Having a Baby is Just Like Building a Custom Home

blog / August 22, 2017

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Having a Baby is Just Like Building a Custom Home

By Ryan Siebert
Custom Home, Baby

In what will certainly be one of my more comical blog posts, I want to compare the joy and frustrations that I recently found myself thinking about between having a baby and building a custom home.

For the common person, we don’t have babies every day and we don’t build custom homes every day.   When the time comes for us to start either project we find ourselves in this weird state of hope.  Hope that things will go ok, hope that the people working on your home and child know what they are doing, hope that timelines are consistent with what our Doctor and Home Builder project.  The comparisons between homebuilding and having a baby are endless when you get right down to it.  Below is a list of key items that I found myself thinking about after recently having my first child, Brady West Siebert, on August 15th, 2017.

Setting Realistic Expectations

At SG Home Builders we are constantly preaching transparency and giving our clients realistic expectations from the moment we meet them.   The last thing that we want to do is provide you a false sense of security, only to burst your bubble when your emotions are at their highest.  For most clients this means that we are rock solid with our budgeting and we are highly focused on the estimated timeline for their custom build home project.  Clients typically don’t have more than a general idea of what building a home should cost and they are subject to the builders opinion for how long it should take.

After waiting for what seemed like two hours for my wife to prepare to deliver our first child I found myself frustrated.  “What the heck is going on?  Why has no one told me how long this process was going to take?  Better yet, why has no one told me that this was even part of the process?”  On top of that, I really have no clue what the cost of having a baby is.  Where is the transparency at?  Why does it cost my Doctor more than your Doctor to deliver a baby?

What I realized is that without providing my clients clarity and details about their project, why things cost what they do, and when they will be completed, they will feel frustrated with me too.

Custom Home, Baby

Trust

Most of my clients come from a referral.  My wife was referred to the Doctor that we used to deliver our baby.  Yet for some reason both clients looking to build their own home and future parents find themselves enjoying a high level of trust with someone that has been there and done it before.  Not only that, but we find ourselves trusting our Doctors and home builders right away.  It is as if we have a box to check, and we are ready to move onto the next phase in the project.  By the way, that person you trust, whether it be a builder or a Doctor, they both need about nine months of work to get your project/baby ready for the real world.  Coincidence, I think not. 

Custom Home, Baby

Warranty Work 

Every once in a while you hear about the perfect baby and the perfect home construction process.  Most of us are not so lucky  After the home of your dreams is complete you have punch list items, non-working items and even leaks.  This is true with your baby too.  Babies take years before they don’t need diaper changes, bottle feeding, and even teaching them to sleep through the night can be a hassle.  Through all of the chaos and uncertainty you are left with this wonderful, magical, once in a lifetime home or person.  My wife and I are early in our parent life, but I can assure there is no doubt she would put herself through nine months of physical and emotional awkwardness and the coming years of deprived sleep to do it all over again.  When I see some of my clients from years past they still tell me they love their home.  Some of them are even crazy enough to want to build again.  We all have seen that minivan with the 8 stick figure family.  Who am I to judge? 

Custom Home, baby


For your own Free SG Home Builders “Consumer Guide to Building a Customized New Construction Home” contact us at Ryan@SGHomeBuilders.com or call 847.602.7641 or enter your information below.

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