The Benefits of Building a Custom Home
The Benefits of Building a Custom Home
When it comes to choosing your next home, you may be torn between buying an existing home and working with an architect and builder in order to build a custom home. While pre-existing homes offer the ability to move in right away, they may contain hidden costs, like the need to upgrade appliances, renovate or build additions. Custom homes, by contrast, are completely move-in ready with all the features and square footage you need to make your home comfortable and functional.
1. More Home for the Money
Custom homes can offer more home for the money. When home buyers purchase preexisting homes, they often need immediate maintenance and upgrades. At a bare minimum, you’ll probably find yourself gutting the kitchen and the bathrooms and completely replacing them, which adds to the overall cost of the home. Likewise, the existing home may contain features you don’t want and exclude features you do want.
When you build a custom home, you are only paying for the square footage, features and customization you want in order to maximize the home’s flow and function.
2. Built to Your Specifications
Custom homes can be built to your specifications and your family’s needs. Most preexisting homes include one or two bathrooms and two to three bedrooms. If you have a large or growing family, own your own business or work from home, an existing home may not be able to meet your space needs. Custom homes can be built with as many bedrooms as you need, modern kitchens with all the right materials, home gyms, offices and great rooms and/or gathering rooms that are large enough to entertain friends, family members and clients or coworkers.
3. Better Energy Efficiency
Older homes are not as well insulated and do not typically contain as many green features, unless the previous homeowners have performed extensive upgrades. By contrast, custom homes can be built to your energy-efficient standards. Instead of fiberglass insulation, you can request spray foam insulation. You can request energy efficient windows, doors and roofing, and you’ll be able to choose between standard hot water heaters and tankless hot water heaters. In some instances, you may even be able to install solar panels on your new energy-efficient roof in order to further reduce your new custom home’s ecological footprint and save money on your energy bills.
4. Appliances Included
Custom homes include the appliances, and you can negotiate with the builder to include upscale or luxury appliances instead of the standard builder-grade appliances. When you purchase an existing home, if the appliances are included, they are often several years old, outdated and may not include the features you desire.
5. Better Privacy
When you decide to build a custom home, you can choose your lot and the style and orientation of your house. This gives you more privacy options than purchasing an existing home. With a custom home, you have the option of setting the home further back on the lot, orienting the home’s design and layout and customizing your landscaping in order to maximize privacy.
6. Move-in Ready
Custom-built homes are ready for you and your family. Once they are finished, you do not have to worry about making upgrades or repairs for several years, and many new, custom homes come with home warranties so that you can have increased peace of mind.
Crenellation
You never know where Culver will pop up. The picture to the right, taken at Culver Academies, appeared in the Mar/Apr 2016 edition of Indiana Preservation Magazine from Indiana Landmarks. The magazine is always a good read and comes free with your membership. Click on over and sign up!
Culver Achieved Stellar Designation!
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Funerals, Flags and Football
Last week was a rough week. Two funerals for a parent of two different good friends. Those obligations just added to what was an already stressful week. Fortunately neither were unexpected. Both of of the passing parents were in their 90’s. It’s never good, though.
The second funeral was for a Navy veteran and he received military honors at his funeral. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this done. Both my grandfather’s and my mother-in-law’s 3rd husband’s funerals included military honors. It is always a moving and touching display.
The respect for the Flag that the seamen displayed was particularly noteworthy considering the current controversy. I wonder how many of the football players using the National Anthem and Flag presentations as a time to protest have seen this? Would it affect their choices?
I don’t dispute that they have the right to protest. That’s one of the things our Flag represents. Veterans often would be there first to affirm that, though often with a look of despair as they also recognize the disrespect. The Flag represents so much more to so many people. To many, the Flag is sacred. Would the players have better served their cause by choosing another form of protest? it would appear so… My favorite unsourced quote about Free Speech is, “While it is true that you have the right to free speech, you do not have the right to be heard.” To the NFL’s chagrin, some fans are now former fans because of the protests. They’ve chosen not to listen. Probably not what was intended.
I wasn’t an NFL fan before the protests started, but this has brought them onto my radar… and not in a favorable light. Without commentary on their goals, I wish they would have chosen another form of protest. Another comment I heard recently resonates. “If we don’t teach our youth respect for our Country, will they feel bound to protect it if necessary?” There was a news story about a Pee-wee football team that chose to kneel during the national anthem because that’s what their “heros” are doing. We reap what we sow… and sometimes we regret it.
Image borrowed from a Daily Mail article on Beau Biden’s funeral.
Careers in Construction
I just finished an article in the September/October issue of Building Indiana by Brad Benhart, Associate Professor of Practice at Purdue University’s School of Construction Management. A quote in the article resonated with me as it’s been something I’ve been talking to my friends in education about for years. “The message needs to change to all kids should learn skills for a career. College is not for everyone, and our society needs education and training to match the needs of the workers required.”
I’ve been pleased in recent years to see a change in thinking in the schools in our area. Many of them are providing technical school equivalency training in high school. Non-college careers are receiving more discussion. Things are improving, but we still have strides to make to end the bias towards college programs. We also need to instill the idea of life-long-learning as a positive thing and requirement for survival in today’s society. When I receive an application from a student who has been through a high school building trades class, they do receive preferential treatment because they have shown an interest and hopefully shown some aptitude for the trades. Unfortunately, this does not qualify them as a Journeyman Carpenter as some of them seem to think. Easterday Construction will help them achieve that goal through apprenticeship training if they are serious about it, but it requires a commitment to additional education on their part.
I don’t think this qualifies as a rant… I’ll reiterate that I have seen progress in recent years. But as per the quote, kids need to learn skills for a career. And if it’s your career, you should be interested in learning all you can to be the best at it you can be. This means education… and Life Long Continuing Education… Never miss the chance to learn and improve.
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MacKenzie Ledley - Executive Director, Pulaski County Public Library