Weeks 6 and 7 – Lot Selection and Beginning the Architecture

We have further narrowed our lot options in Milton / Alpharetta from three to two, ruling out the third option due the HOA fees at the subdivision for amenities we do not expect to use.  For the final two lot options, Artisan Custom Estates prepared a total cost analysis, which goes beyond the lot listing price, and provides an all-in cost analysis which includes earthwork and site prep costs, drainage and water analysis, and future landscape design, among other technical details.  The costs needed to prepare a subdivision lot for construction can be a very significant consideration and we have already seen that it is important to work with a custom home builder partner with land development experience.

We also had a meeting with the architect from Caldwell Cline and both the client manager and builder / project manager from Artisan Custom Estates at the site of our most likely lot option.  Now that the architect has seen the site we can begin designing the custom architecture.  This meeting prompted a lot of thoughts including a more detailed discussion about which sides of the home will have a daylight basement as well as how the outdoor living spaces might work with the topography.  Our top lot option is situated at the crown of a hill with a great western view of the sunset and the ability to have two sides of daylight basement.  This lot also would be less expensive to landscape and have fewer drainage issues than the other option.

We followed-up the site visit with a meeting at the architect’s offices in Marietta to begin a first draft of the custom architecture.  We were amazed at how well Caldwell Cline was able to bring our ideas together so seamlessly.  There is certainly a lot more planning that needs to be done but now that we have started on an initial draft of the custom architecture I am beginning to feel like the project is really progressing.  This is a large investment of time and money and Artisan Custom Estates has managed the planning part of the project very well thus far.

Weeks 2 and 3 – Getting Organized, Meeting Architects, and Lots of Lots

We have spent the last two weeks organizing hundreds of pictures from the multitude of houses that we toured prior to deciding to build a custom home.  This mostly consisted of setting up folders on my computer that organized the photos into general themes such as exterior/elevation, cabinetry, flooring, plumbing hardware, lighting, interior decorating, etc.  Now that we know we are building a home from scratch (yeah!), I also spent lots of time flipping through home décor magazines and browsing design books to find our ideal style (my ideal style, Bill has no style).  I now have a filing system with torn-out magazine pages and fabric swatches.  I think it will be easiest to work with interior designers and Artisan Custom Estates if I have visual examples of my ideas.  This is also ideal prep work prior to meeting with the architect, which is another big theme of the last couple of weeks.

We have now met with two architects that Artisan Custom Estates suggested based on the luxury rustic motif we are going for.  Bill and I both felt good chemistry with both.  We reviewed a number of different custom home plans with each architect, several of which Artisan Custom Estates has built for previous clients, and we picked out a number of features that we would like to include in our plan.  Ultimately, we concluded that we are going to start from the beginning with our plan rather than doing a derivative of any existing plans we saw.  We just like the idea of building a custom home starting from scratch.  We have an especially good feeling about one of the architects in particular and we plan on working with him once we have a lot picked out.  I think we can get a fast start once we know where we will be building.

We also spent the last couple of weekends looking at different Alpharetta subdivisions (Lake Haven at Crabapple, Blackberry Ridge, Blue Valley, The Manor, Echelon, The Oaks at Crabapple, Six Hills, White Columns, Hawks Ridge, etc) and a number of different land listings that Artisan Custom Estates assembled for our review in the Milton area.  I think we are going to build in an existing Alpharetta neighborhood rather than buying and developing raw land; I just like the thought of having neighbors with kids who are somewhat close (somewhat!).  On the other hand, I don’t think we want to live in one of those mega Alpharetta golf course communities or a subdivision with lots of amenities.  I just don’t think we’ll get good use out of it and I’d rather just have a pool in my backyard.  I also don’t want to pay high HOA fees.  We have narrowed things down quite a bit with the time we have already invested but we still have some work to do to find the ideal buildable lot in Alpharetta for our home.  One thing we have learned is that comparing lot prices is not necessarily apple-to-apples.  Some require a lot more work (cost) than others to truly be buildable.

Having already selected a custom builder partner has been important since they have done a lot to help us understand how the options stack up. - Louise 

** Artisan Custom Estates requested that one of our custom home clients document their experiences in a journal to provide a roadmap of the process for future clients to better understand what to expect from the experience.  That project is now complete and their family is now enjoying the home that they designed and constructed with Artisan Custom Estates.  We will now begin publishing the clients’ journal as a blog with some omissions to protect their privacy.  We hope you find these blog entries informative.  Please contact Artisan Custom Estates (info@artisancustomestates.com) if you would like more detail on any particular portion of the journal or the custom home process in general. **

 Week 1 – A New Opportunity

Hello!  Our names are Bill and Louise and we are residents of Atlanta.  We have spent the last several months looking for our ideal home in the North Atlanta suburbs.  Specifically, we scoured Alpharetta and Milton looking for “the one”.  As a result of our diligence, we identified a particularly ideal swath of northwest Fulton County known as Crabapple.  Ours is a common story in that we both grew up in rural settings but our professional lives led us to the city after college.  Now that we have small children, we want them to be able to enjoy a childhood in the wide-open spaces and clean air of north Georgia rather than the congestion and traffic of the metro area.

After looking at a multitude of existing homes (both new specs and resales) in our target area of Milton / Alpharetta, we assembled a great many ideas as to the attributes that we would like (and not like) in our ideal luxury home.  However, we never felt compelled to buy anything that we toured.  There was always something substantive that we would have added or changed about the home, or the home was great but the property was lacking. 

We recently took an inventory of what we had learned after a couple of months.  First, we had firmly decided on a custom home in Alpharetta / Milton area and Crabapple specifically.  Second, we knew what we were looking for in a lot: good size for a yard (1+ acre), privacy, and the ability to add a pool as the kids get older.  Finally, we knew generally what we were looking for in a custom floor plan (openness, long sight lines) as well as the style of the elevation.  It was at this point that we decided to explore the option of building a custom home in Alpharetta into which we could incorporate all of our accumulated ideas.

We then set out to identify the right Alpharetta custom home builder to transform our loosely defined vision into a reality.  A few potential luxury home builders came immediately to mind based on the homes we had already seen.  A few weeks ago, we selected Artisan Custom Estates as our builder.  We fell in love with their style, had great chemistry with the Artisan Custom Estates team, and felt good that they would be the right business partners in what will be a very significant investment.

Artisan Custom Estates has asked that we document a journal of our experience as a roadmap for other folks who are interested in building a custom home that is uniquely theirs.  Artisan estimates that the entire process including land selection, custom architecture development, and the actual construction process will take approximately one year.  So, we will call our journal “52 Weeks of Building a Custom Home in Alpharetta”. 

We are so excited to be getting started! – Bill