Design Details: Sweat the Small Stuff

The mood in the home building industry is officially glum. Buyers are playing a waiting game, and inventory isn't moving. Except in the case of that builder around the corner whose homes are being snapped up faster than free NFL tickets on Craig's List. What gives? A side-by-side comparison shows him selling the same square footage with the same amenities at the same price point you are. He paid the same for land and water taps, and he uses comparable subs. And yet his houses have a certain allure that buyers can't get enough of. He must have invested a fortune on something that's making them bite.

Then again, maybe he didn't. Sometimes the tiniest design details—extras that cost pennies on the dollar, or simply require a little sweat equity and nothing more—can make a big difference in the way a house lives. BUILDER consulted a handful of industry veterans targeting middle-income buyers (folks accustomed to balancing price with cachet) and asked for their most cost-effective design secrets.

If you've written off handsome millwork as a luxury reserved for pricier houses, you may be cheating yourself out of a sale. Take it from Steve Kendrick, owner of Structures Building Co. in Mount Pleasant, S.C., where paneled wainscoting is as much a part of the local flavor as roadside barbecue. To save on costs while honoring tradition, Kendrick has created a pared down version of the real thing that looks great. He uses 1-foot-by-4-foot strips to add dimension to plain walls, but the expanses between those stiles and rails are drywall, not plywood.

“We paint that part of the drywall with the same oil-based gloss paint as the wood trim, so it looks like wood paneling,” says Kendrick, who builds roughly a dozen houses each year, half of them on spec. “It doesn't matter whether the chair rail begins 2 feet or 6 feet up from the floor; we're still using virtually the same amount of trim.” As a finish, the horizontal rail is topped off with a strip of poplar bed molding. Other times, Kendrick mixes things up and simulates a beadboard look by scoring a sheet of birch plywood with a router and then painting it with the same gloss paint—at a third of the cost of real tongue-and-groove beadboard.

Structures has also won points with buyers by wrapping its bathroom mirrors to look like built-ins. “Instead of just slapping up a plate-glass mirror and leaving the edges raw, we'll wrap it in the same trim, sill, and apron material we use on the windows. This creates an inset so you can mount lighting on top of the mirror,” says Kendrick. “This is something we do a lot in powder rooms, which get a lot of foot traffic from guests, not to mention visitors touring our spec homes. In the low-country cottage style, it's a detail people like.”

You've maxed out every inch of the floor plan, but have you considered how to take advantage of unused volume space? If you really want to push the building envelope, think about it in 3-D. Consider tucking an intimate reading nook into the dead space under the stairs, putting built-in shelving at the end of a hallway, or carving a functional loft into the attic roof structure. The latter is something that can be done with traditional framing and a standard truss package, “at a fraction of what it would cost to bump the house up another full story,” says Ed Binkley, national design director for the architecture firm BSB Design.

Closets and laundry rooms are additional sweet spots that often get overlooked, Binkley says. “If you have 10-foot ceilings in your house, but you only need a 7-foot ceiling in the closet, that's 3 extra feet of volume space that often go unused.” In a kid's room, that's prime real estate for a secret hideaway with a ladder going up to it. In a master suite, it could serve as a bonus storage area for seasonal clothing.

Thinking in sections has become standard practice for builders working in areas where land is scarce and small footprints require a more vertical mentality. SummerHill Homes, which builds on small lots in and around Silicon Valley in California, reassesses the potential of every nook and cranny and how those spaces might be exploited to serve home buyer needs. “People need space to store their holiday ornaments, photo collections, and suitcases,” says Tad Holland, vice president of marketing for the Palo Alto, Calif.–based builder. “In smaller homes this is a big challenge. If we have a 20-by-20-foot garage with an up-slope in the front, we'll leave that space open for storage instead of covering it with [drywall]. It might cost an additional $100 in electrical wiring to put a light fixture in that storage area, but what home buyers gain is significant.”

Taking interior architecture to a sculptural level is another way to stand out from the pack without necessarily having to target buyers in a higher tax bracket. Many builders are discovering that arches, nooks, and display niches are relatively easy to build into the drywall process and that the aesthetic results are dramatic.

“It's an inexpensive way to differentiate. When you walk into these homes, they are just visually more interesting than a traditional box,” says Julie Dunn, director of sales and marketing for Oswego, Ore.–based Renaissance Homes. A recessed alcove just big enough for an occasional table or art piece signifies fine craftsmanship to a potential buyer—particularly when placed in a prominent location such as an entry foyer.

“These features are rolled into the bidding process with the framers and drywall contractors, so they don't add any time to the schedule,” Dunn says. “When we are building a plan for the first time, we take several of our key people [construction manager, designer, salesperson, marketing manager, and top management] through a framing walk-through and make adjustments to arches, adding and subtracting at that point, since it's hard to do solely on paper. Once [the proportions are] figured out, we add the specifics to the plans for future builds.” Framing and drywalling arches and nooks add anywhere from $200 to $500 to the cost of each house, but the payoff is well worth it, she says.

