Talk to Aaron.

If you own the lot, the address is enough for me to pull up the parcel and see what I’m dealing with before we talk. If you haven’t bought yet, tell me which ones you’re looking at. I have talked people out of lots that would have cost more in dirt work than they saved on the price.

Roof geometry does more work than almost any other decision. It sets the massing you see from the street, the volume you feel inside, where water goes, how much attic you have and what your framing costs. A complicated roof photographs beautifully and introduces valleys, which are where roofs leak. I’m not against complexity, but every plane should be there for a reason you can name. The simplest roof that gives you the rooms you want is almost always the one that ages best.

If you have plans already, send them. If you don’t, that’s fine too. Plenty of my builds start with a conversation about how a family actually lives and what they keep running out of room for.

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.

I’d rather talk you out of the wrong build than into one.

Come prepared to talk about how you actually live rather than how many square feet you think you need. The best plans I have built came out of conversations about mornings, cooking, guests and where everyone ends up at the end of the day.

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.