Mastering Home Design: Insights and Practical Tips

Ever wondered how to blend the efficiency of production home building with the uniqueness of custom design? This episode promises to uncover the secrets behind "luxury production," a concept that combines the best of both worlds. Carolyn and Joshua McMahon dive into Boone's exciting transition into fully custom homes, sharing their personal experiences and insights. We discuss the advantages and challenges of customizing standard plans versus creating homes from scratch, and explore how having an in-house designer can simplify the process for clients.

In another segment, we tackle the fluid nature of design trends and emphasize the importance of personal style in home decor. From the chrome versus brushed nickel debate to the ever-controversial gray floors, we use real-life examples and anecdotes to highlight that your home should be a reflection of your individual tastes, not just what's trending. We also reveal how Boone's new custom process is set to transform our projects, paving the way for a more personalized home-building experience. Stay tuned for next week's episode, where we'll dive even deeper into Boone's design approach with special insights from Bramante.

Chapters

• 0:03 Custom Home Building Design Process
• 12:54 Designing Homes With Personal Style
• 20:45 Enhancing Boone's Design Process

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:03

oh, I love that, I love that hey y'all, welcome back to another episode of feed me your construction content.

Speaker 1: 0:08

I'm carolyn mcmahon I'm joshua mcmahon and it's good to be back. Yes, it is, last week was great having nick on the show to talk about ready frame. We're two stories, three stories into this, this ready frame building in a very quick time, so so quick that we're not going to have trusses on the job in time to keep the crew moving.

Speaker 2: 0:30

So what do we talk about? Losing your labor?

Speaker 1: 0:33

Yeah, we do so. Some of why it's not as quick is because next weekend is Labor Day weekend and unfortunately trucks are restricted on how much driving they can do on, I think, friday and Monday Monday, I don't think you can do very much driving. So because it's a high traffic season, holidays, they limit the number of semis that can be on the road.

Speaker 2: 0:56

Oh gosh, I had no idea. Oh yeah, it's a big deal.

Speaker 1: 0:59

So that really hindered our ability to keep moving.

Speaker 2: 1:02

I got you Well listen. I really enjoyed Nick on as well.

Speaker 1: 1:06

Yep.

Speaker 2: 1:07

But he was dropping some stuff that just had me like rolling silently.

Speaker 1: 1:14

Yeah, somewhat silently. I haven't listened to it yet, but I still can hear it in my head, and there were some hidden gems in his message.

Speaker 2: 1:27

Oh, and I? I mean, I think I had tears almost rolling down my face and I was looking at you and I was like man, do I take this opportunity, like I normally would? But I decided no, I just met Nick. I didn't want to offend him, so now I just laugh about it after.

Speaker 1: 1:44

Yeah, that's right, and it's all good.

Speaker 2: 1:47

Man comedy gold. So we just need to have Nick on again and then you know.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Next time he's in Virginia, we'll get him to come out here and talk about this again, because Nick is great. Nick is great, the product is great and he was an awesome guest.

Speaker 2: 2:04

Super grateful. I learned a lot of just different ways to look at Ready Frame, so I'm excited to see more in the market.

Speaker 1: 2:14

Yeah, I think we need to bring you up there to Charlottesville and take a look at that house that's being framed with Ready Frame. You get to see the job site and how it's coming together. I mean it's a 10,000 square footare-foot house, like that place should be a bomb with material and trash and everything else Right, and it's just not. The Ready Frame really cleans that up. We don't have a dumpster on site. So no dumpster on site. Trash isn't all scattered around. It's very well managed.

Speaker 2: 2:37

Amazing.

Speaker 1: 2:39

Well, it makes a big difference. But this week we want to change gears. Let's talk more about the design piece, and not so much design in itself, but more design in a process.

Speaker 2: 2:50

Oh.

Speaker 1: 2:51

And there's two ways to go about this. I think there's a production way and there's a custom way, and that's more what I wanted to dive into, because you represent your builder. You guys like to straddle the line on production and custom. You want to be better than the production guys. You want to be semi-custom.

