In a world of slap-dash home construction, having a custom or semi-custom home built just for you isn’t something most of the population has experience with. And while it’s an exhilarating adventure that will (hopefully) result in the home of your dreams, if it’s your first time, it can also be overwhelming. To make sure you get your dream home, there are some things you should consider before choosing your home design plan, so think about your wish list and try to determine the practicality of your desires. Once that’s taken care of, work with a designer to find or create the custom home plan that’s right for you. Some of the things you should consider – and work through with the other people who will be living in the home – include:

* Whether you want an open floor plan or a more traditional, divided plan
* How many children will – or potentially could – live in the home? Are in-laws quarters necessary? How many bedrooms and bathrooms do you want?
* How often do you entertain? What are the space requirements of the gatherings? In which rooms will the events usually be held?
* Number of stories and the ease with which you can travel the stairways and halls
* Exterior style – in general. Do you prefer modern or Cape Cod-style homes? Tudor or French Country?
* What construction materials do you prefer?
* Are there views you want to avoid or take advantage of?
* Will your landscape include a raised-bed garden? A swimming pool? Built-in barbecue grill?
* How important is the kitchen? Are you a gourmet who needs a large space for gadgets – or is your idea of cooking popping a frozen dinner into the microwave?
* Do your hobbies require special considerations?
* Do you need CAT 5 cable wiring to get the technology you crave? What about a central vacuum system?

As you go through the process, your custom home plan designer or consultant will ask you hundreds of questions (literally), so it’s a good idea to consider these basics before jumping in. They will quickly narrow your field of options and give you – and your designer – solid ground on which to start. Of course, if you don’t quite know where to start, it helps to study model homes. They will give you a feel for square footage, materials, amenities and ideas for the various ways you can lay out the space and the rooms, so you can at least start working with your designer on a home design plan armed with an inkling of what you want. In the end, practice patience. Deciding on a home – or working with a designer on a home plan – to suit your every need takes time. And patience, knowing what you like and the ability to compromise with your family and your budget are vital.

If a home in Florida has been a dream of yours, then let’s make those dreams come true. With a Florida home builder, you can design a home that will exceed all your expectations. No matter what your personal plans are, building the perfect home is possible with experienced builders.

Depending on what you are looking for, a housing development might be for you. You can have it all for less with a Florida home builder that specializes in new construction at a mass level. Some of the benefits of this type of construction are speed, price, and design.

Maybe you have a different design taste. If you are hoping for a unique home, building is a great option for you. A new home in the neighborhood of your choice doesn’t have to get lost among all the others. Florida home builders will make sure your distinctive dwelling will stand out and let your neighbors know that your individuality is important to you.

Perhaps you need specific space requirements? A Florida home builder might be the right choice. If you prefer a smaller residence than those available in your preferred neighborhood, new construction is to your rescue. Maybe your existing home is just not large enough anymore. Remodeling to add on could be your solution.

Now that you are sold on building, finding a Florida home builder is the next step. A builder who specializes in residential property, will most likely suit your needs best. In order to find the right builder, take recommendations from friends, interview builders to see how you might work together and find out if they have portfolios of their past work.

If you are building a home, remodeling a home, or just plain trying to sell an existing home, you will find some tips below on what to look for in 2007. “ What’s hot and what’s not” will add resale dollars and enjoyment to your new home, increase your investment payback in a remodel, and maybe even help you sell your home quicker.

What’s Hot:

• Clean, organized garages. People love organization (or they think they do). Offer them multiple cabinets, attic space, cubbies, shelves and a custom painted floor.

• Multiple places in the home for computer space. Gone are the days of the one computer family. Many times mother and father work from home and / or children have their own computers for homework or leisure time.

• Brick pavers on the pool deck. Kool deck finishes only look good when they are brand new. Over time they crack and discolor. Nothing wows a potential buyer like brick pavers and they last forever. Spend the extra money when you have the pool installed.

• Granite countertops or other stone materials. Laminate anything is out, especially on the countertop. Unless it is a back bathroom for the kids, spring for an upgraded countertop.

• Plantation shutters or custom drapery treatments. Ditch the ½” metal window blinds or the curtains you tried to make yourself. Go for sleek window treatments in a neutral shade so if you or someone else changes the room’s colors, they will be timeless.

What’s Not:

• Wallpaper or wall border. Wallpaper is trying its hardest to make a comeback. But, chances are no matter what you pick and fall in love with, the next person buying your home is going to rip it out before they even unpack.

• Dark and obvious accent walls. If you are not a professional designer, stick with one paint color or slight differences in intensity on the walls in your rooms. Same thing goes for faux painting. An unprofessional faux painting technique can actually make some people cringe.

• Carpeting or “wood look” laminate flooring. Hardly anyone wants a fully carpeted home these days. Stick with large ceramic tiles and hardwood flooring in all the family areas of your home. Resist the urge to use the laminate flooring. You’ll never impress a potential buyer with it.

• Inadequate garage space. Never before have we had so much stuff in our lives and everyone in the family has or will have their own car. Don’t settle for a 1 or 2 car garage if you really need a 3 car. It’s not something you can easily add later.

Buying an existing home or building a new one is an expensive proposition, but if you're willing to take an unconventional approach, you can build your own home by increments and spread the cost out over a period of years, possibly saving yourself a mortgage.

