Large Homes.

You’ll see the house at every stage, and I want you on site during framing especially. That’s the window where changes are still cheap and still possible.

Selections are where schedules quietly die. Cabinets, tile, stone, plumbing fixtures and lighting all carry lead times, and a single backordered item can idle a crew for weeks. I front-load those decisions and keep a running list of what has been ordered, what has arrived and what’s still open. It’s unglamorous project management and it’s most of the difference between a build that lands near its date and one that drifts by a season. You’ll always know where yours stands, because I’d rather tell you early than explain later.

The trades who do this work have been with me for years. I don’t put a job out to the lowest bidder and hope. The cheapest framer is expensive twice.

Energy performance is mostly decided in the walls, not the equipment. Insulation that’s actually installed to its rated value rather than stuffed around wiring, an air barrier that’s continuous instead of theoretical, windows specified for the elevation they sit on, and ductwork inside conditioned space where it belongs. I run thermal scans on my jobs because a camera finds a gap that a walk-through never will. A house built tight and ventilated correctly is quieter, more comfortable in August, and cheaper to run for as long as it stands.

You'll get the bad news early, when it's still cheap to deal with.

You’re welcome to ask any trade on my site whether that’s how we work.

Nothing gets covered that I wouldn’t be comfortable looking at in five years. If something needs to be redone, it gets redone before the drywall goes on.

The walk-through isn’t the end. There’s a punch list, and then there’s the first year, when a new house dries out and settles and reveals the things that only appear under real use. Nail pops, a door that needs adjusting, a grout line that wants attention. I expect those calls and I answer them. A builder who disappears at closing was never really building for you; he was building to hand something over.

A custom home is a long relationship with whoever builds it. You’ll talk to me more in eighteen months than you talk to most people in your life, and a good portion of those conversations will be about things that didn’t go to plan. That’s normal. Weather moves, materials arrive damaged, an inspector reads something differently than expected. What matters is whether the person telling you has a plan attached to the news, and whether the same person is still answering the phone a year after you move in. One family has brought me back for a fourth project. That only happens if the earlier ones went right.

Existing structures complicate everything. A teardown means demolition, disconnects, and finding out what is actually under the old slab, which is never what the survey said. Budget the unknown honestly or the first month eats the contingency you were saving for finishes.