There’s SO much that goes into building a home. Literally so. Much. STUFF. Out of all the tough decisions you’ll have to make, like location and financing, the design decisions are will be some of the most fun! As you prepare for your design studio appointment, keep these tips in mind to make sure the process goes as smoothly as possible.

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gather inspiration

The first step in your design process should always be gathering inspiration. I love scouring Pinterest and pinning any and everything that stands out to me or that I may want to see in my future home. Ira and I created a shared Pinterest board for all of our design inspo for the new house and pin to it almost daily. I love that we’re able to easily see each other’s ideas and easily add to it whenever we want.

We also separated the main board into multiple sections so that none of our inspo would get lost in a sea of images and everything would be easy to find. We currently have almost 500 pins on the board, so keeping it organized has been super helpful. We have separate sections for each room, like the kitchen and master bedroom, and then also sections for things like lighting and flooring options. Even after we move in, we’ll be able to keep adding to the board by creating new sections for each DIY and home improvement project we want to tackle.

make a mood board

Once you’ve got all of your ideas together in one place, it’s time to a create a mood board for your home. Similar to my Pinterest board, I created individual mood boards for the different rooms and one that encompasses the overall look and feel that I want for the house. Since you’re just planning for your design meeting, don’t worry about figuring our each room down to the furniture. Focus on the hard finishes that you’ll be picking during your meeting—paint colors, flooring, cabinetry, countertops, hardware, doors, windows, lighting & ceiling fans, appliances, tile work, window treatments, trim work, electrical, exterior options, landscaping, and plumbing.

You’ll have a million design decisions to make once you’re actually in your design meeting, so it helps to have a clear vision in mind of what you want. On my mood board, I just included images for all of the finishes I planned on using in my house, but you can also use some of the inspiration images from your Pinterest board. Also, be sure to include things you know for certain you’ll want to add or swap later. Our design studio process was a little different than most due to COVID-19 restrictions, so we actually got to make some of our selections virtually before our in-person meeting. We were able to compare the design studio prices on things like door knobs and faucets with retailer prices online. This was a lifesaver when it came to making decisions about which items we should upgrade and which things made sense to do later on our own to save money. On our mood boards, we used the items we actually want in our home rather than the standard builder options that we’ll have when we move in so that we could get an idea of the final look. You can check out our design selections below & scroll through to shop!

Front Door: Modern 4 Lite Door (black stain) // Door Hardware: Halifax Square Handles in Iron Black // Kitchen Countertops: Silstone Quartz in Helix // Wall Color: Sherwin Williams Extra White // Door Color: Sherwin Williams Repose Gray // Master Bath Sconce: Revolve 4-Light Vanity Light // Guest Bath Hardware: Black & Brass Round Bar Handle Pulls

set a budget

Everyone has a budget. Your budget may be larger or smaller than your neighbor’s budget, but trust me, everyone has a budget. And if you think you don’t, talk to your husband. He’ll tell you real quick what your budget is haha. But seriously, set a budget for yourself. It’s incredibly easy to get carried away in the design studio and go crazy adding luxury this and upgrading to level 10 that. Knowing what your budget is ahead of time will help you when the tough part comes—when you have to let some things go.

When thinking finances, it’s also important to think about what selections you want wrapped up in your mortgage. Financing your upgrades is great because it allows you to wrap the cost into your loan amount rather than having to come out of pocket for everything the way you would if you were DIYing or renovating. However, it can be double edged sword because it increases the price of your home and you end up paying more for those upgrades overtime. For example, let’s say you pay $10,000 to upgrade your flooring to hardwood. At 3% interest over 30 years, those floors will actually cost you $15,178. Obviously, building a house is expensive so some things will have to be wrapped into your mortgage because you aren’t a millionaire baller with loads of cash you’re ready to fork over. (Or maybe you are. More power to ya.) There’s also some things that just make way more sense to wrap into the cost of building the house because it’s just more cost and time effect. Structural details, electrical work, or my waterfall island for example, would all fall into that category. As long as you’re considering what makes the most sense to do now based on your budget and what you can stand to do later, you’ll know you’re making good design decisions.

