Luxury Custom Homes

Where the finish schedule starts driving the build

On most houses the finishes come last and get chosen late. On a house with a long spec sheet that order flips. The size of a range hood, the depth of an inset cabinet, the thickness of a stone slab and the weight of a glass shower panel all reach back into framing, blocking, plumbing rough-in and sometimes the foundation. If those choices are made after the walls are closed, something gets cut, shimmed or moved, and it shows.

So on these jobs we ask for decisions earlier than you might expect. Before rough framing is finished we want to know where the built-ins go, what the tile layout is in each bath, whether a floor is getting stone that needs a stiffer subfloor, and where any heavy fixtures hang. That lets the framing carry the load, the blocking land where the cabinetmaker needs it and the plumber set valves at the heights the tile layout calls for.

The aim is to do the expensive work once. A finish that is planned into the rough stage goes in clean. A finish forced in afterward rarely does.

We also check the finishes against the structure. A soaking tub full of water, a stone island or a wall of glass in a shower adds real weight, and the floor framing under it is sized for that load rather than the bare minimum.

Long lead items and the order they arrive in

Custom millwork, specialty windows and doors, stone slabs, imported tile and some appliances can take a long time to arrive, and the lead time is set by the supplier, not by us. A house can be framed, roofed and insulated while its windows are still being built. The schedule has to be built around those dates, not the other way around.

Early in the job we go through the finish list with you and sort out what has to be ordered first. Some items need final dimensions from the built house before they can be made, so they get field measured at the right moment. Others, like windows, are ordered from the drawings well before the walls are up. Getting that sequence wrong is how a crew ends up standing around waiting on one door.

When something is delayed, and on a long list something usually is, you hear about it from us as soon as we know, along with what can move forward in the meantime. You do not find out by noticing that nothing has happened in the kitchen for two weeks.

Storage is part of the plan as well. Cabinetry and stone that arrive before the house is ready need somewhere dry and secure to wait, and we plan for that instead of stacking them in a garage full of drywall dust.

We keep the selections in writing, room by room, and every change you make goes on that list with a date.

Millwork, tile and stone set to a tighter tolerance

Paint-grade trim forgives a little. Stained millwork, inset cabinetry, large-format tile and book-matched stone do not. Inset doors show every degree of out-of-square in the box they sit in. Large tile shows every high spot in the floor beneath it. A stone backsplash shows whether the wall behind it is flat.

So the checking happens before the finish goes in. Walls that will get cabinetry are checked for flat and plumb and corrected while the framing is still open. Floors that will get large tile or stone are checked for flat across the room, and the subfloor is built stiff enough for the material. Tile layouts are worked out on paper so cuts land at edges you will not look at, and grout lines carry from one surface to the next.

Custom tile work is part of what this company does, and on a finished house it is one of the easiest places to tell a careful job from a hurried one, so it gets the time it needs.

Specialty glass follows the same logic. Frameless shower panels and glass rails are measured from the finished tile and stone, not from the framing, because the glass maker needs the true opening, and a frameless panel has no trim to cover a mistake.

Protecting finished work while other trades are still in the house

The riskiest weeks on a high-finish house are the ones when expensive surfaces are installed and other trades are still working around them. A stone countertop can be chipped by a dropped tool. A finished floor can be scratched by a ladder. Fresh millwork can be dented by someone carrying a sheet of drywall around a corner.

We sequence the work to keep that overlap short, and where it cannot be avoided, the finished work gets covered. Floors get protection that stays down until the last trade leaves. Countertops and cabinet faces are covered after install. Door openings and stair rails that see traffic get wrapped. The site is cleaned at the end of each day, because grit tracked across a floor does as much damage as a dropped hammer.

If something does get damaged, we tell you and fix it properly. It does not get touched up quietly and left for you to find later.

Dust control matters for the same reason. Sanding, cutting and drywall finishing are kept away from finished rooms where we can manage it, and rooms that are done get closed off.

Keeping a long spec sheet straight

A house like this can carry a very long list of separate selections: every faucet, every tile, every hinge finish, every paint color. Most mistakes on these jobs come from paperwork rather than workmanship: the wrong finish on a valve trim, the tile that changed in a conversation and never got updated on the order, the cabinet hardware that matches the old selection.

We keep the selections in writing, room by room, and every change you make goes on that list with a date. Before anything is ordered, the order is checked against the list. Before anything is installed, it is checked again. It is slow, careful work, and it keeps wrong parts off the punch list.

You also see the samples before an order goes in. Stone is approved from the actual slabs where possible, tile from the actual lot, and stained wood from a sample finished in the actual stain, because a small chip in a showroom does not tell you what a whole wall will look like.

See the rest of our homes work, or browse the gallery for rooms we have finished.