The first step is finding and purchasing a piece of property. You need to have the property inspected and judged acceptable for sewage or a septic system and availability to water and other utilities, and to make sure the land is zoned for residential use. Make sure you get all the building permits and other documentation you need, and then plan your home.

You might want to look at plans for homes, for sale in bookstores and through a number of magazines, or you might want to design your own home. Think of ways you can build your home in stages, making sure that the home is habitable at an early stage of building. One young couple decided to build a conventional stick-built home, but finished off the basement area first and capped it, then lived in the cellar while building the rest of the house.

There are companies in existence that offer modular homes built largely in a factory and then assembled on-site. Some of these are created in segments which can either stand alone or be pieced together either all at once or over a period of time. The manufacturers will be able to give you valuable advice on how best to proceed.

Make sure that the most necessary parts of your home are built first. If necessary, you can live essentially in one room that serves as kitchen, living room and bedroom-renters of efficiency apartments do it all the time-but unless you want to live really roughly and use an outhouse (not a pleasant thought!) one of your first priorities should be to build a fully functional bathroom.

Also make sure that, even though you plan to add on to your home in increments, you plan the entire structure of the home up front. You may decide that you will add on a laundry room in two years, for instance; you will want to have the plans for that laundry room now, so that expensive plumbing and electrical work will be done in the most efficient manner possible. This generally means clustering rooms that need a water supply close together to minimize the material needed.

Building your home over a period of years by using your own money or by accessing short-term unsecured personal loans, or a combination of the two, will allow you to own your home outright immediately and save you many thousands of dollars over your lifetime. If you're willing to be patient and live unconventionally for a while, it's a great option.

Bubble diagrams are a useful tool in the beginning stages of designing your home. Before you can begin defining the spaces with walls on the floor plan, you need to understand the relationships between the spaces as you picture them in your mind.

Architects begin with a bubble diagram. The Bubbles represent interior spaces and their importance and relationship to each other. You can do simple ones with your Open Office Draw tool (free download) or the Microsoft Paint program on your Windows computer. These will be easier to change and manipulate, but you can do them with plain old pencil and paper also.

Larger bubbles mean larger rooms, overlapping bubbles are spaces that are accessible from another space. You can also let every bubble float free and draw connecting lines to indicate access and flow. As you plan the spaces with bubbles, you will begin to get a better feel for the spaces you want and how they should relate. It is easier to do this with the abstract tool of a bubble rather that try to sit down and begin defining spaces with walls and the technical relationships between rooms, access and flow. This exercise will save you time and money later if you are drafting your own plans or paying a designer to do them. You will also see errors in your judgement by conceptualizing what was a thought into concrete relationship on paper. This process is critical and precedes formal space-planning and is reiterative ( it is cheaper to make mistakes here) but it will help you clarify how you want the space to relate and flow and will be very helpful when floor plans are drawn.

In 2005, over 1.2 million new single family homes were built and sold in the U.S. That’s new houses being built by thousands of large and small contractors. And the number one complaint is that the quality of the work was less than satisfactory.

In fact, if you bring up the word “contractor” at any cocktail party, everyone has a horror story to tell. If you’re having a home built, you start to wonder, “Who’s watching the construction of my home? Who makes sure it’s built right?”

Most new homeowners I talk to say, “Well, isn’t the local building inspector taking care of that?” Yes, to some extent they make sure the house is built right - but only from a building code standpoint.

Remember that the building codes are minimum standards your builder must follow. For example, the code says that a bathroom exhaust fan must provide a given number of air changes per hour for a given size of bathroom. The code doesn’t care how noisy the exhaust fan is.

The codes cover design criteria that are intended to keep your house from failing structurally. Codes also emphasize life safety issues, to protect you if you are not smart enough to know that you shouldn’t use your hair dryer in the bathtub.

It’s what the building inspector does NOT inspect that you should be concerned about. Rarely do they climb onto your roof to see that the roofing shingles are installed properly to prevent them from blowing off in the first wind storm. I don’t recall ever seeing any local code inspector check to see that the tile around your shower has a moisture barrier to prevent mold problems later.

If the building inspector is not watching your house construction, then your builder must take responsibility for the other 10,000 opportunities to build things right (or wrong). Many of the biggest builders in the country have internal inspection systems to ensure their homes are built right, but many do not. Some builders use third-party inspection organizations to check some of the structural items that the code inspector does not check.

Chances are, your new house was not inspected to the extent that you will be satisfied. What can you do?

The number one solution is to educate yourself and don’t be afraid to ask questions if it looks like something is not right. One of the easiest ways to do this is to get copies of the installation instructions from the manufacturer of the products being installed on your house. Many are available on the Internet at the manufacturer’s Web site.

Another way you can protect your investment is to hire an independent inspector to periodically check the work in progress. This can be expensive, but it’s a bargain compared to what lawyers working on the problems that occur later may have to charge per hour. Check out the inspector’s qualifications; some home inspectors may be knowledgeable about new construction but may lack the experience needed to do a thorough examination.

People often hire inspectors after the house is built, just before they close on the sale. Houses must be inspected as they are built. Most inspection people are hired too late in the process, when the most important things are covered up or are difficult to fix.

Ask your builder if he uses an independent inspector. How often and at what milestones does he inspect the home? Are there inspection reports available for you to see?

Homeowner beware: don’t assume that your home is being built right. Take control of the outcome by educating yourself about construction practices and making sure your new home gets the quality focus you paid for.