Custom Costs More

CBS Sunday Morning recently dedicated a whole program to design. Exploring how we incorporate this powerful, creative tool into our lives was fascinating to consider. Designer food tempted taste buds. Designer puppies melted hearts. Designer household items stirred imaginations. But designer homes, they touched souls.

Our homes may not say everything about us, but they are a starting point for a conversation of our lifetimes. Our homes reflect the design of our lives. Frank Lloyd Wright, famed architect of numerous prairie-style homes, was also well-known for designing these structures down to the lamps on the tables and the silverware in the kitchen drawers. He believed the house should work as a cohesive whole from its beginning. While I respect and admire Mr. Wright's sense of how houses come to be, homes are another matter. Homes take time.

Most of us start our homes in apartments and move on to houses much less grand than the cohesive whole envisioned by a world-renowned architect. Ranches, bungalows, capes and colonials have welcomed many families with open arms. Thought of as starter homes, a place to get a footing by some, others find their niche immediately and stay forever. But as with many other things in life, it's not solely what you have, but also what you choose to do with it. While some people buy up to more elaborate, custom homes, some folks stay put and customize what they already have. Either way, there is a clear investment in creating something special out of a simple, basic beginning. Either way, this journey of transformation teaches us that custom costs more.

Consider that ranch house: three bedrooms, kitchen, dining area, living room and bath, and not quite enough closet space. Left in its original state, that is all it will ever be. But bring a vision to this doorstep, and these rooms expand, stretch and evolve into a personal haven, a neighborhood gathering place, a place of love and creativity. The tangibles may be added over time: a bump out to house the spa-quality steam shower off the master bedroom; an in-ground pool in the backyard; window seats next to the fireplace between the living and dining rooms. Everything takes time because everything also takes money. And unlike Frank Lloyd Wright's notion of completion from the beginning, sometimes living in an incomplete house helps in understanding the true nature of what the home needs to be. Custom costs more money, but it can

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