Custom: adj Made to fit the needs or requirements of a particular person. (Definition from Merriam-Webster.)
When I think of the term “custom” (as an adjective), I think of something with a unique pattern created after a person’s needs. For example, if I were to say I created a custom outfit, I would mean that I had drafted a pattern for myself and created an outfit to my own specifications. If I were to adjust a pre-existing pattern to fit my body dimensions (by using one size bodice and another size skirt, for example), I would call it a “customized” dress.
I am beginning to believe that I may be the only one that makes this distinction between “custom” and “customized”.
The reason I think so is because my husband and I have started interviewing builders.
We’ve explored the floor plans builders have online, have walked through dozens of homes in the Parade of Homes (both last October and this month). And we’ve discovered that the current popular house plans are not our forte.
We have pretty specific ideas about flow (no traffic through the work triangle in the kitchen please!), lighting (get those living areas on the south side by all means!), placement of garages (we have an acreage – we don’t want the first thing you see to be a garage.) And pretty much every plan people are building in Wichita defies our specifications.
So we want a custom home.
We walk into the home of yet another builder and ask (usually the realtor, but sometimes we’re lucky and the builder himself is hanging around) a couple of quick questions: Does the builder build custom homes and does he build homes in our price range?
The response to the question of whether a builder builds custom homes is telling. One builder assured us that he did, turning to a plan he’d made (and could show off) that could be customized for a larger lot. Another talked of walking homebuilders through a half-built home and letting them choose where they wanted electrical outlets. One showed us how he’d done pillars instead of a solid wall in one of his stock plans.
Now, I’ve looked at thousands of houseplans (I’m not exagerating, people), and messed with quite a few. And while I’ve used some other plans as a jumping off point for my own plans, I’ve only once ended up with a finished product close enough to the original for me to consider it “customized” rather than “custom”. And I’ve found maybe three plans out of the thousands that comes anywhere close to meeting our specifications. Which means the chances that any builder in town has a spec that can be customized to meet our needs is virtually nil.
We’re looking for a builder who’ll build a custom home – and I’m discovering that one of the difficulties is sorting out which builders understand “custom” as I do.
Sounds like maybe you need to start with an architect, rather than a builder?
Well, you could do like my dad did when he had this house built! He sketched his design on the back of some scrap paper, handed it to his builder, and asked, “Johnny, can you build this?” Johnny said he could, and the rest is history.
Of course, that was in 1972, so maybe they don’t do it that way anymore.
What a pity.
;-)
Titus custom built our addition using my drawings. Maybe you need to check with people who usually do additions instead of those who build new homes. They’d be more likely to do custom building.