Speaker 2: 3:12

Well, I think now I've kind of changed my tune to luxury production.

Speaker 1: 3:18

Oh, I like luxury production, because I think that's exactly what it is.

Speaker 2: 3:21

Now we are dipping our toe into full blown custom yes we, we are. Yes, it is full blown custom but the house is.

Speaker 1: 3:35

It's still one house print, right, it's, it's a house design, house plan, and that's your house, and then you can customize whatever you want.

Speaker 2: 3:43

Well, this is I mean, this is not even a Boone plan off the shelf.

Speaker 1: 3:48

Oh, so it's truly custom. You're getting it drawn.

Speaker 2: 3:51

Yes.

Speaker 1: 3:52

Wow, that's incredible.

Speaker 2: 3:54

Yeah, so I'm really excited about that. So we're kind of, you know, pushing our boundaries on what custom means, because you know it was like a sticky wicket right, we got into, not trouble. But as far as what custom meant previously to Boone, right, you would customize a standard plan off the shelf. You know, you want to bump out your garage two feet Great, you want to push out your sunroom or whatever, sure, we're in for it. So we really embraced the custom nature of what you could do structurally in a house but we struggled a little bit with the design piece of it.

Speaker 2: 4:33

You know we have partner vendors and we're very loyal and that's what we use and that's who we use. I mean we never want to get so custom where a customer can just go buy you know crap from Wayfair and have us install it. I mean, you know we're not going to do that.

Speaker 1: 4:51

Well, we don't want to do that either. As a custom home builder, we try to shy away from some of that stuff, like we. If a customer says this is what we're thinking, we would like to say well, let's figure it out Right. Or if a customer comes to you and says I want to supply all of my plumbing, would you do that? We're a little bit more reluctant about it, but I think if you structure your program correctly, you can supply it. But I still should make margin on it.

Speaker 2: 5:19

I gotcha, yeah. So, like certain things, like Boone will not entertain that and I applaud us for doing that, because we have to have a handle on the process, like you said. But you know we were talking about design what that means for me. Josh at Bramante has, you know, pretty much a designer on staff.

Speaker 1: 5:39

We do Interior designer.

Speaker 2: 5:40

Who does help the buyer kind of through the process? Some custom builders will offer kind of a a side deal where they'll, where they'll offer, you know, interior decorator or design assistance, and then it goes. It goes even, you know, to furniture, like buying furniture, things like that. So what does Janice do for you guys in that way?

Speaker 1: 6:05

so janice won't do furniture, that's that's one thing that she won't do. But she does do is take all every piece of the build process and she will go through and help you, guide you. She's she was in cabinets for years, similar to you. She will hand draw your kitchen and your cabinets with how it's going to lay out. And I said to her well, it's not the scale or anything. She says, it's absolutely the scale, everything considered, and brings that to the cabinet manufacturer, but then also lighting, plumbing, appliances, really taking into consideration each component of the build.

Speaker 2: 6:43

So she's a shepherd in that sense.

Speaker 1: 6:45

That's exactly right. I love that.

Speaker 2: 6:47

Does she go to the client appointments? Yep.

Speaker 1: 6:50

A lot of the appointments she'll go to, some she won't, but for the most part she's a part of that process.

Speaker 2: 6:56

And that is a benefit with buying from Bramante.

Speaker 1: 6:59

Absolutely, we're not building. Our goal is to sell and build four to six custom homes a year.

Speaker 2: 7:07

All right. So then, with that level of service, is there any? Does that cost extra to get Janice to do that with your buyer?

Speaker 1: 7:17

So we struggled with it. So in the beginning we said we should charge for this, this should be a profit center. And as we started putting our program together, we realized that this is kind of the level of service that we want to do, because we want to provide a well-guided custom home building experience. Well, how do you do that if you're not providing that level of service? And as I'm saying that, I can still see an avenue where we would charge for that type of thing, because I think to some extent you would charge for it.