Sometimes all it takes to look like a million bucks is one killer accessory. (Hey, when you've got the Rolex watch, you can get away with the $12 T-shirt from Target.) The key is to be selective, choose your signature item, and keep everything else simple.

Show-stoppers can take on all different forms—reclaimed antique wood beams, solid wood interior doors, recessed lighting on dimmers, an unusual fireplace mantel—the options are endless. Kendrick often swaps out builder-grade hardware—particularly in bathrooms, which don't have as much cabinetry as kitchens—for fancier fare. “We do little glass knobs instead of standard chrome. When you're talking fewer than 10 knobs, the increased cost is negligible, but it conveys an air of quality that people notice.”

Same deal with standard door hinges, knobs, and floor vents. Try replacing them with nicer hardware that complements or matches nearby fixtures and finishes. “We're doing a lot more with oil-rubbed bronze or brushed nickel these days,” Kendrick says.

When it comes to major bang for the buck, color is perhaps the most powerful tool in the design arsenal. “Paint is the cheapest, most cost-effective thing you can do to make a house stand out,” says James Martin, an architectural colorist with the Denver-based consulting firm The Color People. “You have to paint the house anyway. You can paint something really neat or you can paint it blah, and it will cost you the same thing.”

Most builders play it safe with exterior colors and copy what other builders have done (thus perpetuating the proliferation of what Martin refers to as “beige land.”) Gutsier hues, on the other hand, can create major curb appeal and help a builder cultivate a reputation for more distinctive neighborhoods. For those who are timid about experimenting with color, Martin offers some guidelines:

Be authentic. If you're building in a historic architectural style, use historic exterior colors. “For example, traditional Craftsman bungalows used natural colors, not gray exteriors with white trim,” Martin says. “Using historic colors will help further sell the idea that what you've built is classic and well–thought out, with lasting value.”

Don't defy gravity. When separate colors are used to delineate the upper massing of a house from its lower portion, use the darker color on the bottom. “People see light as light and dark as heavy,” Martin advises. “If the darker color is on top, it will feel like the house is unbalanced; whereas the reverse will give you one that feels solid and permanent.”

Avoid stark contrasts. In choosing trim colors, don't juxtapose extreme values. If you're using a super dark color for the body of the house, skip the white trim and go with something softer such as a light tan. “Otherwise the house will be outlined in a way that looks busy and cartoonish.”

Use bright colors sparingly. Save your richest, most vibrant color for the preeminent focal point on the front elevation—the front entry. This tactic creates a welcoming effect and can help downplay secondary features such as front-loaded garages.

Mix things up. Keep in mind how individual houses will relate to each other in the streetscape and choose your paint and materials palette accordingly. “You can have a street with varied architectural styles, including bungalows, four-squares, and Victorians, but if the colors are all boring and similar, your development will still look monotonous,” Martin says.

If small lots with short setbacks have put the kibosh on any hopes for private outdoor living spaces in your project, don't fret. Good fences make good neighbors by helping to delineate the progression from public sidewalk to private residence, thus creating mental breathing room. They can also make the streetscape more inviting, and they don't cost a lot. At Morgan Square, a community of tidy single-family detached homes (each just under 2,000 square feet) in Fremont, Calif., SummerHill Homes enhanced the individuality of each home by offering varied fencing styles to complement its French, Spanish, and Bay Area traditional elevations. The cost? Less than $1,000 per unit, with homes starting in the mid-$700s.

“A lot of our products right now are city-centric [in places such as Fremont and San Jose, Calif.] so the homes are smaller, but people still want individuality and curb appeal,” says Holland. “These homes are 8 to 10 feet apart and they are rear-loaded, so the fencing really sets them apart.”

Somewhere along the line, the word “custom” became synonymous with “expensive.” But the two don't always have to go hand in hand. When building his own 3,852-square-foot home in Oviedo, Fla., Binkley economized by using off-the-shelf materials in standard sizes to save time and money, and avoid waste. He also bought windows and other materials from local manufacturers, thus minimizing shipping costs.

CUSTOM ON A DIET

Credit: R.P. Newton, Estimator, Structures Building Co.</i></p>

Built at just under $93 per square foot, the house (which carries a distinct “industrial farmhouse” vibe) incorporates modest materials, such as exposed cinderblock and concrete floors, with finesse. “The easiest application on those floors is to seal and wax the concrete in its natural color. There is very little cost, and you always have the option to go back and add carpet or tile over it,” Binkley says. Flooring in the upstairs bedrooms was created by cutting sheets of bamboo plywood (at $25 per 4-foot-by-8-foot sheet) into 16-inch-wide strips and screwing them into the floor with stainless steel screws.

Other creative applications of everyday materials in Binkley's house include cut sections of chain-link fence, turned horizontally and suspended from the garage ceiling with cables to create shelving (at $30 a section, compared to $70 per modular garage shelving unit). A solar panel doubles as a decorative awning over the garage, all the while channeling energy back into the power grid. “Sometimes you just have to look at how things would normally be done and rethink those assumptions,” Binkley says.

Take what passes for conventional wisdom and turn it on its head. You never know ... some change could fall out.