What’s New In the Design World?

Here at CustomBuilders, we’ve scoured the world wide web for the top trends in home design. Below, we’ve summed up our personal favorites in one convenient spot.

Trend #1: Velvet Furniture and Accents

Ooh la la! We’re seeing this all over the runways and our favorite department stores. The only logical next step was on our furniture! And what more could you want as the nights grow chillier than cozy, luxurious velvet.

Try a velvet upholstered chair for the ultimate luxury, or go smaller with velvet pillows or a throw blanket to add a touch of high-end comfort. Or, for a fun fall kick, sneak in a velvet pumpkin or two! Try these scented pumpkins from Etsy:

Trend #2: Brass Anything

Take your interior to the next level with a splash of brass. Now synonymous with understated luxury, brass has been labeled StyleBlueprint’s comeback of the year. To incorporate in your home, think adding brass fixtures (like drawer pulls or knobs), pendants and light fixtures, tables with brass frames, or go all out with a brass chandelier like this one Apartment Therapy highlights:

Trend #3: Terra Cotta Tile

Inject your home with instant warmth when you use this classic earthenware tile. With a more natural feel, terra cotta tile brings you back to basics.

You can either add new terra cotta tile in, or bring life to your current terra cotta tile by accenting it with other natural materials to really make it pop. Leave it to the French to come up with the perfect example of what we’re talking about in the photo below from Maison et Demeure:

Trend #4: Artisanal Accents

Goodbye, DIY. Hello, finely crafted decor. Start small and add a few hand blown vases to your living room, or go all out with a finely worked wood table made by a local craftsman.

The idea here is to avoid the “quick and easy” method – instead, you’re focusing on works that take effort, skill, and creativity. We love this hand blown Venetian glass vase found on Etsy:

Trend #5: Add a Splash of Red

Spotted on Elle’s list for upcoming 2018 trends, red furniture adds an unexpected pop of color to your home. After all, red is the color of passion.

Show your confidence in design by making a bright red chair or sofa the focal point of the room. Or, go small and just add red dishes:

And that’s a wrap! How will you be incorporating these trends into your own home?

So, you made it to the CustomBuilders website. What next?!

Lucky for you, we’ve compiled your road map of CustomBuilders online. Keep reading for our top tips on using the CB website, whether you’re a buyer looking for a new home or a builder researching the competition.

For Buyers

Getting Started

Begin with the map on the homepage. From here, you can quickly and easily select the state you’d like to build in – whether it’s where you currently live, or in another area.

Once you’ve drilled down into an area, you have two choices! Either scroll through the overall list of builders in that state, or narrow it down to metro area. This will help find a builder who can construct your custom home in your desired city.

Navigating the Builder’s Profile

Found a builder that looks promising? Click into their profile to view more details! Here, you can read a bit about what they do, see photo examples of their work, as well as view the various areas they build in.

To get more information, either visit the builder’s website or fill out the nifty contact form right on the page.

Tips & Tricks

Not ready to look at a specific area yet? No worries! In the photo gallery, explore images from all the builders to get a better idea of what style you’re wanting. Broken up into categories, you can easily filter by just exteriors, or even take a look through kitchens to find your dream design.

For overall tips, advice, and builder profiles, visit the CustomBuilders blog. Search by news articles, builder highlights, homeowner resources, and more.

For Builders

Claim Your Free Listing

First things first, do you have a profile on CustomBuilders? If not, you’ll want to claim your free listing right away. The CB team will reach out to get more information and set up your profile. Make sure to have these items handy for when they do:

• Your company description
• The link to your company website
• Your company address and phone number
• The e-mail address you’d like notified if someone fills out the CB form on your page
• At least 5 photos to include on your profile

Scope Out the Competition

Once you have your listing, use the homepage map or metro links at the bottom of the web page to check out the competition in your area. Easily search by entire states (like Texas) or filter down by exact metro areas to see what other builders are up to. If the builder has a website, we recommend clicking through to see how they’re showcasing their custom home product.