Speaker 2: 7:44

Well, I think, if it goes beyond the norm and you know with our clients, it's easy to put it together. When you are in a one-stop design center, you know for those truly process or production builders, you see how it all comes together. Okay, there's my flooring sample. Here's my cabinet sample.

Speaker 1: 8:02

Oh yeah, you got to be six hours in and out. Your selections are done.

Speaker 2: 8:06

But. But you can see how it all connects.

Speaker 1: 8:10

That's right.

Speaker 2: 8:11

So when you are in the custom world you're asking those buyers to go out to independently to the shop right. So there is no benefit unless you're like dragging samples around, even if you get samples right right of the flooring and you're like, hmm, okay, I'm going to pick out this.

Speaker 2: 8:29

And often I would get copies of selections. And you know you don't want to step on anybody's toes or say, hey, this really doesn't go together. But at the same time again, you want to be a partner for your buyer and like, look, I know that it didn't look like you were considering, you know, your hardwood selection when you made the tile selection right Sure. Right, they touch each other at the transition. Did you intend for this? You know, maybe there was a better choice.

Speaker 1: 8:59

I think, as an interior designer, you absolutely need to do that Because for us, as a part of selling a home at an average price point of 1.75 million, they trust you from very early on in the process. So if they trust you and you're not being honest with them, you're going to lose that trust. And the other part of that is, if they don't trust us and they're not interested in her feedback, they're not our buyer. That's the beauty of building four to six homes a year. I don't need every single person that comes in there that qualifies to say, yeah, let me, I want to build a home with you.

Speaker 2: 9:33

I don't need them all, right, and it's not. Every buyer is coming with their own designer.

Speaker 1: 9:39

No, that's right. Some of them do come with their own designers, and that adds another level of complexity.

Speaker 2: 9:46

It does. We talked about that before. I almost feel like you know the builder should be able to charge a surcharge if they bring their designer Granted. They're full of ideas, ideas which probably will result in more profit for you, right? Because hopefully you know they want to sell more.

Speaker 1: 10:09

Yeah, it depends. They have to be the right partner though.

Speaker 2: 10:12

Well, sure.

Speaker 1: 10:12

Because you have to consider there's three parts to a triangle right.

Speaker 2: 10:16

Yes.

Speaker 1: 10:17

All three parts of the triangle have to be equal in size. And which parts are in the triangle? What are the three points? Budget, schedule and quality.

Speaker 2: 10:28

Oh, yes, yes.

Speaker 1: 10:29

They all have to match. You know, we've always said you've got to pick two of the three. No, you don't have to pick two of the three, you have to have them all equaling each other for it to work. A lot of interior designers in my experience, they're not interested in that stuff. They don't think about the big picture, because they're looking at these components and they're doing pretty things and this will look really good in your house. It's like, yeah, it will. What if they can't afford it? What if it's not in their wheelhouse? What if it's not in their budget? So I think you have to take that into consideration.

Speaker 2: 11:00

Well, right, and I think clients need to be honest about number one. They're paying for their service, and designers aren't cheap, nor should they be. Every time they come to a meeting there, you're being charged. Every time that they do work for your project, you're being charged. And then again the the outcome of a decision or a selection means, you know, you know, empty your wallet. You know, a lot of times you know it's gotta be a certain fixture, certain whatever. So what sparked a lot of this for me was listening on social media designers. And there's, you know, designer A that says oh, you have got to do this, and if you don't do it, you're an idiot, and your home is going to be dated, and you're going to da, da, da, da, da. And then you have designer B, who has the completely opposite opinion yeah, and then if you don't do what he says, you're an absolute idiot. And I struggle with this because you know a lot of things that they say make sense. But you know, opinions are like assholes Everybody has got one.

Speaker 1: 12:09

Yeah, are you calling me an asshole? Is that what you were just doing? I always call you an asshole, thank you.

Speaker 2: 12:15

Because you're very opinionated, but on the same thing though. I just struggle with that, that absoluteness.

