What are the Top Questions Homeowners ask Before a Residential Architecture Project?

Before a homeowner undertakes a residential architecture project, they’re naturally going to have a few questions and concerns. This post is all about answering the most common questions that Lorne Rose encounters as a residential architect in Toronto.

How Much Should My New Home Cost?

This is the number one question Lorne is asked at the start of a new project: “How much will my home-building project cost?” Lorne answers with a smile, “Well, how much does a new car cost?” It depends on the options you want, the quality of design, the quality of construction, and so on—there’s no cookie-cutter answer. As a homeowner, Lorne Rose Architect will work with you to define the scope of services: what are your new home’s crucial features? What are the ‘nice-to-haves,’ which offer some wiggle room in scoping the project?

The costs of building your new home can be grouped into architectural fees and home construction costs. The former represents Lorne’s fees for working with you to design your dream home; the latter encompasses the hard and soft costs of actually getting the house built—framing, labour, materials, insurance, engineering, supply temporary power, and so on. In years of working as one of Toronto’s premiere residential architects, Lorne has observed that the base of the house often accounts for about 50% of construction costs, while the other 50% goes to interior finishes.

As Lorne Rose tells his clients, he’s not the cheapest; he’s not the most expensive; but he is the best residential architect for delivering value and the best for managing your home-building project’s cost. If your project risks going over budget, Lorne Rose Architect will keep you clearly apprised of this and will work with you to navigate any budgetary concerns, thereby ensuring that you not only love your new dream home but also love the smooth process that got it built.

How Long Should My Home-building Project Take?

If your project follows the typical trajectory, you can expect it to take about 6 months between when you engage Lorne Rose Architect to design your new house and the time when your project’s building permit is issued. This includes getting the project approved by the Committee of Adjustments. However, if your project requires some less common approvals (Conservation Authority, site plan approval, forestry approvals), then this will add slightly to the project duration. The process of actually creating the concept design of your new home—for most people, the most exciting part of the project!—often takes between one and three months.

What is Your Availability?

Many of Lorne Rose Architect’s prospective clients will ask this before discussing a project: “Are you busy? Can you take on my home-building project?” Despite the fact that Lorne Rose Architect is very active with residential architecture projects in Toronto, nevertheless Lorne is often available to take on new projects. There are a few factors behind this: First, the nature of residential architecture projects is that there will be stretches where a home-building project is ‘on the shelf,’ so to speak: for example, when a design’s been completed and the project is sitting with the City and waiting for approval. What this means is, Lorne is able to juggle multiple projects at once, and make progress on new projects while more mature projects are in a holding pattern. Additionally, Lorne Rose Architect has a great core team, as well as a great extended team, which allows Lorne to scale his team size up and down to accommodate a fuller schedule of projects.

All of which is to say, the answer to the question of Lorne Rose Architect’s availability is “Yes, Lorne can almost certainly make himself available to design your new dream home.”

What are the Steps of a Home-building Project?

As a homeowner about to contract out a home-building or renovation project, you want the peace of mind of knowing what you can expect during the project. You can find a detailed outline of a typical home-building project process on our About page, so, if you’re interested how Lorne Rose Architect gets from site analysis to construction administration, give that page a read.

It often happens, though, that homeowners are most interested in one particular part of the process: “What is the process for designing my new home?” It starts with dialogue: as a homeowner, you will go over your wish-list with Lorne, outlining what features you want your new home to have. Lorne has also found that what you don’t like,  can tell him even more than what you do like, so you’ll address that as well. Additionally, since a picture is worth 1,000 words, you and Lorne Rose Architect will supply pictures to each other and discuss them, as well as reviewing actual houses around the city, until you both have a clear understanding of what your new home will look like.

One benefit of working with Lorne Rose is that he will get to know you—what your lifestyle is like, what you’re looking for in a home, what your family and professional situations are, e.g.—which will allow him to design a house that not only makes you happy now but one that will make you happy for years to come as well: for example, if you have young kids now, what home design features will you appreciate as they become teenagers and young adults? What features will you appreciate when they are old enough to move out? When you work with Lorne Rose Architect, Lorne will design you a house that doesn’t only meet your needs today, but meets your needs 5 years from now, 10 years from now, and so on. Lorne Rose designs your ‘forever home.’

Categorized in: Helpful Resources, Lorne Rose Architect