New Build in Northern CA: An Interview With My Clients Lee & Karen
Faith Led Interior Design Show | Episode 48
Are you thinking about building a new home or currently on the lookout for a fabulous home, this episode is for you.
I’m excited to bring you an exclusive interview with Lee & Karen, a previous client, about their journey of building a new home. They share their first-hand experience working with a professional interior designer like me and witnessing their dream home become a reality.
Incorporating personal collections and treasured articles from their travels, their house's design reflects a blend of their personalities and a combination of cherished possessions. Lee & Karen acknowledges that without their collaboration with a professional interior designer like me, achieving such a polished design would not have been possible.
And by the way, this beautiful home is now for sale, as Lee and Karen plan for retirement in Idaho. Check the listing here.
Tune in and explore the power of collaboration and expertise in creating your dream home.
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Be Blessed Verse
This week’s verse is Isaiah 40:27-31 (NLT)
It says, “How can you say the Lord does not see your troubles? How can you say God ignores your rights? Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall into exhaustion. But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint!”
I am a Dream Designer
Yes, I am a Dream Designer!
I do not have a signature style. Instead, I work with my clients and do their style of home, and that's what I did with my clients Lee & Karen.
Prior to the new build project, I visited their old house and saw how they had lived there. That gave me a clue on how they want to carry it into their new construction.
Meanwhile, if you are wondering what the approximate pricing is for Interior Design Consulting, get my free, “The Investment” Brochure. It gives the average costs to hire my company to do Interior Design Consulting, Kitchen and Bath Design, Virtual Design, and so much more.
New Build in Northern CA: An Interview With Clients Lee & Karen
I worked with Lee and Karen a couple of years ago - did their new build house in Morgan Hill, California which is a little below San Jose in mid to Northern California.
Lee is a real estate broker and also the general contractor on this new build home.
He worked directly with the architect and did a fabulous job. I was so impressed.
Today, this house is up for sale. Check the listing here.
Here is my conversation with Lee & Karen:
Me: So, let's talk about the new build project we worked on together that you want to retire from.
Tell me a little bit about how you started and your experience of doing it.
Lee: Not quite sure where to start, but having been involved in real estate for a couple of decades, obviously, I've seen 1000s of homes and been involved in hundreds of transactions.
When we found this lot, it has a fabulous view of the city. That is what initiated it.
I figured, based on my background, and the amount of real estate I had been involved in that I really didn't need a general contractor or somebody who could stand next to me and hold my hand that I had to pay $100,000.
I figured I could do a better job for myself than somebody else could do for me. So that made that position useless.
So Karen and I started out with a local architect and gave him the idea of the type of home we wanted. Then he began drawing.
I think that is when you came into the equation, Sheree.
We were fairly far along in the design process for the house. Then you spotted a couple of things that you weren't comfortable with. Actually, I was glad you saw it because we hadn't seen those items. It made it flow better and it made the general plan better.
And so, you know, obviously, Karen and I, both have a clear understanding that we're not decorators, and if we were going to spend a lot of money building a quote, “dream house” we had to finish it as a dream house! We couldn't just get 50-60% into the process and then try to wing it.
And that's when Karen since you guys knew each other said, “Hey, what about Sheree?” And I said, “Well, I don't know Sheree from Adam, but it sounds fine to me.”
And you came into the picture…
Sheree: Yes. And so what I love to do on a new build like that is to take the plans and really just really fine tune and look at them kind of see what is being built. Many clients can’t read and understand them, so I try and help them know what the building plans say.
I'll look at electrical, ceiling heights, and window placement, and even see everything with the existing furniture that you wanted to keep.
Just looking at everything! You are trying to catch it now because now is the time to find those mistakes. It costs a lot less to find them on paper than it does to find them later on when you're in the middle of a build. As you know that can happen also.
So yes, so that was neat. We did find a few things that I think were really important. One of them was the height of the ceilings. It's just such a grand house and the ceilings were lower and that was like, you know, I think it's gonna just feel so much more grand if we higher those ceilings. So that was awesome - that we were at a stage in the plan where you were able to do that!
Okay, so your interior design style. Did you guys know what it was? No?
What is it? Traditional. You have a traditional flair, but it's transitional. Meaning, a lot of the furniture could go with any style. It could go with oriental. It could go with French. It could go with whatever style you put with it. But yours is a transitional style with a traditional style - an English traditional.
Did you learn a lot during this process of using an interior designer? Was it a learning process for you too?
Lee: First of all, your expertise level is at a significantly higher level than a common person who doesn't do that professionally.
And I want to stress the word professionally because I think we've all been in a lot of houses. It looked very nice, but it wasn't done professionally. But there's something about you, that you bring to the table that everything ties together.
And one of the common questions that we get asked, especially now that the house is on the market and strangers are wandering through is, “Do you really live here?”
I think that's a very nice compliment because it doesn't look like a house people live in and yet we do.
