When you're planning a custom new home, the wishlist starts long. Butler's pantry, study nook, walk-in robe in every bedroom, ducted air, dual ovens, statement bath, drop zone off the garage, alfresco kitchen, three-car garage with a workshop. Add it up, and the budget is gone before the slab is poured.
This is where one of the most underrated parts of building well comes in: separating must-haves from nice-to-haves before you start designing.
The exercise sounds simple. List everything you want. Then, honestly, mark each one as either non-negotiable or negotiable. Here's the trick — be ruthless. Most people put far too much on the non-negotiable list the first time. Look at it again the next day. Look at it once more after that. By the third pass, you'll usually find that two or three things were absolutely essential and the rest, if you're being fair, were nice ideas.
The reason this matters is that a clear must-have list gives your builder and designer something to anchor to. If we know the non-negotiables — say, four bedrooms, a covered alfresco, a workshop with power, and a particular orientation for the master — we can build a plan around them and then add as much of the nice-to-have list as the budget will support. Without that anchor, every conversation becomes "can we afford this too?" and the design loses focus.
A few common-sense rules apply. Spend on the things that are difficult or expensive to change later — slab size, room layout, ceiling heights, window positions, plumbing locations. Save on the things you can upgrade down the track — tapware, light fittings, splashbacks, landscaping, even the kitchen island stone.
We also encourage clients to hold a small contingency back from their headline budget. Something always comes up. Better to have a buffer for it than to be cutting back your master bathroom at the eleventh hour.
A wishlist done well is the difference between a home that feels considered and one that feels compromised. If you'd like a hand working through yours, drop by inh.com.au/geraldton and we'll happily go through it with you.
