Thinking about building a custom home? If so, you may be dreaming of all the big and little things you want to have in the house. But then you're also probably thinking about your budget and wondering how to get the most bang for your buck.
Prioritize Your Home Wish List
Here's the secret: It's all about focus.
Emphasize the few elements that are the most important to you and let your budget dictate everything else. Make a list of your priorities and invest your budget where it will have the biggest impact.
If entertaining guests is your highest priority, design the living room, kitchen, and dining room first. Allocate budget for the key items that support entertaining: appliances, large areas of countertops, attractive lighting, maybe big windows and vaulted ceilings.
Then, in the areas like bedrooms, laundry room, garage, etc., reduce the finishes to an adequate but less expensive level so you don't spend your money on things that just aren't that important. High priority things should not suffer on account of low priority things.
Real Life Example
We worked with one Oklahoma client who was building a $300,000 house. In most houses of that size, the budget for appliances comes out to about $5,000. Our client has $22,000 budgeted for appliances. That might seem crazy to some, but the client is a professional chef, and that kitchen is the key to the whole house.
If you're going to build a custom home, make it truly yours, and budget in a way that reflects that. Maybe you want a huge media room with a projector and rows of individual leather chairs. Maybe you want a master bathroom with dual walk-in closets and the largest jetted tub on the market. Maybe you want to spend more on a large outdoor kitchen and entertaining space and less on your actual kitchen.
It's your custom home, so budget for what's most important to you first. Your builder can help you fill in the rest of the details within your budget.