determine your ‘must haves’ vs your ‘nice to haves’

Like I said, you’ll more than likely have to pass on some things because life’s unfair and upgrades ain’t free. Knowing which things you can’t live without and which you don’t absolutely have to have will make narrowing down your choices much easier. We made a list with two columns—must haves and nice to haves—and referred to it religiously when it came time to make our final decisions. We really tried to make sure we were able to keep as many of our ‘must-haves’ as possible, and then used our remaining budget to add ‘nice-to-haves'. When all is said and done, you’ll probably end up with some items on either side of the list due to pricing, availability, whatever the reasoning may be. Just make sure you’re happy with your choices and you’ll be good to go!

keep your expectations in check

Most people are very surprised when they find out exactly what is considered an upgrade vs a standard option. As a general rule, just about everything you see in the model home is an upgrade—that goes for every builder. The whole point of the model home is to get you to fall in love with what the home could look like and convince you to spend more money. With luxury builders (think like Toll Brothers or MainVue Homes), your home will probably come with nicer features as the standard. These homes are already priced to include those more custom looking, luxurious features in the base price of the home which is one reason why the starting price is higher. With your everyday semi-custom builder (think like Taylor Morrison, Ashton Woods, Pulte), the starting price of the home is typically more affordable because the standard features aren’t as nice. That doesn’t mean the homes will be lesser quality, just that they may not have as many modern, custom-looking details right off the bat. You’ll have to add on those options yourself—aka, spend money on upgrades in the design studio. Which brings me to my next two points…

know what comes standard

Your builder should provide a “Standard Features” sheet which lists everything that comes standard in the home. It may list aesthetic things like crown molding, type of flooring, or rocker vs. toggle light switches. It usually also includes some of the more functional features, like the grade of insulation in the walls and whether or not the water heater is tankless. Standard options vary by builder AND by community, so be sure to familiarize yourself with the standard options that you’ll be getting. In addition to looking through the list, you can also ask the sales consultation to walk you through the model and explain what the upgrades are. This was incredibly helpful for us because she was able to tell us exactly which things were an upgrade (basically everything) and give us a general idea of what those upgrades would cost. I’ve read online that in some instances the sales consultants aren’t as helpful or do a terrible job of quoting upgrading pricing. Some people even felt like their sales consultant purposely lowballed the upgrade prices significantly to try to convince them to buy. This wasn’t our experience in the slightest, but it is worth mentioning. The sales consultants don’t work in the design studio so they don’t always have the most up-to-date idea of what the upgrades cost. On top of that, pricing is always changing, items are removed and added, and every community has different standard features. You really can’t expect your sales consultant to know everything, but they’re a great resource for getting a general idea of the upgrades would be.

check out your options ahead of time

In addition to getting info from your sales consultant, you can see if your builder’s design studio allows you to come in and checkout the upgrade options ahead of time. Our builder unfortunately doesn’t allow this (and even if they did, we wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of it because of social distancing rules), but some builders do! Ask if they have any open house days coming up so you can see what they have to offer before your appointment. You probably won’t be able to get much assistance from the designers while your there because their schedules are usually packed with back-to-back meetings assisting other buyers, but you’ll be able to browse on your own and get a general idea of what your builder offers. It’s not like shopping at the mall when you constantly have associates trying to assist you, you’ll pretty much be on your own. But this can be good for two reason: [ 01 ] You can think for yourself and make decisions based on what you like, not strictly on the price or what someone else recommends. And [ 02 ] You can rest assured that when it’s time for your appointment, you won’t have others interrupting you the whole time asking your designer for help when they’re trying to work with you on your selections.

understand how upgrades work

The design studio items don’t usually have prices listed on them, but instead most items are categorized into levels. The higher the level, the higher the price. The level of each upgrade is determined not only by the actual cost of the item, but also the labor it will take to install it, popularity, design trends, and the partnership your builder has formed with the manufacturer. For example, modern home finishes like black hardware and dark windows are super popular right now. Because of this, our builder charges a premium on most black hardware like faucets, door knobs, cabinet pulls etc. compared to other finishes like chrome and satin nickel even though it costs them the same amount of money buy and install both options. Other items like shaker style cabinets, 8” spread bathroom faucets, and upgraded tile are also really popular and therefore, more expensive.

