People in general are looking for that perfect home for them. In general people don’t build houses, they build homes.  They build more than a place to live they tend to built their home as a place to create happiness, security and a place to create memories and have experiences that make life worth living.  For most people building a home is an emotional experience.  It is more than a simple investment it is where they want to raise their family and have a sense of community.

We will endeavor to fulfill that dream, just remember that dreams can become nightmare.  If you do not do your home work (no pun intended) it can change from a dream to nightmare in short order.

These are really important preliminary steps to a successful home design, home addition, or a home remodel.  These steps must be done before any design can start.  I know this part may seem really boring but it will lay the foundation to success instead of disappoint.

One more item and I know it will seem premature to talk about it, but is comes up all the time and needs to be said early on.  Once you get your building permit.  It is a ticking time bomb.  It will explode at some point in time.

For some strange and really bizarre reason people think that once you have a permit to build your dream home you have all the time in the world.

This is simply not true.  This is a time sensitive permit, you usually get one and one half years to complete, let me repeat that COMPLETE, your home, that means finished.  That does not mean you have one 1 ½ years to start, it means you have 1 ½ years to finish it.

This may seem just crazy to you but it seems as though this were an epidemic of craziness.  People are always calling me and asking me what to do, they are not finished and the city wants to put a stop notice on their project.  OR that have already have put a stop to it.

Yes typically you can file for an extension and you must do it before the permit expires.  So if you do not plan to start for a few years don’t get the permit.  Wait until you are ready.  Codes change every four years and local and state codes change all the time (no notice given).  So your beautiful plans are no longer up to date.

I am not saying that you can not start the design part, just do not file until you are ready.  One more part of this is it all takes time to do.  So If you want to build next month, that is not going to happen if you are just starting out.  The entire process takes time.