What I’ve Learned from Building My Own Home, Part Two by Chicago Residential Architect Fred Wilson

As regular readers of this blog already know, Elissa and I have become clients of our own Chicago residential architecture firm, and are just moving into our new, Morgante Wilson-designed house. We’ve learned a lot by building our own home, both in terms of how to be good clients, and how to be better architects.

In fact, some of what we’ve learned has caused us to change the way we do business in our office. We’ve always prided ourselves on our creative solutions, our buttoned-up processes, and our client-centric approach to design. Even so, we’ve come to realize we can do a few things differently to ensure even better outcomes.

Here’s what we’ve learned:

There’s no such thing as too much planning. Of course, we’ve always been strong believers in the importance of planning, and tracking, every step of every project. But now we’re expanding on that approach and taking it to a whole new level, tracking the most minute details in ways we’ve not done before. Our talented team is fully on board (Link to “our team”) - and our clients are reaping the benefits.

Daring is good! We’ve always considered ourselves to be innovators in terms of design, but now we’re more confident than ever – not only in our out-of-the-box ideas, but in our ability to make them a reality. We really stretched our imaginations while building our new house, and plan to do the same, to an even greater extent, for our clients.

Partnering with the right network of craftspeople, artisans, and professionals is critical. We’ve been able to do some amazingly innovative things in our new house we would not have been able to do ten years ago, simply because back then, we didn’t know who to partner with to bring our ideas to fruition. For example, the floor-to-ceiling glass windows in our new home had to be sourced from Italy, because they’re simply not available in the United States. Not a problem, though, since we knew just the overseas manufacturer to give us what we wanted.

Innovative ideas make houses sing. Now that she’s been manning our interior design division for a few years, Elissa has been able to conceive – and implement – some really creative ideas for both our clients’ homes and our own home. This time around, she’s chosen steel-framed, fabric-wrapped cabinets for our kitchen. They’re practically revolutionary in terms of design, and they’re unbelievably cool. Our island is crafted from a walnut tree that was on the property. It’s very sculptural and earthy, in keeping with the overall design of the house. We’ve been reminded anew of just how exciting it is to really go for it in terms of design, and how much we want to share our enthusiasm for novel ideas with our clients.

Our system really works! We’ve seen first-hand how every step of the process unfolds, methodically and strategically, because we’ve witnessed it from both sides of the coin. We’ve been able to stay on track, and get everything we want, because we’ve fully immersed ourselves in the process as clients, and have carefully managed the process as architects.

Being both client and architect for our own house has been a fulfilling experience that will only enhance the service we bring to our firm’s residential architecture clients. Visit our website to learn more – or give us a call!