On the flip side, some things will be priced lower than you expect which can be a nice surprise. For example, upgrading all of the doors in our house to the Rockport 5-panel style was only $400. That same style door is about $100 each at Home Depot. So basically our builder was able to give us like 20-something doors for the price of 4. You really can’t beat that. I did a little happy dance every time we got one of those small wins to mentally balance out the stuff I knew were being overcharged on haha!

get pricing on everything

The designer your work with in the studio will be able to give you specific prices on each item (not just levels) since the the price of some items vary by floor plan. Some floor plans have large kitchen islands requiring more countertops or more square footage requiring more flooring. Get pricing on every single thing you might want to add so that you have the full picture. After making all of your initial selections, seeing a giant total prices for your upgrades will be kind of jarring, but trust me on this. Initially I wanted to faint when our designer told us how much everything we wanted would cost, but having the pricing info on everything we were interested in made it that much easier to make our final decisions. We didn’t have to go back and forth saying “okay, but what if we added this?” or “let’s try swapping x for y and only getting 3 of z instead of 4".” We already had all of the numbers so we able to just remove things from our selections sheet until we got to a final total we were comfortable with.

don’t forget about electrical upgrades

When most buyers think about design upgrades, they consider what they want their kitchen to look like, the flooring, all the pretty stuff you see in a house. BUT don’t forget about your electrical work! These selections are usually done before or during your design meeting and electrical is expensive to change once the house is built. If you builder has a model of your floor plan, or even one they’re currently building for another buyer, ask to tour it and take note of the electrical work. Look at the exterior and interior lighting, where the outlets are, how many outlets are in each room, and where the light switches are located. Think about whether you want to add luxury features like raised outlets and conduits for mounting your TV or prewiring for surround sound. Your designer (or the electrical company they hire) will be able to walk you through all of those choices when the time comes, but having a general idea of add-ons you want beforehand never hurts.

have a backup plan

Your builder may not offer every option you’re interested, so it’s best to have a backup plan (or 2) on standby. For example, Ira and I really wanted two different cabinet colors in our kitchen—Maple Rye on the uppers and Espresso on the lowers. However, our builder only allows the dual colors to be used on the wall cabinets and island cabinets, not uppers and lowers. Luckily, we already had a backup plan of using the Espresso cabinets throughout the entire kitchen, using the Maple Rye cabinets in the bathrooms, and installing wood beams ourselves in the main area to tie in the wood tones. So that’s exactly what we’ll do. Having a backup plan allows you to roll with the punches because you’ve already thought through other choices that you like without being dead set on one thing and then having to figure out an alternate on the spot.

save a little for later

Know that you won’t be able to get everything you have your heart set on. Have I said that enough times yet? Being in the design studio feels a lot like going to Texas De Brazil and getting full after the first round of meat comes out. There’s just simply no way to get everything. BUT that doesn’t mean you’ll never be able to make changes down the road. You own the house! It’ll be yours forever and ever so you can do whatever you want with it after you move in! I personally love DIY and home improvement projects. I love the feeling I get knowing that I was actually able to build or create something myself…almost as much as I like saving money by doing the work myself haha. And if DIY isn’t really your jam, you can pay others to make changes to your house for you. Sometimes for less than what your builder charges. Try not to get too wrapped up in wanting your house to look completely finished on closing day. Walking into a house that’s 100% done with nothing left to do or change seems nice, but it rarely works out that way. Instead, try to appreciate what you are able to get and plan for what you want to change in the future. Creating a home you love is a process, one that takes years as our needs, lifestyle, and tastes change. Know that your home will change as you do and even if you got everything you wanted now, your home could still end up looking completely different 5 years from now. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

