Luxury Home Builders in Washington DC and Maryland
Sometimes, average or basic isn’t good enough when building or remodeling your home. If you’re one of the many people who find the average house underwhelming, then you may want to look into making a Luxury Home Build. But where do you even start?
The First Step to a Luxury Home Build
The best place to start is by figuring out precisely what you want and then finding Designers and Builders capable of giving that to you. It’s even better if you can go to the same place for both services – like you can with Winthorpe Design and Build. We’ve been in the business of building, renovating, and remodeling houses for decades, and there’s not much we haven’t done.
When you hire Winthorpe Design and Build, we work with you to make sure our build plans are as close to your ideal design as possible so that you get the home of your dreams. While it’s not our everyday build, we’ve done Luxury homes before, and we’ll gladly do them again.
What does the Luxury Home Building Process Look Like?
The first step to any build is finding the right designers and builders for the job. But it’s also a good idea to familiarize yourself with the steps that come after that.
1. Identify and Obtain the Ideal Location and Lot
A significant part of most dream homes involves the home itself, plus the scenery, neighborhood, and other location-based factors. The lot you choose to build on can also limit the building team’s potential or allow them to make more unique builds – depending on a variety of things.
No matter how much you love your home design, the build team won’t be able to make it for you if the lot doesn’t allow it. Things like hills, bodies of water, city ordinances, and more all vary from lot to lot and impact the potential build.
The last reason that choosing your lot needs to be one of the first steps is obvious: You can’t build a home if you don’t have somewhere to put it. (Though there are exceptions to this rule, like trailer homes, manufactured homes, and modular homes, these don’t tend to fit in the “Luxury” category.)
2. Forming a Budget
Once the rough design has been drawn and the ideal lot selected, the design team will sit down with you to discuss a detailed budget. The accuracy of this budget may vary from contractor to contractor, depending on their expertise in the industry. The design team will factor in the rough design plans, any specifications you made, and lot/location variables that will affect the overall cost of the home.
From there, the design team will work with you to make adjustments in the design, typically starting with the smaller things and then only resorting to changing the floor plan if absolutely necessary.
3. Prioritizing Function over Aesthetic
While one of the main appeals of a luxury home is the grand, expensive-looking aesthetic, it’s all useless if the house isn’t functional. Having a non-functional home would decrease the residents’ quality of life, making the spacious and gorgeous home unenjoyable.
It’s part of the designer’s job to work with the build team and look at every aspect of the design to make sure it’s practical and functional before actually building it. This focus on utility is something our designers possess, but many architects don’t pay much attention to it during their design process.
4. You Don’t Need to Hire an Architect
While architects tend to be people’s first choice when designing luxury homes, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best choice. Architects are usually good at drawing pretty pictures, but that tends to be where their talent ends. They can draw you as many extravagant designs as you want, but chances are none of them will be entirely functional on the first try.
You see, architects lack first-hand experience when it comes to the construction aspect of a build. Often, we see a client come to a builder with an architectural drawing only to be told that it’s not possible. They then have to go back to the architect and pay all over again for the design to be fine-tuned.
5. Making it Grand
Now for the part that differentiates a luxury build from any other boring home: the details. A luxury home is simply defined as a home valued within the top 10% of properties. You’ll probably notice that most of these properties have two things in common: a lot of square footage and high-end details. Since the floor plan has already been worked out, you can then incorporate these valuable aspects into your home.
6. The Build
Once the designs have been fine-tuned, the desired location has been secured, and the plans have been approved, the construction team can finally start building. This is probably the easiest part for you, the client. All you have to do is sit back, relax, and watch the build team from Winthorpe Design and Build work their magic.
Why Hire Winthorpe Design and Build?
Winthorpe Design and Build has been in the business for decades. That’s longer than most. Over these many years, we’ve developed the skills and experience to do just about anything. From designing a high-end luxury home to building a home designed for tiny living, we’ll try anything if it makes our customers happy.
To work with a design and build firm that values you as a customer and knows how to build a home right the first time, contact Winthorpe Design and Build today!
Or you can learn more about our new process, complete with remote consultation.
We also have many past projects and blogs for you to look at if you need some inspiration.
We look forward to working with you!
