Home design and doctor visits…huh? Should your doctor be there when you get a checkup? Of course. Having a doctor give you a checkup without seeing you would be, well, crazy. So, should a design team member see your property when designing your home? Of course. Yet many, possibly most, homes are designed without a member of the design team ever visiting the property. It’s really strange, but it is a common and accepted practice in home design. It might be excusable to not visit a home site, if they are pretty much all the same. But as Dorothy once said “We aren’t in Kansas anymore”. Our geography (thankfully) is full of character. We are nestled between the Olympic Mountains (real mountains), the Strait and Puget Sound. We have water and mountain views. We have micro-weather patterns. Oh, and one of the most beautiful places on the planet. In order to maximize the unique characteristics of a home site, a member of the design team needs to visit the property before the design begins. How else can the view corridors be just right? Will the driveway work or will it become a luge run in the winter? Are there trees blocking a view, or are the trees the view and where and how tall are they? Are there passive solar opportunities? Can we position the decks and patios to be protected from the prevailing breeze? Will a daylight basement work? Will the living area fit on the main (ground) floor? To find the best answers, you have to visit the property. Besides, we like getting out of the office! It may seem odd but in the home design industry, you need to make sure that visiting the property is part of the normal process for whomever you have design your home. We usually make a site visit early in our relationship with a prospective customer. Typically we spend time in the office to listen to what you have in mind for your new home. We like to explain how we go about designing and building homes and share our track record. We start a feasibility study to help identify all the various budget unknowns that go into building a custom home, the stuff besides the “stick and bricks” that most builders don’t want to talk about and the subject of a post some day. When we visit your property with you, we get a better sense of what you want to achieve. We’ll let you know if we see potential problems or opportunities you may not have considered and we generally make sure you are on the right track. We’ve had several customers have us visit the land they either recently purchased or are under contract to purchase to get a little more peace of mind. So, if you’d like us to take a look at your property, please drop us a line. We’d love to get out of the office. Estes Builders is an award-winning design build firm that specializes in custom homes in Western Washington. We have earned more than 130 customer testimonials and a reputation as Western Washington’s most trusted custom home builder. We build custom homes in Sequim, Port Angeles, Port Townsend, Port Ludlow, Bainbridge Island, Kingston, Silverdale, Port Orchard and surrounding areas. Contact us for a FREE Project Analysis to discuss your project.]]>