Speaker 1: 12:24

The problem with absoluteness when it comes to that is what if you say you have to have a White House and the customer in their mind is saying I hate White, but they almost feel like they don't have a choice but to go with white because they can't say, well, I hate white? I mean, some people can, they've got that gift, but some people can't.

Speaker 2: 12:44

Well Bright, but you are paying this designer for their opinion and they must be right and they must know more than you.

Speaker 1: 12:52

That's the problem with the absolutes. And I've told you early on in my career where we had someone that said this is the best painter in the state, even though they suck, and it's like I would always say, well, this is the number two best painter in the state. And I said why can't it be number one? I said because somebody's got to be able to come in and fix your mess if you make a mistake, because we all make mistakes. So if you work in absolutes, you set yourself up for failure.

Speaker 2: 13:16

You're confining yourself to a box Right, and for me, I always struggle with that, because some folks don't care about either trends or they don't care about following this certain path. Well, gosh, if you install gray floors as an example, because, as we know, that gray is shifting out of our marketplace it went gray, now it's grayish and, my God, if you like gray then we're going to immediately be able to date your home. Oh, you built this home in mid 2020 or whatever, Because when gray was the rage. Well, who gives a shit?

Speaker 1: 13:57

That's exactly where I was going with this. Who cares?

Speaker 2: 14:00

who cares if? If gray does it for you, then gray it up, sister. I, I, just I, I struggle with that 20 years ago we couldn't stand chrome.

Speaker 1: 14:11

Get the chrome out of the house. Brush nickel is the hottest thing on the market. Chrome is back. Chrome is back in a big way right, because things change, people's opinion will change. Like today, a white farmhouse is everywhere. Oh my god, you can't do a white farmhouse, but if you like it, why would you not do it?

Speaker 2: 14:29

yeah, it's your home and what are the the women wearing today? Nice big old wide leg pants, boot boot cut coming back. Coming back to the bell bottoms, all of this stuff, these high-waisted, and it's like, hmm, I'm going to drag all that crap in my closet that I thought that I could fit for the last 20 years.

Speaker 1: 14:48

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:48

I'm going to, you know, stuff my tail in there now, but so it's funny. And then what you can find is that you can align yourself with a designer that actually has your opinion or shares your opinion. Right, you can find them, just like you can find a Pinterest picture of anything that you're trying to find and you're like, oh, here it is, it looks good, someone else has done it, but, um, you know, so our house is painted in a monochromatic palette.

Speaker 1: 15:20

Yep.

Speaker 2: 15:20

And I struggled with the paint for a very long time because we didn't have window casing. We have drywall wrapped. It's very modern, very clean. I had seen something I liked from a designer that you worked with.

Speaker 1: 15:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:35

And I really wanted to duplicate that, but I didn't have the same window seals. I struggled with where the paint was going to change and I was wanted to duplicate that, but I didn't have the same window seals. That you know struggled with where the paint was going to. It's going to change and I was, like you know what I'm just going to do the walls and the trim monochromatic. You know I'm talking about normally there's a darker color and there's, like you know, a classic white trim looks very standard. That's what kind of what you expect. But we painted everything monochromatic. I love it.

Speaker 1: 15:59

Yeah, so basically what a flat paint on the walls and then a semi-gloss on the trim, but it's the exact same color. It's just a different sheen, so it pops, but it's very simple.

Speaker 2: 16:10

It looks great.

Speaker 1: 16:11

Well.

Speaker 2: 16:12

I follow a designer on Instagram and she told me that I pretty much don't have any taste and I was like what?

Speaker 1: 16:20

But all that means is you would not align yourself with that designer. Right Because design is really in the eye of the beholder.

Speaker 2: 16:29

It is and a lot of the things that she says in particular does ring true. She is on that gray bandwagon right that you should only install, you know, light color floors or medium brown. Again she's the one that's. If you, you know, installed the gray, then we know that when you installed your house, just like I know when you install gunstock floors, right cherry or dark cabinets, that you installed your cabinets in the early 2000s, 1990s. Remember all the cider color oak. You definitely can date that.

