Design

Understanding your lot… 5 things before you design your home.

It’s a foggy Tuesday Morning and I’m at my studio. Joe Cocker’s “Don’t let me be misunderstood” is rolling thru Spotify, playing in the background and I just poured a double espresso. The first thing I do every morning when I get to my studio is open the back door, so my little black hound dog can bounce around in the back yard running at anything that moves. I love it here. My heart understands it and it’s where I do my absolute best work.

This morning a good friend of mine sent me an email and desperately wanted me to take a look at a wooded lot they are looking to buy. The goal is to ultimately build their custom dream home for their growing family. And I was beyond excited to help out. This will be be their forever home, and buying the right lot is a critical first step. The very small Atlanta lot they were looking at is in an amazing school district. They have been saving for it for years! This is such a big deal!

I guess at that point, as a home designer, I realized most people don’t look at, or understand an empty lot the way that I do.

Geez… Where to start?… there are so many things I want people to know before they buy their lot. So much information that could save you heartache and money. Here are the top 5 things that you must know before you start designing a home on a lot you have purchased or are looking to purchase.

Folks, please do not trust your real estate agent to answer these questions.

Please understand most agents focus on completing the sale. I’m not at all saying that their intentions are bad, please know that up front, but buying a lot and building a custom home is a huge investment. It’s most likely your largest investment.

If you were sitting with me in my studio, drinking coffee or wine (depending what time it is), here are the 5 things I would tell you that I feel I would want to know as an average homeowner. This will save you so much heart ache. These concepts put you back in the drivers seat toward your lot’s true potential.

Item 1

Surveys, Topos, and Setbacks

Ask your real estate agent for a survey, or better yet, a topo of the lot, with the setback lines showing. This is important. Here’s why the setback lines matter so much! Setbacks are the offsets from your actual property line that determine where you can actually build the footprint of the home. Setbacks can vary greatly per community or location. So seeing the actual build-able space of the lot is huge for homeowners. And folks that’s why you need your hands on a topo or survey. You may think you have plenty of space as you’re standing on the ungraded lot looking around at the trees, but your survey will let you see exactly how large of a home you can build. The lot is now scalable in feet!

Item 2

Consider your Views

Next, take a look at views on the lot. Is there a mountain view in the distance or a picturesque stream that makes your heart sing?? Is there an eye-sore, such as a neighbors metal outbuilding, that is going to be unavoidable that needs to be taken into consideration early on? Asking these questions helps you understand your long term goals for the design of your home. And these are items that need to be communicated early on with your home designer, so you can hone in on the views you love on your lot… and hide or minimize the eyesores that might already exist.

Item 3

Consider Future Plans

Think about the overall lifespan of the home. Are there things you would want to add eventually to your lot, like a pool, or large fire pit area, but for budget reasons those big ticket items aren’t a current reality?? You need to earmark this space early on to be sure there is room on the lot for those items in the years to come. So be sure the home design leaves room for items you may possibly want in the future. This might simply mean positioning the home closer to the front of the lot so you have the space for these items on the back of the lot. Or if you do buy the lot, maybe you build a two story home and stack your square footage vertically as opposed to a sprawling single story residence that eats up the space on your lot.

Item 4

Understand the Lay of the Land

Next look at the grade or slope of the lot. Do you want a flat lawn or terrace for kids to play ball or an outdoor kitchen close to the back of the home, a raised bed garden, or a garden shed, possibly even guest parking. This affects the footprint of the home and the access needed to these areas, like the driveway. The reason this is important is because building retaining walls with steps, to create flat landscapes, can get expensive. Yes you might have the space on the lot but it will be a substantial additional cost to terrace off the backyard to create flat spaces on a steeply sloping lot.

Item 5

Save the Trees

Now one more item to noodle on, and don’t kill me here but, are there any large picturesque shade trees on the lot you would want to preserve and design the actual home around. I get it, not everyone likes the maintenance of large trees with the leaves falling into the yard, but please don’t cut them all down yet! Just give it some thought. Large hardwood trees add appraised value to a home and, architecturally speaking, help visually “frame” the house into the lot, as if the home has truly been there for 100 years. Keep in mind, it’s not that you can’t buy small trees to plant, but mature trees can take 40-80 years to reach a desirable scale. Walk your lot to consider marking a few large trees to work the overall design around.