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You’re dreaming of a beautiful custom home with every detail curated for your family and elevated by expert design and superb craftsmanship. Building a Wyoming custom home is an increasingly popular endeavor. The appeal of a personalized new home in beautiful Wyoming is easy to understand. Learning about how long it takes to build a custom home is an essential early step in planning to build your own dream home.
First Choice Builders is Sheridan, Wyoming’s premier custom home builder. We’ve spent the last decade dotting the rugged Wyoming landscape with bespoke family homes, so we know a thing or two about the timeline for building a custom home.
How Long Does it Take to Build a Custom Home?
It takes about 8-12 months to build a house, but that’s once you’ve gotten the process underway. Some builders book out months if not years in advance, which may extend the time between today and the day you move into your custom Wyoming home.
We keep our projects on track by building decision deadlines into our planning process to ensure we’re ready to move on to the next step. Of course, larger and more complex custom homes often take longer to build than smaller, less ornate houses. Your builder is the best resource for the timeline for the custom home you’ve planned.
What Adds Time to Your Custom Home Build?
Change Orders
You can make changes after we’ve begun the build, but this could change the price of your construction and the amount of time it takes. We understand that some design inspiration arrives late, and changing your mind before your home is built is infinitely better than committing to a choice that no longer feels right. It’s our job to help you make informed decisions about how your changes will affect your custom build’s bottom line and construction timeline.
Supply Chain Delays
When materials take longer to arrive than expected, we often find ourselves dealing with the domino effect of delays. Our trades need to rework their schedule to fit us in later, so we might have to wait even once the materials are in to get underway.
Weather Conditions
You don’t want to live in a home we built in the middle of a blizzard. We are at the mercy of the elements at the beginning of your build. Though weather-proofing technology allows us to execute quality work under a broader range of weather conditions, there could be some days we will opt not to battle the elements.
What Are The Steps in a Custom Home Build?
We’ve broken down the steps of our time-tested process so you can understand everything included in this extensive commitment. While some items on our list happen in a single meeting, others take an investment of time and expertise. We learned long ago that up-front planning pays huge dividends during construction. For example, we spend more than 50 man-hours creating your build estimate so that it is as accurate as possible and provides a wealth of information about the scope and sequence of your custom build.
Initial Phone Call- We connect and start learning about each other.
Pre-Build Questionnaire- You give us more information about what you have in mind, your budget, your needs, and what you’ve already accomplished in planning your project. At this stage, your timeline depends on your responsiveness.
In-Person Meeting- This is where we get to review the details of your vision in person.
Design & Planning- We get serious about the details. You select your layout, materials, fixtures, finishes, and more. This is a reciprocal process and can take a few weeks or a few months, depending on the number of exchanges it takes for you to refine your vision. We suggest you take your time during planning and design so you can be sure your best ideas and most favorite elements have time to rise to the top.
Build Estimate- We spend more than 50 man hours creating a detailed outline of the scope of your project and an itemized list of your projected cost. It takes us 2-3 weeks to create your personalized build estimate because we know that detailed planning upfront pays dividends in the final project timeline.
Verify Final Drawings- We want to make sure you’ve had time to review your build estimate and make any final tweaks to create a finalized contract. If we have a few exchanges, this could take a few weeks.
Contract- It’s time to handle the serious paperwork so we can get started.
Security Deposit- We use these funds to order the materials we need to begin your build.
Pre-Construction Meeting- It’s time to gather the key players like the homeowner, designer, general contractor, and traders to the table to discuss the game plan.
Build Project Schedule- Once we’ve finalized all of the details and talked it over as a team, it’s time to create a calendar so you know what to expect and when.
Client Onboarding Meeting- We meet to review all the timelines and need-to-knows together so we can answer all of your questions in real-time.
Apply for Permits- We secure all the necessary permits for your build. The extensive and detailed documents we’ve created so far make this process easy. We’ll wait a few weeks to a month to receive the final approval on your permits.
Material Ordering- We order your materials while waiting to hear about the permits. It can take 6 weeks or more, depending on your material selections and where they’re sourced.
Breaking Ground- You may need earthwork and tree removal to prepare your lot for your home. Depending on the work required and the amount of access we need to create to reach our build site, we could spend a few weeks to more than a month in this stage.
Construction- The actual build could take anywhere from 4 months to a year. The time allotted to each step depends on your project’s complexity.
- Framing
- Plumbing/Mechanical/Electrical/HVAC
- Walls
- Paint
- Floor
- Cabinets
- Appliances
- Finishing Touches
Final Walk-Through- We go through everything together to ensure you’re delighted. We note everything you’d like us to adjust and get to work.
Follow-Up and Touch-Ups- We ensure you’re happy with our final shine and leave you to move into your dream home. We know you won’t notice everything that needs our attention until you’ve lived there for a while, so we check back in to dial in the last few details.
Ready to secure your place on our schedule? We’d love to hear more about your custom dream home in Wyoming.
