Your project has our full attention, from the first sketches to the day you move in. This is what makes us different and sets us apart. Begin with a call or email to set up a design consultation. We'd love to discuss your plans.
Our projects are designed and built by the same team of experienced professionals
Architects & Builders Creating Custom Homes in Charlottesville, Virginia
modern mountain
mid-century modern
Organic modern
Most approaches for obtaining these necessary items require both hiring and then managing multiple professionals and businesses to accomplish their specific pieces of the total project.
A complete design, specific to your site and your desires for the home, both inside and out.
Documents that formally communicate the design to those who will price, permit, and build your home.
An agreement on price and schedule with the builder who will be constructing your home.
Building your custom home begins with the following:
What does Design + Build mean?
price
schedule
scope of work
terms & conditions
Agreement to Build
Drawings & Specifications
for permitting
for pricing
interior Design
house Design
Site Design
Custom Designs & Engineering
Design + Build firms consolidate all the required services under one roof taking on full accountability and responsibility for managing the process throughout the entire project. During design, these companies bring valuable construction and pricing experience to the table. During construction, they have the most knowledge about the design, details and the homeowner's goals. An architect may have designed many homes, but mostly steps aside after the designs and drawings are complete. A contractor may have built many homes, but is not deeply involved during the design process, if at all. For both, there is a knowledge gap created by not being involved in the entire process that makes their respective roles more challenging. As a result, the project can become less efficient and more vulnerable to miscommunication and oversights.
A cohesive design + build process helps eliminate conflict and encourages streamlined problem solving between designer and builder. The design + build team always pulls in the same direction because they share the common interest of delivering the best possible project and value to the homeowner.
Design + Build - The same team that designs your project is the team that documents, prices, permits, and builds. Design + Build checks all the boxes.
Design & Build
Architects prepare complete designs, drawings, and specification packages for homeowners and their builders.
Their singular focus on design often creates the most distinctive and beautiful homes. Their skill is to discover what you want and then design creative and beautiful ways to accomplish those goals. Their home designs often prioritize looks and style over cost and constructability.
Architects will typically design and document your project to a higher level of detail than you will get from a draftsman or home building contractor. Architects are also adept at demonstrating what your home can look like before it is built. They will use sketches, renderings, or example images to explain their designs to you.
You hire an architect to get the most options, customization, and creative design solutions. An architect is most capable of designing a home that is calibrated to complement the way you live.
Architects - Complete the design and documentation of a custom home as part of a team of design and construction professionals.
Architects
Interior Designers are crucial to achieving the 'big picture' design goals of the project. They handle many different design roles, including space planning, finishes, fixtures, and furnishings selection. Don't underestimate the time it takes and the importance of curating all the finishes and fixtures on a project. The finishes are a big part of how you experience the home and you will want a practiced professional involved to assure that everything looks good together and is designed towards an overall vision. Interior designers work hand-in-hand with the project's architects to complete the design and documentation of your custom home.
Interior Designers - Complete the design and documentation of a custom home as part of a team of design and construction professionals.
interior Designers
Home Builders are general contractors that are focused on unique residential construction projects. They are completely comfortable working with custom home designs. They understand the challenges and logistics of building on land outside of a neighborhood and are used to dealing with things like private wells and septic tanks - things you don't have in a neighborhood.
Home Builders are good at pricing complex, original designs and details. They are not scared of a challenging lot or home design. They are used to interfacing with clients and guiding them through the home building process.
Experienced home builders have extensive construction knowledge and past-solution resources, but their willingness to champion design goals can vary greatly. To a builder, function and price decisions will usually outweigh the architect and the interior designer's design and appearance priorities.
In a healthy architect-builder relationship this difference in priorities provides valuable checks and balances that maximize the use of homeowner resources and add to the value of what is built. Unfortunately, the relationship is more often one of cats-and-dogs, with the homeowner caught somewhere in the middle. It is always advisable to hire an architect and a contractor that have experience working together on multiple projects and have good things to say about each other.
Home Builders - Can add a lot of value during design, advising on current cost information and buildable solutions to design challenges but typically only join the team once the project has been completely designed and documented.
Home Builders
Draftsmen provide the singular service of documenting a design through drawings. These technicians come from a variety of professional backgrounds. Many have direct experience in the design or building trades and a great working knowledge of how a building goes together. Draftsmen work quickly and efficiently to create drawings but their services are limited. By necessity, they do not provide the extensive design work, engineering, or interior design work that is required to complete a custom home. Additionally, if your jurisdiction requires an architect's or engineer's stamp as a requirement for submitting permit drawings, a draftsman typically won't be willing or able to provide that. Draftsmen are most often employed by architects or contractors who are managing larger pieces of the overall project and want to outsource the drawing work. It's always important to talk with a draftsman and clearly understand the limits of their service before engaging them.
Draftsman - Provide useful but limited drawing services that need to be supplemented by others. Confirm if their documentation will be sufficient to provide for complete pricing or permitting.
Draftsman
Stock Plans - Most commonly available on-line. Purchasing these plans for immediate download or delivery is far less costly and time consuming than hiring a professional to work with you, but there's a lot of work left to be done to make these plans actionable. The plans need to be modified to work with your property and engineered to meet local codes and building practices, likely requiring a complete redraw. If you want any additional customization like larger windows, a deck, a bigger pantry, or an extra bedroom these plans need to be redrawn to incorporate those elements as well. At best, stock plans are a starting point and a boon for the custom home hobbyists who like to quickly have plans in hand to dream over, but will likely never build. If you are serious about building, put the money towards a professional who will work with you to develop custom designs and usable documents.
Stock Plans - Because of the extensive work required to adjust stock plans to work with your site and location they essentially check no boxes.
Stock Plans
Neighborhood Builders assemble a large number of homes in succession on a tract of land. These builders offer a limited number of floorplans, styles, and preset color and finish packages to choose from. Neighborhood builders are a rational choice if you like the location and don't desire to extensively customize your home. Speed is a huge selling point with these homes as there is often one already started that you can buy half-way through construction. This greatly reduces the wait to move in.
Neighborhood builders expertise and advantage is in repetitive production homebuilding. It is inadvisable to pursue building a unique custom home with a neighborhood builder; it's understandably not what they do best.
Neighborhood Builders - Provide a one-stop turnkey experience, but aren't creating custom homes. The checklist is not applicable.
Neighborhood Builders
Design | Render | Build
Witness the evolution from conceptual drawings to tangible realization through sketch renderings and reality comparison.
