Single-Story.

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.

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.

I price the site work honestly, including the parts nobody enjoys paying for. Dirt, drainage, drives and utilities are where the surprises live, and I’d rather put real numbers on them in month one.

Framing is where a house stops being a drawing. It’s also the last moment when changes are still reasonable, which is why I want owners walking the frame with me while the structure is open. You can stand in the room and understand the ceiling height in a way no elevation communicates. You can see where the light actually falls in the afternoon. Moving a window while the wall is open is a conversation. Moving it after drywall, paint and trim is demolition, and everyone in the process pays for it in time as well as money.

Wood, stone and steel all start imperfect. The job is refining them, not pretending otherwise.

That’s the standard, and it doesn’t move depending on the size of the job.

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.

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.