Building your own home should be one of the most exciting experiences of your life – you’ve found the perfect spot for your forever home, better still, you have planning permission. You’ve already chosen the light fittings and where that amazing piece of art you saw at the exhibition last month is going to hang in your new Hallway.
Your budget is probably tight, taking on work yourself could be an option…. you don’t really have any previous experience (if you are not counting the shed you put up in the garden with your Dad three years ago) but your friend down the pub seems to know what he’s talking about and he said he’d help you out if you needed it. He said all you need is some drawings for the builders to follow and you’re on your way. So why do design companies seem so set on selling you the whole package?
On the face of it, taking on the project, laying the bricks for your future home with your own hands and conquering the construction world sounds like a great challenge and if it means you get some money left over for a holiday and a fully landscaped garden then it seems a little bit of a no-brainer. If you are building a small box, we may tend to agree –most of the time your dream home is far more complex than that.
Once you have planning permission, it’s all systems go! You know what you want, and you want to build your home and live in there, you have a date set in your head and you want to be in by Christmas so you can show it off to your entire family. You’ve done some maths based on a blog you found on Google and it’s totally achievable.
It’s worth noting when you are doing this from scratch with no real knowledge of the industry, things can take a lot longer when you have to research and resource everything yourself. Taking risks on which companies and manufacturers to trust with your new home, can be daunting and overseeing everything is happening correctly when you may not know yourself.
Timing errors, delays in manufacturing, health and safety, building regulations, contracts, communication and specifications all lead to a massive headache. Giving all of these responsibilities to your designers may feel like its tightening your purse strings and may mean you can’t afford the high spec work top you dream of in your new Kitchen, but it can be the difference between getting a kitchen at all in some cases. Projects can run over budget and time scale when they are not managed properly or unforeseen problems occur. Stress is inevitable when miscommunication between contractors occurs and mistakes happen.
Most people have already busy lives with family and work, let alone a social life and fun. Running a self-build project from your home office in your lunch breaks, evenings, weekends and annual leave may seem like a fair trade off in the short term when you are trying to save money. We get it. Just remember…. life still happens around you and the people who need you before the project will still need you during, along with the contractors, manufacturers and lending companies.
The builder may have done “hundreds” of houses like yours before and blogs are so widely available with so much advice and great resources, surely nothing could go wrong, right?!
So, what happens when it does? Do you have insurances? Are your contracts water tight? Did you give them all of the correct information? Do you have the right documentation and back up to cover your back? Your designers don’t want you to face these problems. They have designed you the home of your dreams and want you to enjoy it, not resent it at the end of the build for the stress and money it drained. They want it to be the best it can be. They know what to do, should anything arise. They work in the industry with the contractors and manufacturers all day, every day and have insurance and contingencies should they need them. Meaning all you have to do is let them take the wheel and work out how you are going to enjoy your new home best. You can still have a hard hat when you visit site and if you really want to, lay a few bricks.
Whether you choose to take the project management package or not, you will end up with the home you always wanted. If you are taking it on yourself, you may be able to make a significant saving in cash, you just need to balance that against the time, energy, effort and sanity it will cost you in return.
We have all seen Grand Designs, Kevin see’s the problems before they arise every time, so does your designer. The only difference is, if they are running the project, they can stop it before it happens. You will be in by your Christmas deadline and things will run smoothly. If for some unforeseen reason, they don’t, you have someone to moan about it to and it’s their problem to fix, not yours on a Friday night after a really long meeting at work, when all you really want to do is eat takeaway and enjoy an entire bottle of wine.
We hope this blog has helped you see that there are professionals out there for a reason. The same reason you let a hairdresser cut your hair rather than do it yourself is the exact same reason you should let the designer run your project.
We would love to hear from you. If you would like any further advice, feel free to get in touch.