted.”
In addition, the interior designer helped them with “keeping a unified theme throughout the house. If half the house is post-industrial and the other half is beach cottage, it’s going to feel very jarring from room to room. Having the interior designer helped us with consistency throughout the house.”
Moreover, “the interior designer is the one who not only helped us pick out the faucet, but helped us ORDER the faucets – using her discount – as well as the 27 things behind the wall that the contractor needs,” Keisha added.
But above all else, Keisha was so, so grateful they hired a designer because she “helped us narrow our vision.”

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