Building a custom home definitely provides you with more flexibility than buying an existing house. You’re not likely to find a house that’s already built that meets every single one of your wants and needs. But, building your own home allows you to incorporate everything you’ve ever wanted into your home design.

Once you make the decision to build a custom home, you may be suddenly overwhelmed by the options. Here are some helpful tips for choosing the right custom home floor plans and how to optimize them for your perfect home.

Choosing Your Floor Plan

Looking through our floor plans, you’ll want to consider not only how many bedrooms you need now, but how many you might need in the future.

For example, if you plan on having kids, you may want to have an extra bedroom or two. Additionally, if you want a guest bedroom or an office space, these are things to consider as well.

Once you’ve found a floor plan that meets these important needs, we will work with you on more specific wants.

For example, maybe you want to knock down that wall between the kitchen and the living room to create a more open space. These are the kind of options you have when planning a custom home design.

How Can Materials Impact Floor Plans & Vice Versa

Once you’ve got the layout in place, we will go over the materials that we will use in the construction of your new home. This includes the type of flooring throughout the entire house, the countertops, the kitchen cabinets, the windows, the doors and much more, down to the handles on the drawers in the kitchen.

We will inform you about the quality of certain materials, the colors available, the pros and cons of their application and more. We can also help you make choices based on your budget, finding more affordable alternatives for some materials so that you can afford materials and features that are more important to you.

The materials you choose can be impacted by different floor plans, so ask your builder if there are any restrictions with specific floor plan options. For instance, you may have to choose from a certain set of materials if you add a screened porch to your floor plan; whereas an enclosed sun porch will provide a wider range of options.

Appliances, Fixtures & Floor Plans

One of the biggest advantages of building a house from the ground up instead of buying an existing house is you don’t have to worry about having to replace outdated appliances.

You can choose what appliances and fixtures you want, which means that if you happen to love cooking, you could choose to design your kitchen with this in mind by installing high-end ovens, refrigerators and more.

We can also help you choose appliances and fixtures in kitchen and bathrooms that are energy efficient, helping reduce your energy costs significantly over the lifetime of your house. We will help you choose everything from your HVAC system and kitchen appliances to your faucets.

Just like different floor plans will impact the materials, it can also impact your appliance and fixture options. A good example is your HVAC system: the floor plan you choose–along with the size of your home, your desire to be green and more–can impact the requirements and options for your HVAC system.

Consider The Exterior

At Highland Builders, our custom home plans all have unique exterior designs. For example, The Hampshire has a more traditional brick exterior while The Craftsman has more of a handcrafted appearance.

The way your home looks on the outside is an important choice as it not only affects your property’s curb appeal, but it will be what you look at everytime you come home. Of course, much of the exterior will be customizable down to the smallest details, from the color of the front door to the type of windows we install.

Just remember that your exterior choices should also take the weather and your lifestyle into consideration. If you get a lot of severe weather then you’ll want to choose an exterior that can stand up to that. If you have young children then you’ll want to consider the durability and safety of certain elements of your home’s exterior.

The exterior choices you make can impact the floor plan of your home, so just make sure to check with your builder about what your options are and how certain changes may impact your ideal layout.

Get your custom home floor plans right the first time

When you build a custom house, you want to make sure you get it right the first time around. Here at Highland Builders, we not only have a number of custom home plans to choose from, we will work closely with you every step of the way, providing you with professional advice and helpful information to help finalize a design that meets all of your needs without exceeding your budget.

For more information about our custom home designs and our custom home building process in general, be sure to contact us at Highland Builders today.