Before we draw, sit with these questions

People arrive with a Pinterest board and a square-footage number. Those are useful. They are not the start. If we draw before we know how you live, we will draw someone else’s house and put your name on it.

Vision is step one in our process for a reason. Below are the questions we want you to sit with — in the car, at dinner, on a walk. Write in the margins. Talk it through. That conversation is the home.

How do you actually live

• What does Tuesday at 6 p.m. look like — who is home, who is cooking, who needs a door that closes?
• Where do bags, keys, sports gear, and groceries land when you come in from the car? Is that allowed to be messy, or does it have to be tidy?
• Who talks while someone cooks? Is the kitchen a stage, a workshop, or both?
• Do you entertain four people or forty — and how often is that real, not aspirational?
• Where does the family actually sit at night: the sofa, the island, the porch, separate rooms?

Who the home has to hold

• Who lives here now — and who will live here in eight years?
• Do you need a real office, or a leftover bedroom with a desk in it?
• Overnight guests: in-laws, adult children, nobody? For a weekend or for a season?
• Is there anyone who should be able to live on one level later, even if you want stairs now?
• Pets, hobbies, instruments, a gun safe, a sewing table — what does the house have to absorb without apology?

Light, land, and the outdoor room

• Do you want morning light in the kitchen, or evening light on the porch — if you cannot have both, which one wins?
• How much of life happens outside: coffee, homework, a fire, a screened porch in July?
• What do you want to see from the sink? From the primary bed? What do you not want to see from the street?
• If you already have land, where does the house want to sit — trees, slope, neighbors, the drive?
• If you are choosing a homesite, which way should the living rooms face, and which way can the garage face?

What you will trade

• What did you dislike about every house you have lived in — be specific, not tasteful.
• What would you keep from the house you are in now?
• If the number only allows one: more stone, or more square footage? A third garage bay, or a real office? A media room, or a screened porch?
• How long do you intend to stay? A house you will sell in five years and a house you will live in for the rest of your life are not drawn the same way.
• What are you willing to do without so the rooms you use every day can be right?

Bring the answers. We will bring the pencil.

You do not need a complete list. You need honest ones. We use them to size the rooms, place the kitchen, decide whether the garage is a room or a storage unit, and whether the outdoor living is a postcard or a place you will actually sit.

Then we write the budget — in Greater Greenville and Spartanburg that conversation starts in the mid $600s and goes through signature estates — and we create your home plan that fits within it. That is step one and step two. The pretty drawings come after.

If you want to start, bring a few of these answers to a conversation, or walk them with us on a homesite. (843) 212-0341.