Custom Home Builders

Building a Custom Home in Victoria, BC

Do you know the difference between a new spec home and a custom new home? If it’s not already built, a spec home often comes with a basic plan that is already set and you simply get to select the finishes. A custom home, on the other hand, is a labour of love - starting from scratch to develop the actual layout and quality of your home so that it’s fully personalized to your unique lifestyle and particular needs.

So what exactly do custom home builders do? Essentially, your builder has four primary roles:

• Provide you with a quote on costs, based on the design plan you’ve put together with your designer.
• Coordinate the building process by overseeing and managing all aspects of construction.
• Provide expertise regarding rules, regulations, laws, and liability.
• Build a relationship with you to ensure that your experience of renovating or building a new home is enjoyable, positive, and informative.

Custom home builders coordinate all of the trades to ensure everything is done in the proper sequential order and in the most time efficient and effective way. When choosing a home builder in Victoria, BC, you’ll want to consider the builder’s ability to choose the best sub-trades to actually implement the work.

Getting Started: You Need a Design Plan

A custom home build is about the whole package - confidence and trust, not only in the building and materials themselves, but also in the transparent communication, reporting and information sharing provided. When building a custom home, you’re starting from the very beginning and should be prepared for the time commitment this process requires. 

The first step in building your custom home in Victoria is to work with a designer or an architect to build a detailed design plan and layout. We do not have a design team in-house, but we’re more than happy to recommend excellent professionals that we think will make a good fit for your desired project.

Before meeting with your designer, it’s helpful to start with a few clear ideas of what exactly it is you’re looking for. Some of the questions you might ask yourself include:

• What does this house have to have in order to meet my needs?
• What quality of standard am I looking for?
• Which do I value more: visual aesthetics or quality of materials?
• What are my top priorities?

What Happens Next?

Once your design plan is in place, a custom home builder will help you build or renovate your home accordingly, working with your design team to ensure the plan is functional, doable, and structurally sound and that it meets building codes, engineering requirements, and bylaws within the municipality you’re building in. Since the builder is responsible for each of these elements, it’s important to take that into consideration when choosing who to work with.

Your builder is responsible for “the big picture” and all of the details of your project. He or she will make sure all sub-trades are following your design plan, as contracted, putting things where you want them to be. If you decide to make changes to the plan, your builder will help you decide how to adjust the plan and ensure this information is communicated with the appropriate trades.

Victoria’s Premier Custom Home Builders

At Maximilian Huxley Construction, we start by providing you with an information package and a quote of what your home will cost, based on the design you’ve put together with your designer. We want you to know, upfront, exactly how we work. We offer fixed price contracts, which you can learn more about on our quoting process page. Once a contract is signed, we then begin the construction process.

At the beginning of your project, you will be provided with a comprehensive project binder that will help you keep track of:

• Decisions lists
• Product information
• Important documents
• Any other materials related to your project

Both Max and your site supervisor will also have similar binders with all of the information gathered during the quoting process.

Upon completion of your project, we will provide you with another binder that includes:

• All of the manuals and warranties for all products used to build your custom home
• A list all of the trades people who worked on your home
• The contract information for manufacturers

Throughout the project, we develop a personalized relationship with you and use our professional experience and expertise to oversee and manage the building process of your custom, dream home - whether large or small, renovated or newly built - to your exacting specifications and to a superior level of quality.

So how do you know if we’re the right home builder for you? Our clients appreciate:

• The value in the outstanding material and building quality we provide
• Our impeccable organizational skills
• Our attention to details that are important for their quality of life
• Our excellent customer service
• The value in taking the time to do things right.

Get started today. Contact us for a custom quote.