go in with a clear mind & a full tummy

Your design studio appointment will be many looong hours of excitement, information overload, and numbers number numbers. We had one, 4 hour appointment, but other builder’s appointments may be longer, shorter, or broken up into multiple sessions. Be sure to get a good rest the night before, eat something prior to your appointment, and go in with a clear mind. You only get once shot at making your selections and the experience is supposed to be fun! So try to focus on enjoying the process and worry about the other million things running through your mind later.

don’t rush, but don’t linger

Like I mentioned, your design studio appointment is pretty long. However, the time will seem to just fly by! Some choices you’ll be able to make pretty quickly, whereas other will require you to think a bit, weigh your options, and consult your budget. If you need more time to make a decision, take it. Don’t rush through and end up settling for something you don’t actually like because you feel like you needed to move on. Most builders charge a pretty hefty fee to make changes to your selections after the appointment is over and the selections sheet has been signed, so it’s important to make sure that you’re happy with all of your choices. On the flip side though, don’t obsess over every decision trying to making sure everything is absolutely perfect. Do your homework ahead of time and you should have no problem making decisions when it’s time.

I’m not sure if this was unique to our builder or our situation, but we didn’t sign off on our selections sheet until days after we finished out meeting. We had a few non-standard options (custom options that are neither standard nor offered as an upgrade) so we had to wait for our designer to get back to us with pricing on those few things before signing off on our selections. This allowed us to review our selections at home (since we got pricing on everything!) and take extra time to narrow them down to what would be our final selections. If you builder doesn’t require you to sign off on your design selections at the end of your appointment, take some time to sit with your decisions and make sure they’re right for you. We spent about 6 hours after our design studio appointment ended combing over every detail of our selections sheets, doing price comparisons, getting quotes, and figuring out which items to remove in order to get to our absolute-final-no-changes-allowed list.

take pictures of everything

As you’re going through your appointment, you’re going to see A LOT of different options. Be sure to take pictures of anything you might want to reference later, and definitely take pictures of all of your selections. Sometimes your builder may make a mistake and install the wrong tile on your backsplash, or you might confuse the carpet your chose for the one you almost did. Having pictures of everything helps prevent confusion down the line and will help you if you need to speak up about something being done wrong.

Be prepared to shell out some cash

Yup, that’s right. 9 times out of 10 you’ll have to make some type of payment for your design selections after signing off on your final choices. You’ll most likely need to do this with cash, certified check, or money wire (not a credit card!) so make sure you have enough cash on hand to cover your design deposit or be prepared to kiss that frameless shower enclosure goodbye. Our builder required a 50% deposit on all selections after we passed the $15,000 threshold and 50% on all non-standard options, but every builder is different. Ours also didn’t have any design studio credits or incentives when we purchased our home, but some builders do run specials like that so be sure to ask!

don’t obsess over your decisions

I’m actually guilty of this myself, but you really shouldn’t obsess over your design decisions after your selections sheet is signed. For some reason, weeks after our design appointment, at 2am on a Thursday, I got this wacky idea in my head that I wasn’t going to like our kitchen countertops. Why did I think that? I honestly have no idea. But it took 30 minutes of furious Pinterest hunting and a look back at the mockups I made to remind me “oh wait, I love that stone.” That’s why I chose it in the first place. DUH, KAYLA.

After you’ve made your choices, try not to obsess over what-ifs and second guess the choices you made. Think about why you made the choices you did in the first place and trust that you know what you’re doing. But, if something is reallllly still bugging you and you can’t seem to get it out of your mind, ask your builder if you can change it. You’ll probably have to pay a change order fee, but if it gives you peace of mind, it’s worth it.