The Custom Home Building Process: Don’t Sweat the Baseboards

During the custom home building process, oftentimes we find ourselves involved in very long selection meetings with clients who spend great time agonizing over choosing minute details… like the style of their baseboards.

When you are building a custom home, there are many, many decisions that you must make during the process. We see clients get really nervous about choosing the details in their home. They become incredibly stressed because they are afraid they will make the wrong decision.

Once, we sat with a client for an hour and a half going through baseboard profiles. We were trying to help her choose what she wanted throughout the house. Finally, we asked her what the baseboards in her current home looked like. We thought that might give her a direction depending on how she felt about them. But she couldn’t remember what they looked like.

There is a takeaway from this. At some point while you are living in your new custom home, it stops being the sum of all the decisions you have made along the way. It just becomes your home, and you get to enjoy living in it.

Choices, Choices, Choices

Some of the choices you will make are very important. We encourage our clients to take their time deciding on the floor plan, the orientation of the home on the lot, the window placement, etc. These are harder to change once the house is built, so a lot of thought should go into what you really want.

Other decisions you have to make during the custom home building process, like the profile of your baseboards, aren’t nearly as important. There are many aspects of your home that you can eventually change if you end up deciding you really don’t like them. But it’s likely you won’t even notice inconspicuous features like the baseboards once you move in.

Our advice: Don’t sweat the small stuff. We’re always happy to make recommendations on design details based on the style and function of your house. This often helps to reduce the level of thought you have to put into making some decisions. We want to make the process of building your home as enjoyable as it will be to live in.