The CustomBuilders blog can also be a resource – visit the Custom Homebuilders category to explore profiles and highlights on various custom builders!

Good luck, and happy searching!

Once you’ve settled on a floor plan and builder, you may think your decisions are over. Not so much! In some cases your builder may let you choose the paint colors for your newly crafted home, or you may be looking into some DIY once the home is built.

Either way, it all comes down to this: what colors will you choose for your new place?

Start With Your Favorites

Have a favorite color? That’s the perfect place to start! If you adore the color purple, you could look into using it as an accent color – purple throw pillows to complement gray living room walls, for example.

Take it one step further and look into what your favorite color says about you. Colors can have deeper meanings – and even affect your mood – so you’ll want to make sure that the paint color you choose is a true reflection of who you are.

Here are a few popular colors and their meanings, via The Spruce:

• Red: fiery, warm, welcome.
• Yellow: pleasant, cheerful (in small doses).
• Blue: relaxing, easygoing.
• Green: tradition, nature, abundance.
• Neutrals: simplicity, balance.

Did any of those adjectives strike your fancy? That might be the color to use!

Working Your Color Into Your Home

Now that you’ve settled on a palette, you can start working on what rooms should be which color – and pick the accompanying furniture and decor to match.

If your favorite color is vibrant and strong (say, hot pink or firetruck red), you might not want to splash it all over your walls. Instead, you could paint the walls themselves a nice neutral – think sage green or slate grey. Your beloved color could then be used as an accent against the walls, giving you the perfect pop of color in your living space.

Pinterest Is Your Friend

Of course, we can’t forget about Pinterest! Collect a collage of your favorite items, colors, decorations, and more to create a room inspiration board. After awhile, you’ll likely see a pattern start to emerge – and you might even find some DIY tricks and awesome decor pieces to incorporate into your new home.

Still Stuck?

Many custom builders offer interior design assistance or design centers to help you pull together your style for your new home. And if all else fails, it’s always fun to take a quick quiz to see what style they think you have!

Few have failed to notice that the dominant color scheme of new construction is a universal beige, usually paired with white trim. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a real unpainted wood door or porch columns. How do you go about choosing the color scheme that is right for you without accidentally painting your house an over-saturated color so bright it aggravates your neighbors? How do you balance expressing some personality in a sea of beige without sticking out like a sore thumb? Here are some color scheme ideas for your home’s exterior that are anything but beige to inspire you to break out of the monotonous mold.

This scheme pairs dark neutrals with a rusty red trim, pale green accents, and natural mahogany-stained wood front door and garage door.  It’s fresh and contemporary while the red and green pairing gives it a woodsy feel. Try it on a heavily-wooded lot surrounded by trees.

This scheme brings sunny yellow into your life without going overboard. Pick a few surfaces to pop with brightness and the rest can be a medium tan. Give the trim a deep brown coat or leave the wood unpainted with a dark stain and paint the accents forest green. Add some personality with a pop of turquoise on the front door.

If your home has a Victorian vibe with lots of details, give it a pop with a dark teal body with contrasting ivory and burgundy trim and accents. You’ll be glad you paid extra attention to the little things.

If pale colors and a more traditional scheme are more your thing, try  a pale green body with white trim, dark green accents. Throw in a few pops of rusty orange, especially on your front door. You can also achieve this look using unpainted wood stained with a warm finish.

For a cool look, go monochrome! Use blueish-grays for the body of the house, white trim with dark teal accents, and pops of turquoise in the pediments and on the front door. This can also make a nice contrast to tan stone foundations.

Another dark, woodsy scheme uses natural wood browns that can be stained dark for the second story, front door and garage door, and then a lighter, warmer color in pediments for contrast. The first floor can be painted tan or be built as natural stone, while the trim is a dark teal-blue with goldenrod accents.

