Q: Can I customize my new home?
A: Yes! And Interior design assistance is included!
One of the most exciting, most fun and most creative pieces of building a new home is also the part that allows you to express your style and individuality – and that is the home interior design process! But don’t worry, you are not alone – our design professionals are here to help guide your decisions for your new home in the most enjoyable, organized and efficient way possible!
The Christopherson Builders headquarters in Santa Rosa is home to our full-spectrum Design Studio. It contains floor-to-roof options for all of the new homes that we build, from a nearly limitless array of interior design selections for our custom home-building clients, to inspired selections that have been professionally curated for new homes being built in our new home communities.
Our design studio contains all the stone, flooring, tile, cabinet and masonry choices (and more) that you will need to create your home. The beauty of crafting your home in one place is that you will be able to have a more holistic approach to the design process, rather than feeling scattered in a thousand different directions.
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Tile & Stone Samples
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Design Continuity – Inside & Out.
Let’s talk about the fundamentals – your overall style and vision for your new home exterior.
When building a custom home or a Christopherson new home design, the choices are practically endless. Did you know that any Christopherson home design can be fairly easily modified to reflect a different exterior look? It’s true.
One of our best representations of this is Plan 59 from our Christopherson plan library. Note the Spanish, Transitional and Soft Contemporary design options shown in the renderings below. Modern and Mediterranean-style homes are typically appointed with a stucco exterior and either a metal or tile roof. If the Traditional aesthetic is more in line with your preferences, you may prefer a board and batten or lap-sided home with stone or brick accents.
It’s quite common, and creates a more harmonious home, to carry the exterior design decisions through to the interior. Recently we have been seeing a resurgence of arches and soft corners, which are often found in Spanish and Western European architecture. In addition to more organic shapes and design components, homes that lend themselves to this style may benefit from an imperfect finish interior sheet rock and/or the addition of natural wood grains to the overall design concept.
Natural wood finish has also become quite popular for the Modern home as it softens the sharp contrasts often found in a Modern home design and provides warmth – especially when illuminated by natural sunlight and well-placed lighting. Think clean Scandinavian simplicity, with cabinets, beams and ceiling treatments inside, and perhaps exterior accent walls further completing the look. This style has recently been dubbed, “Organic Modern“.
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Custom Wrought Iron Arched Glass Entry Door
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Warm cafe latte and cream tones
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12' Open Beam Ceiling
How much does it cost?
Our all-inclusive home building service includes your home’s interior design. The Design Studio service is included, and costs you nothing extra. Your preliminary build estimate will assume that you will choose from our substantial amount of very nice, high quality, Christopherson-standard selections.
If you decide to start exploring upgrades, then we will work with you to price your selections, so you can decide whether or not to (for example), put in higher end appliances, or custom mosaic tile splashes. We offer our clients transparent, honest pricing.
Supply Chain Issues – Are they still a thing?
One question that we often receive is – are there any delays or back orders? It’s a fact that for the last few years since the pandemic, certain products and brands were taking a lot longer to come in – across the country and across the board for every home builder. Happily, most of the backlog is behind us.
That said, there are still certain items that we are aware need to be ordered sooner rather than later, in order to build your home as quickly and efficiently as possible. A big one right now is windows, especially black windows. The good news is, because we order these things all the time, we know what we need to order, and when. Our Design Studio Manager as well as your Project Manager will guide you through your decision making process, with an eye to both your aesthetic and your phased construction schedule.
Where do I begin?
Circling back on the overall design process, we start by envisioning the outside of the home during your architectural and pre-construction process. If you enjoy one of our plans, but would like to add a window here or change an accent roof there, that’s the time to do it. Your first look at your architecture will be your elevations. Elevations are the two-dimensional line drawings of the home that feature all four sides as the home relates to the surrounding topography. Elevations show you a lot, but we find that most of our clients really start to envision their future when provided with a photo-realistic rendering. A high-quality rendering can show the exact paint color or roofing color that you are considering, in addition to potential exterior accents such as stone or wood.
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Modern Farmhouse Rendering
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Achieving Your Vision.
The next step, along with your Pinterest, vision or mood board, is to start dialing in on the overall aesthetic. The style of the home will naturally drive certain decisions – like your windows. A Modern home is probably unlikely to have arched, paned windows, for instance. Once your style is identified, we start working with you on making decisions on the design components that we need to order first – either for extended order processing and delivery timelines or simply because we need certain products in hand before others. Our in-house purchasing department takes pride in keeping a well-oiled process and delivering materials at the appropriate times, so as not keep your new home build running smoothly and on schedule.
Another huge benefit to working with Christopherson Builders on your interior design is confidence. Because you select and we price most of your interior design components before we even break ground – you will have a very clear contract price out of the gates. No one likes surprises – well, unless they are a brand-new car or a free trip to Hawaii – and our process is designed to take surprises and uncertainties out of the equation. Of course, it takes a little while to get there, but get there we do.
Last but not least – when we get to the finish line and you are in your home, in your completed vision, you will be in a home that not only carries the #christophersonbuilt legacy of trust and quality, it will be a home that has been expertly crafted and appointed by the people who will love it best – you.