Speaker 2: 17:04

But you know, your house is probably prime for a remodel. It's time Again you go back to that. Who cares? So the other designer that I was listening to said gosh, well, if you don't paint your walls and trim the same color, then you're making a mistake and you're like hot damn, I'm right.

Speaker 1: 17:26

I think, okay, this is what I think is not a designer. Do what you like. It's just money. When it comes to paint, paint is the easiest thing to change if you don't like something about it, and that's what I told you. When you're picking the design, who cares? Do what you like and in the end, we love it. I mean, granted, my genius is discernment, so it's easier for me to make those statements and say, yep, this is the answer, let's go.

Speaker 2: 17:49

Well, right, and we joke that we never stay in a house long enough for our design taste to be dated. No, that's exactly right. Why would we tastes to?

Speaker 1: 17:56

be dated. No, that's exactly right. Why would we? We got new design ideas. We got new construction ideas. Let's move on and do it again.

Speaker 2: 18:05

Yeah, let's implement it and then let's sell our house while it doesn't look dated and was built in 2024.

Speaker 1: 18:11

And everybody can do that, in Boone or Vermont or any other builders ready to build you another house.

Speaker 2: 18:17

Exactly. We are ready and we give incentives if you come back.

Speaker 1: 18:21

Oh, really, yes, that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 18:24

Little shameless plug there for Boone, but again it just got me thinking about this just absolute nature of designers and how they talk, how they treat people. I've worked with some phenomenal designers that ask their clients questions, but often I feel like when I've worked with a designer like who's stroking the check here? I asked the designer and I'm like wait a second, it doesn't matter, the client is buying from me.

Speaker 1: 18:58

This is the most important part of it. Whether you're picking a builder, you're picking a car dealership to buy a car, whatever you're buying is you should do some screening of that individual or that company and make sure there's alignment Right. You don't have to hire the first designer you come across. Find somebody that you resonate with Right.

Speaker 1: 19:16

It's an interview, for sure it's absolutely an interview and the first price. The first person is not always the right one, and you should go online, do some research, find some questions to ask, learn more about your process and your style and more about yourself. Hey, I have a hard time making decisions. I'm looking for a designer to help extract my vision and help me bring it to life. That's what I'm looking for a designer to help extract my vision and help me bring it to life. That's what I'm looking for in a designer, or the opposite. I make decisions very quickly. I'm just looking for someone to help give me just enough information to make sure I'm making the right decision.

Speaker 2: 19:49

Right and you want someone to guide you through the process, to tell you where to spend money, where maybe not to spend money.

Speaker 1: 19:56

That's bingo. We went back to the budget and we said hey, if you start with a budget of 1.7 million, you know what your budget is. We're looking for designers to help guide us in that. Maybe that 1.7 is not just a build. Maybe that's the build to design and furnish.

Speaker 2: 20:12

Well, and you want to build this relationship with a designer because it can be, like you said, transactional in the moment, but if you have an amazing relationship with the designer, they will be there for the long haul, forever. You'll call them again.

Speaker 1: 20:29

That's a transformational relationship, if you thought, if you find the right designer, similar to if you find the right builder. They're transformational relationships.

Speaker 2: 20:36

Exactly. It can be so rewarding on both sides to continually work with a client. I think it's pretty amazing. So I really hope to do more things with our Boone custom process. I'm excited about it that I get to be more involved than I have been, and I think that that was really a big missing piece in what we were doing. So I'm very excited that everybody's kind of embraced that.

Speaker 1: 21:03

I think that's good and what I'd like to do is next week. I want to talk more about that piece your process because you've traditionally been a production builder and you're moving into very high end production and even dabbling in custom, which I think is exciting, because builders that have processes and systems can do really well. So I want to know more about the design process from Boone's perspective and I'm happy to share Bramante's side next week.

Speaker 2: 21:29

Next week See you.

Speaker 1: 21:30

Later, later yeah.