Barden Building Products Blog Archive

Whether you’re building the home of your dreams for your family or building a downsized home to spend the rest of your life in, the house you’re creating will serve as a perfect, unique space for your interests, tastes, and lifestyles.

So, why trust anyone but you to design it?

After all, no one can envision how you’ll live in your home and design features to suit your needs better than you. There are so many subtleties in home design that you hold close to your heart, why risk these being lost in translation?

Luckily, with the help of a team of building experts and your Independent Dealer, you can feel equipped and empowered to be hands-on with designing your own home. 

We’ve spoken to many homeowners who are grateful they were heavily involved in designing their own home, and acting as their own architect and voice throughout the process. In this article, we’re going to explore some of the reasons why they cherished the experience, and made the choice to do so.

Panel building, or panelized home construction, can seem like a complicated method to those who are unfamiliar with it. 

But the truth is, when compared to modular or stick building, there are many aspects of the process where panelized construction simplifies the process for the homeowner.

If this article is the first place you’re hearing about panel building, it might be helpful to visit some of our past blogs where we explain the concept in detail:

• Behind the Scenes of Panelized Construction
• 5 Reasons Why Panelized Home Construction Makes the Best New Builds
• The 6 Steps to Custom Home Building with Panelized Construction

If you feel comfortable with your understanding of the basis of panelized building, let’s hop into the areas where it helps to simplify necessary build processes.

We’ll be the first to admit it -- the design phase of the custom home building process can be one of the most arduous ones, and is one of the most important ones due to the implications in later stages of the project if all of the aspects of design are not carefully considered.

Unfortunately, it seems like oftentimes the smaller design aspects are the ones that are not fully considered, planned for, and budgeted for -- causing unplanned changes, time wasted, and cost to accrue down the line.

We’ve put together some of the most common areas where homeowners get tripped up during the design phase, in the hopes of helping your project flow smoothly.

Our team has been working with people looking to build their custom dream home for 70 years. In that time, we’ve become familiar with the thought process of many homeowners before, during, and after their build.

Oftentimes, we see homeowners get hung up on some of the more unimportant aspects of building -- and these small details set the project back and incur additional expenses unnecessarily.

We’ve compiled some of the most common “traps” we see homeowners fall into when planning their project, in the hopes of aiding in keeping your project process smooth and efficient.

When it comes to designing a custom home, it can be easy to get caught up in the fun details: picking out the floor plan you like, furnishing the inside, mastering the landscaping.

But it’s even more important to put ample time, energy, and thought into structural elements of your home, such as house sheathing options, that are not only more functional for your home -- but impossible to change later. 

Make sure not to gloss quickly over the house sheathing options that are presented to you, and think carefully about what is best for your build. We’ve outlined the key considerations here to keep in mind when selecting the ideal exterior sheathing.

Downsizing a home means something different for everyone. 

Whether you’re moving locations to better suit your empty nest, seeking a more accessible home, or looking to build a home that has dedicated spaces for hobbies and interests -- the process of downsizing marks an exciting new chapter.

We’ve put together this guide to help answer questions we hear from people building their downsized dream home and aid in making the process go smoothly.

Congratulations on deciding to build your own home! One of the first decisions to make is when to build.

Unless you live in a part of the country where homes can be built year-round, you are not alone on that question. 

Before you can narrow down the “when” question, it can be helpful to figure out how you will build your home. There are several options, which can each impact your timing question:

• Stick Build: A team of construction workers descends on your building lot, supplies are delivered, and your custom home is assembled from the ground up. With a stick build, you have to be concerned about weather factors, labor availability factors, and possible cost overruns. 
  
  
• Modular Build: In this method, entire pieces are constructed in a factory environment, and then shipped to the building lot for final assembly. This is more of an assembly line process that does not allow for as much customization as a stick built home or a panel built home.
  
  
• Panel Built: With this home construction method, wooden walls and roof trusses are assembled in a factory and then shipped to the job site in segments. Houses are totally customized, and engineered efficiently.

Most people only build a custom home once in their lives. Because of this, unfortunately some prospective homeowners are blinded by unexpected costs that they failed to budget for before building begins.

We put together this guide to help homeowners expect the unexpected, and account for every aspect of home building that might arise.

When building a custom home, there is one thing on the forefront of everyone’s minds: budget. As any savvy new home owner knows, budget goes beyond setting one fixed number and sticking to it through the building process.

While it is important to have your “magic number” or goal budget -- It’s also to know how much of that budget is allocated to various facets of the building process. And most important of all? Finding areas where they can tighten their budget, and save a little money if possible.

In this article we’re going to explore one major, expensive aspect of the home building budget: hiring an architect. How much of your budget should be going to an architect? Just how much are you getting for your money?

When you’re building your dream home, you want to be able to customize it with everything that you and your family needs.

This is why choosing the proper building system or method to allow for ample customization is of paramount importance when embarking on your home building journey.

Some home building systems and builders enable configurable building, but not truly customizable. We put together this guide to explore common limitations with some home building methods, and explore how much they are custom versus configurable.