The search for a builder and that specific floor plan that suits your family’s every want and needs are an exciting part of the KDR journey. From my personal experience it would be a good idea to take a GoPro or your phone to take a video of the designs that you like during a walkthrough and make actual notes about that design that you like and don’t like because after two weeks of looking at floor plans the builders seem to morph into one. It’s hard to recall from memory which builder it was that had the biggest bedrooms or which one had offered floor to ceiling tiling etc.
Walking through a dozen builders in the display home centres might sound like fun but when you have an 8 year old and 5 year old that will eventually get bored, tired and hungry it can be a little frustrating. My suggestion is to narrow your search by listing down the top 10 things in your current house that you enjoy that can be considered as the non-negotiables, that could be things like it must have a study, a butler’s pantry, an island bench
- must have a study
- a butler’s pantry,
- an island bench
- big bedrooms with walk in robes
- an open plan
- 2.7m high ceilings
The list can be long but if you have your top 10 things that can be covered by half a dozen builders I think you’ll have a better focus and use of your time to shortlist the design that ticks most if not all the boxes.
I created a KDR folder and sub folder for Builders > Builder Name > inside these folders is where I store their brochures, downloadable floor plans and inclusions brochure as well as any current promotions they might be running. This was a way for me to centralise our point of reference if we need to go back and make further comparisons. I’ve also created a spreadsheet that provides an overview for each builder we have chosen and the desired floor plan design. This also includes any notes I may have made, pros and cons; most importanly it has an estimate on how much everything is going to cost. Non standard site costs, variations that we may have discussed with the sales consultant etc. A single pane of glass if you will.
This post can be pages and pages long but for now I’ll create it as a placeholder for the builder that we have chosen and why…
