How Much Does it Cost to Build a Dream Home?
How would you describe your dream home? A luxury country home with many rooms or a mansion with a contemporary design, swimming pool and hot tub?
At Dualchas Architects, we believe perfect homes are the ones that meet your every need, create a sense of warmth and comfort, and inspire a spark of joy and excitement during your day-to-day life.
What is the cost to build a house?
How much it costs to build your dream house can be a complicated question.
Final costings vary from project to project and depend on what you hope to get from the final design. It can cost anywhere from a few hundred thousand to up to a million from design to internal finishings.
At Dualchas, no matter the cost, we provide the maximum value for every pound put into a project. We always work to your budget and will offer mximum effort and output on money spent. If you are looking for a Scottish architect firm that puts the design and the customer before the profit, choose Dualchas.
What influences the cost to build a house?
There are a few main factors that will influence the final cost of building a new house, or indeed renovating an existing property.
We’ve listed some of the top factors involved in the cost and design of a new house with further details below:
Location
Location can make an ordinary property an extraordinary home.
This is why Dualchas has such passion for bringing the land and the living together. With designs that take influence from the landscape and environment around a site, we strongly believe it is important to build with the land and not just on top of it.
For a dream home's construction costs, the location can make all the difference. For example, renovating or constructing on land you own will cut costs considerably. However, if you are looking to purchase a prime spot for your new home, this should be budgeted with the design and construction costs.
You can see many examples of this in our previous projects. While designing Cliff House in northwest Skye, we took inspiration from local agricultural buildings, which could be found cut into the landscape. We used the natural dip of the building site to create a simple but stylish design that mirrored the land around it. This design also allowed us to obey restrictions that were set to the build, these being that the building must be low lying and use natural materials.
Material
While many architects may stick to the same designs for each residential property they design, using the same techniques and material, Dualchas approaches each project with an open mind and from a fresh perspective.
Creativity and innovation are what’s needed to raise a design from the average to the joy-inspiring. This also includes the creative use of materials that make up a home. For example, when looking to blend our designs into the surrounding landscape, choosing the right finishing and attention to detail with the material can make all the difference.
Take, for example, our build for Breanish on the isle of Lewis, where the client wanted their property to reflect the island's rugged topology and weather, while still remaining warm and comfortable.
To achieve this, we used a rough stone retaining wall, a rain screen made with larch and grey slate tiles for the roofing, which you could find littering the environment. For the interior, a simple palette of materials was used to express the space inside the property. It also helped to focus the eye out for the viewing windows towards the distinctive landscape.
Function
Architecture mirrors the way we live our lives, and so to live in the perfect home is to have a property that meets all your needs. This is why we design every aspect of our builds around our clients, carefully considering how they live and what they’ll need from their dream home.
With our Scotasay project on the Isle of Harris, for example, our designs went through some development to match the client's lifestyle.
While visiting the site, we learnt that the client spent his time outdoors, working on his boats and transporting food and supplies up and down the small jetty. To match his lifestyle and improve the flow of his home, the design adapted into a series of pods linked by a top-lit corridor with service space forming a row to the rear for easier access.
The value of an expert approach to design
Another factor to consider when thinking of your home's construction costs is the approach and ability taken by the architects
Dualchas provide a careful and considerate approach to each project in order to maximise your investment with us. Our goal is to get the most out of every project we undertake, whilst working within the scope of the budget. We want to provide you with your dream home no matter how large or how small your budget may be.
This means that everything from materials to layouts is designed with the client in mind and meets every requirement and aspect of their budget.
Can I reduce the costs of building a new home?
After knowing how much it will cost to build a new home, it can also be beneficial to know ways to reduce the cost.
As with any design and construction project, there are always ways we can help you get the most from your budget. By working with you closely, you can see every design choice we make and work together with our team to create a concept that fulfils your needs. Through in-depth client collaboration, Dualchas provides the highest design standard possible and provides maximum return on investment.
Dualchas never lets figures on a page come before our clients. No matter the budget, we will work to make your dream home a reality. We collaborate with our clients from start-to-finish for any project you may have, offering expert guidance along the way on everything from how much a house costs to build, to the best ways to pair your new home with your lifestyle and the surrounding environment.
Contact our friendly team today to take a step towards your new dream home.