American lawns are one of the worst things we do to the environment, and yet they are standard among house-dwellers and some suburban apartment complexes. And what do we even use them for? Not much. Grass is itchy and full of little bugs that make us itch. It also takes up space that could be used for growing food or for a flowering habitat for bees (which are seriously endangered and dying off at an alarming rate) and butterflies which are essential to the pollination of the Earth (i.e. no pollen=no food). Lawnmowers account for 5% of our air pollution, and 17 million gallons of fuel are spilled in the process. According to the EPA, Americans use nearly 9 billion gallons of water per day on their lawns and 50% of that water, combined with the spilled fuel and copious amounts of pesticides we use, goes to waste down the storm sewers. This polluted water flows through an already overloaded system and eventually back into the environment. In 2015 it doesn’t seem necessary to explain why this is bad, but here is the short version: polluted water makes us sick and kills the plants and animals that keep us alive.

Here’s the good news: there’s actually a lot we can do about this! Here are 5 ideas for your yard that are low-maintenance, low-water, and healthy for you and the surrounding ecosystem!

1. Plant clover instead. This is a great solution if you’re hesitant to give up that lush green you get with grass. Kids can still play on it like a lawn, and you can even mow it if you’d like (electric and manual push-mowers only, please) or you can let the flowers grow which is great for bees and butterflies. Photo courtesy of urbanseedling.com

2. Embrace the prairie. Using regionally native plants, such as prairie grasses and wildflowers in the midwest, means minimal maintenance on species that are designed to thrive in your climate. Photo courtesy of homeoutsidedesign.com

3. Embrace the desert. Similarly, if you live in an arid climate there are many native desert plants you can use that hold up with very little water. Many of them even have beautiful, colorful flowers! This is great in dry places such as California which has sever water shortages. Photo courtesy of marvistagreengardenshowcase.blogspot.com

4. Plant a vegetable garden. This will of course require a green thumb and a higher level of maintenance, but weeding can be done by hand and there are plenty of organic solutions to pest control out there. You can plant in raised beds with gravel walkways in-between for full yard coverage without grass, and then you have fresh vegetables to feed your family and friends! (Note: some places have ordinances that absurdly prohibit this. If you are passionate about this, talk to your neighbors, talk to your city, start a petition!) Photo courtesy of sacgardens.blogspot.com

5. Designate your outdoor space with pervious paving. Pervious paving allows water to drain through and remain in your yard’s ecosystem instead of running off hard pavement such as concrete, asphalt, and paving stones, into the storm system. Use it for your driveway, walkways, and patio space where you want to spend time outdoors, and then plant your taller flowers and vegetables around it. Photo courtesy of mckaysphotography.com

For more information about conserving water, check out 4 Ways to Save Water at Home.

The recent drought in California has turned our attention to one of our most precious resources: water. According to the EPA, 40 out of 50 state water managers say we will have water shortages in the next decade.  Between our lawns, gleaming cars, and daily hygiene, we are each using, on average, 100 gallons of water per day. It’s easy to cut back on your water use at home, which is good for the earth and for your wallet. We’ve provided you with 4 ways you can save water, save money, and save the environment.

While building your dream home is an exciting decision, it can also be stressful. From the beginning stages of choosing a home builder, to designing a floor plan, to the construction process, it’s difficult to know what to expect. Though every home builder’s process is different, we’ve created a guide to give you a better understanding of the custom home building process.

While most homeowners know that energy efficiency is important, most don’t realize just how easy it can be to implement. If you have a newer home, chances are, you’re already a step ahead of the game when it comes to energy efficiency. Newer homes typically tend to be more efficient due to newer appliances, windows, and HVAC systems. However, there are still steps you can take to make your home even more efficient. While installing solar panels or purchasing all new, energy star appliances will definitely save you money in the long run, expensive solutions aren’t necessarily in every homeowners budget. Simple, affordable options, especially when used together, can save you more than you realize on utility costs.