So I think that's very interesting.
I think another big benefit of using somebody like yourself is I think it's a great divorce preventative.
Sheree: That's not the first time I've heard that.
Lee: Because whenever there was a discussion we would say, ? “Well, what would Sheree say?“
All right, so you were the default third voice!
Sheree: Yes. Yes. That's so cool. Because I think there's a lot of arguments going on and then there's no answer. So there! I really love to blend you both. It's not you're right, you're wrong. You know this…you guys really do go together. You're choosing together so that's nice. That's a neat thought. I love that.
Karen: What I really enjoyed about it is when you pick the colors for the house, all the different rooms, and how everything blends together very well. In some of my previous houses, I'd pick yellow for the bathroom and then blue in the living room. The way you did it was just beautiful. It's beautiful. Everything blends together. Well. It's not like you walk into a room and “Oh, what's this!?” You know!
Sheree: You know, that goes into your new home in Idaho because we're looking at taking your furniture from this home over to the new home in Idaho. And it's neat because maybe you use your master bedroom chairs in your great room, or, you know, it's all kind of just interchangeable. So that's a nice feature… It does all go together and work together in different rooms later, possibly even so, yeah, yeah.
So were there any surprises? I mean, there must have been some through this whole build.
Lee: Well, most of the surprises had to do sadly with architectural mistakes that we discovered on the fly.
Okay, you know, so we'd have to go back and get those corrected and then you know, just the volume of trades, people that are involved in building a house, and 1000s of decisions can be a little bit overwhelming. I mean, from your floor color to where the mailbox goes.
Sheree: It's all about complexities and things like that.
Lee, I have to say you really solved the problem. Amazingly. I was in awe of you coming up with out of the box in your thinking. I love that and the beautiful solutions. They weren't just solutions. They were professional solutions. I was just like, “Wow!” That was really cool and so really neat working with you.
Sheree: So what would you say to someone who's considering redesigning or building a house or even moving to a new house? What would you say to them about using an interior designer?
Karen: What I would say is like you Sheree, you were able to take Lee'ssigned football helmets and incorporate them into the decorating of our room. You put it along with like a wave sculpture, a glass sculpture that we have, and Lee's mother's tea set. Then we had articles from Japan that I brought home, being a student and stuff. You were able to incorporate everything together and when we look around the house, it is us! There's Lee and me together and I couldn't pull that off at all.
Lee: Right. I don't know what else to add to that other than if you needed heart surgery, you wouldn't go to the transmission shop.
And I think that you know, both men and women probably overestimate their abilities in areas they should probably find a Sheree. It just ties it all together. Everything ties together. There's nothing clumsy about it. And I don't know that we could say that about our previous homes. Awesome.
Sheree: And you know, that you were saying people say “Does somebody live here?” I know you guys live there very comfortably. I mean, I've been there. It's so comfortable, but I think they're saying that because it's so put together. Plus it's cleaned up for staging.
Lee: Yes, but the only real difference there is that we don't leave a coffee cup on the counter now. Right. And so and we wipe the counters down, probably at a surgically you know, level rather than just living relaxed but, but no, it has a very staged, professional look to it.
And everybody notices, you know, down to the little goofy things that you insisted we buy for the island and the bathroom counters and stuff like that. It just comes together and you feel like you're in a very polished, professionally designed home, as opposed to just a house.
Sheree: That's neat. Well, I love working with you guys. You know, you're just so special to me. I really have enjoyed it and Karen and I get together weekly and pray and stuff. It's just a really wonderful relationship that we have and your house is so beautiful!
Lee, you're selling it, so how do people get to you? If they're interested in touring the house or buying it? How do they find you?
Lee: Well, I guess it's a double, a two-pronged thing here. Sheree, if they go on any of the third-party sites like Zillow or realtor.com, they'll see 140 pictures and it has all my contact information. So it's a double-prong sword. What I mean by that is not only can they see the house if they were thinking of moving up to northern California, but they could see up close and personal what you did because your hand in it is all over these pictures.
Sheree: Awesome. Yeah. So if you're interested at all, please go to those sites you'll see Lee’s phone number or email is on there. So you can go to him and, and yeah, I love that they can see the pictures there also, so that's great.
Yeah, so it's been fun. Any closing remarks, or anything from you guys?
Lee: We're looking forward to seeing what you can come up with in the next one.
Karen: Yes!
Sheree: Yeah. Sounds awesome. You guys are the best! All right. Bye bye.
Thank you, Lord, for knowing us and caring about us so thoroughly. Your ways always Amaze me!
Next episode, I will talk about 5 Beautiful Pendant Lights for Your Kitchen.
I love how effective and beautiful the pendant lights are! They can really add pizzazz to the room!
Until next time…
Now, Stop Dreaming, Start Designing your luxury home within your budget!
Blessings and See you next episode…
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