Whether in a design center, at a vendor’s showroom, or at a builder’s office, your design center meeting is an exciting new home construction milestone! Although exciting it can also be overwhelming and it is easy to blow your budget. I know because we are currently building a new construction custom home and went through it ourselves! These tips will help you prepare for the design center meeting to keep you focused while you enjoy the experience. If you are building a production, semi-custom, or custom home, this is the article for you!
Because we did a lot of research before going to our design appointments, we made good use of our time and money. The earlier you start to prepare for your design center meeting the better. There are many horror stories online about people who have walked into the design center meeting cold. Position yourself for success by prioritizing your choices and budgeting as early as possible. These 8 tips will help you enter your design center meeting with focus and confidence, and leave the design center feeling good about your choices and your budget!
8 Tips to Prepare for the Design Center Meeting
1. Make a prioritized list well in advance of the design center meeting
- Make a list of all the upgrades you want in your new construction home. This is a brainstorming activity, so don’t eliminate anything. Next, categorize your wish list into categories that make sense for you. For example, Flooring, Electrical/Low Voltage, Fixtures, Lighting, Cabinets, Doors, Kitchen, Bathrooms, Windows, and Fireplaces. You may also want to make sub-categories as necessary. Now for the hard part, prioritizing. Examine each category separately, and rank the upgrades from 1-3. The 3s are the must-haves, the 2s are “if I have room in the budget” and the 1s are “I don’t care.” A must-have is an upgrade that you would sacrifice all other upgrades to keep.
2. Consider money-saving themes and strategies
- Do your research on money-saving strategies to reduce the cost for your must-haves and maybes on your prioritized list. For example, some people decide to only upgrade their kitchen and owner’s suite and upgrade the rest of the house later. For ideas, check out these 3 articles 1) Low-Cost Upgrades for Big Impact; 2) Partial Upgrades to Save Money, and, 3) Is a Builder Basic Home for You?
3. Re-prioritize your design center meeting wish list
- Re-Prioritize your wish list. Look at your prioritized list in light of these money-saving strategies. Then, see what you can downgrade from a 3 to a 2, or from a 2 to a 1. You will further refine those must-haves from the optional things. The objective is for you to be focused when you get to your design appointment. Being focused on what matters will make the most of your time and money!
4. How many design appointments and how many design hours?
- Find out how many design appointments you will get and how many design hours you are allowed. Knowing this in advance is essential to planning to make efficient use of your time. There are as many design meeting arrangements as there are builders. Some builders want you to make all the decisions in one 4 or 6-hour appointment. If this is what you have to do, it is essential that you focus on your list and not get distracted. Other builders allow two or multiple appointments of varying times each, giving you time to make selections, consider the prices, and change your mind.
5. Find out where the design center meeting will be held
- Although the term “design center” is widely used, not all builders have a design center. Most large production and semi-custom home builders will have a design center. This is the builder’s showroom just for clients of that builder. Smaller builders and custom home builders may use a design center that services multiple builders. Some builders use garages or spare rooms in model homes to stage their design choices. Although that might sound like a weird setup, clients can benefit from cost savings from builders that have on-site design centers. Custom home builders may not have a dedicated design center. They may provide catalogs to clients, or meet clients at a vendor’s showroom to select items. In many cases, custom clients meet the assigned designer at each vendor.
6. Ask for the cost of the upgrades in advance
- The first thing you will notice when you go to the design center is that there are no prices on anything! Ask your builder to give you a price list in advance of your design center meeting. Some builders won’t have one, or won’t give you a list unless you ask for it. When you see the price list, please be aware that design center prices are NOT the same as retail prices. Going to Lowe’s and Home Depot and looking online to comparison shop will not give you a realistic idea of what items will cost in the Design Center. That’s because Design Center items are priced in monopoly money! In many cases, you are paying for the item, builder profit, installation, builder’s warranties, overhead and administrative costs.
- A note about allowances: If you are building a custom home, chances are that your builder doesn’t use a single design center where you go to select your upgrades. Chances are that your builder uses allowances: a certain amount of money allotted for a particular upgrade category (e.g. appliances, countertops, cabinetry, lighting, tile, etc.) that you select from multiple vendors or design showrooms. Find out whether your builder will allow you to choose your upgrades through any vendor of your choice, or their partner vendors. Our builder used allowances for our upgrades, and we had to make our selections using the builder’s partner vendors. However, we had to use a design center (that is shared with other builders in the San Antonio area) for our tile selections. It is super easy to go over budget using allowances. My best advice is to keep track of how much money you have to spend on each upgrade category to stay on budget. Coming Soon: I am going to write an article dedicated to our experience when choosing upgrades using allowances! Sign up for our emails at the bottom of this article to be sure you don’t miss it!
7. Go to the design center or vendor showroom in advance
- Ask if you can go to the Design Center, or Vendor’s showroom in advance of your design appointment so you can see your options. Be aware that not all builders allow you to go into the design center without your builder’s representative. It is easier to get an advanced look at the upgrades if the builder’s design center is in a garage or spare room of a model home. Most design centers don’t have prices on the items, but you can get a close-up look at the product. Because our custom builder doesn’t have a design center and uses local vendors, we visited as many as we could in advance. For most, but not all of the vendors, we were also able to get an idea of the pricing. Your builder’s model homes are also a good source of examples of your builder’s offerings. We visited model homes from other builders to get ideas too! Watch our video, Watch This Before Visiting a Builder’s Model Home to help recognize the upgrades when you see them.
- We also have a FREE Upgrade Checklist to help you keep track of what you see and help prioritize your upgrade list!
8. Some design center offerings may be off-limits
- If your design appointment is in a builder’s design center, keep in mind that some upgrade choices may be off-limits. Builders may develop new home communities in varying markets and sell homes at different price points. Likewise, a builder may categorize upgrade offerings based on the Tier or level of the new home community. So not all upgrades are offered in all communities. Thus, sadly, there may be some upgrades you will see that are not offered in your community.
If you like, you can also watch our video How to Prepare for the Design Center Meeting.
