What are the key mistakes to avoid when designing your renovation or new build project?

Learn three key mistakes here, and how you can prevent them from tripping you up. Or significantly costing you in time, money and stress.

Hello! This is Episode #215, and it’s the second of four episodes where I’m discussing in more detail the four phases of building or renovating your family home.

If you haven’t listened to the most recent episode about the mistakes to avoid during your Pre-Design phase, be sure to head back and catch up on that episode. 

Even if you’ve already moved through the Pre-Design phase and are in the Design phase right now, the information in that episode will help you ensure you’ve got your ducks in a row, and haven’t missed something important.

In this episode, I’ll be diving into some key Design Phase mistakes I see made by homeowners. Whether you’re working with an architect or building designer, or you’ve gone straight to a building company, or you’re designing your home yourself, these Design Phase mistakes will be relevant to you. So stay tuned.

Now, let’s dive in!

Here we are at the Design Phase.

And Design is a really exciting phase of the project. But it also can be a nerve wracking time, especially if it’s your first time doing this, and you’re doing your long term family home.

All the decisions you’re making can feel very permanent. And many worry that they’re going to forget something, overlook something, or make a decision that they’ll regret in their finished home.

You’ll often see people hitting Facebook groups asking questions like “tell me your deal-breakers for your home” or “what did you wish you’d done differently in your home design”, as newbie renovators and home builders seek to learn from the mistakes of others, and not overlook anything. 

In the process of doing this, many homeowners will throw everything – including the proverbial kitchen sink – at their design process, and the home design they’re creating. They try to max out all they can include just in case they might need it in the future.

The Design Phase is the phase where you start nutting out the home design itself.

The preparation you’ve done starts getting tested and explored as floor plans are drawn up, and ideas suggested and considered. 

And as your home design is being generated and improved, it’s your opportunity to really ensure it’s going to deliver on the future lifestyle you’re dreaming of, and that it also meets your budget and overall goals.

And key to all of it going well, however, is doing the preparation to get to know yourself, and to understand your site, your needs, your future vision for yourself, and all the other things I talked about in the last episode … and how to bring all of that into your design. Without getting steered off track by the bright shiny objects you’ll be told you definitely need to be up with the latest.

Now, to clarify – design as I’m talking about it here, is the act of creating the two three dimensional spaces and rooms of your future home. And deciding on the volume, the experience, the feeling, and lifestyle that those spaces will create for you. It’s when ideas are sketched up as floor plans with more certainty, and it’s when the home’s exterior is also discussed and also drawn up. 

Design as I’m talking about it here is NOT just the act of picking finishes and fixtures, and deciding on the colours for your rooms and home. 

Design itself is really an exercise of problem solving.

The problem to be solved is usually about how to create a building that can cater to the needs, wishes and wants of your future lifestyle, balanced with ensuring it suits your site and climate, and meets your budget and construction requirements. 

Those can sometimes feel like competing demands, but the process of design is about keeping these things in mind, as the right solution is realised for you. It’s an involved process that can have a lot of too-ing and fro-ing as ideas are explored and tested. It requires careful communication, as well as skill, creativity and experience. 

And it takes the ability to imagine a future that doesn’t yet exist for your family, and order the priorities of what matters most to you, into something that can be physically built on your site, for the money you want to spend.

This episode will be about the Design Phase, and the mistakes to avoid during this phase.

I have three key mistakes many make, and I’ll share what they are, the damage they can do, and how you can, and should, avoid them in your project. 

In the next episode, I’ll discuss the Pre-Build Phase. Then after that will be the fourth of our episodes, where we’ll cover the Build Phase.

So, let’s dive into the second phase, Design. 

Inside the HOME Method, there are 7 steps to the Design phase, and I share the various mistakes for each of those steps, and tips on how to get it right as well. So I’m going to cherry pick three key mistakes to help you here in this episode. 

If you’d like to learn more about the Design Phase, and the steps involved, then stay tuned to the end of the episode, because I’ll share some more information and news about my flagship program, the HOME Method.

And you’re going to hear from one of our members, Abbey, and her Member story.

Listen to the episode now.

RESOURCES:

You can find the PAC Process episodes here:

• Episode 201 | The WHY of the PAC Process
• Episode 202 | The WHAT of the PAC Process
• Episode 203 | PAC Process: The Designer
• Episode 204 | PAC Process: The Builder
• Episode 205 | PAC Process: The Client

Other podcast links I mentioned:

• Episode 212 | How to check your design drawings
• Episode 214 | Pre-Design Mistakes to Avoid
• Episode 209 | Who should you use as your designer? [Part 1]
• Episode 210 | Who should you use as your designer? [Part 2]

Other resources:

Join me for my free online workshop “The 4 Universal Factors that will make or break your project” >>> www.undercoverarchitect.com/four

Access the support and guidance you need to be confident and empowered when renovating and building your family home inside my flagship online program >>> HOME METHOD
Access my free online workshop “Your Project Plan” >>> FREE WORKSHOP