Building or buying your first luxury home is the culmination of years of hard work, so when you do it, you want to do it right.
That was the mindset of Roger Mercier and his wife June when they set out to build a home in Calgary. “The whole idea of luxury living is to build a home to suit your personal tastes,” said Roger, who built a new home with Albi Luxury by Brookfield Residential and moved in February 2016.
Today, their two-storey space symbolizes the new stage of life they’re in. Roger is now a semi-retired marketing consultant who works from home, so an office space was on his must-have list. A nice view, a yard for his wife’s garden and a hobby room (for things like Roger’s model train collection) were also important. The pair even built bigger than their previous family home so they could ensure they got everything they wanted.
“It’s more than buying a home just to live in—this was celebrating many years of hard work.”
The process taught Roger a lot about what it takes to go from the blueprint stage to unpacking the very last box. If you’re considering building or buying your own luxury home, here’s what you need to know:
You’re in the Driver’s Seat
Roger was floored by the amount of choices presented to him when he started working with Albi. The company has professional design consultants available at The Galleria – a state of the art selection studio located at the company’s head office – who are able to guide homeowner’s through the process and help bring their vision to life. Roger and his wife were able to make every little choice from the layout right down to the doorknobs.
“It can be a bit of an unnerving experience when you’re building custom because you’re making all these choices,” said Roger. “But Albi allowed us to change everything we needed to make this into the home we’ve always wanted.”
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What you get in the end is a house that’s full of personality and details you know you love. If you don’t quite have the time to pick every little thing by hand, then Albi’s numerous show homes, online galleries, and professional sales team are your friends.
“We spent a lot of time driving to different showhomes, just to see things,” said Roger. “Seeing it in real life is often very different than seeing it in a catalogue.”
Be Patient
With so many options available, luxury homes are far from standard and because of that, the process can require some extra commitment. But you’ll certainly get out of it any time you put in.
“There was another builder that would not allow us to change anything,” said Roger. “They can build them faster because they only build them one way.”
Once the designing, pricing, construction and finishing is done, there comes another very important aspect of building or buying a home: quality control. And you want your builder to ensure that they are committed to delivering you the home you expect.
“Albi’s quality control turned out to be outstanding. Any small thing that was not absolutely perfect they would deal with it and they’d do it quickly,” he said. “So, their reputation preceded them and we just had no issues to speak of as a result of that.”
Trust Your Builder’s Reputation
Once Roger and his wife picked the area they liked, they set their sights on builders.
And as Roger notes, he and June wanted to work with a builder who put their needs first.
“It was a pretty easy choice. We immediately gravitated to Albi,” said Roger. “They had a very good reputation with customers. Even in the industry they’re well regarded.”
That kind of award-winning customer experience is what made Roger and June to feel comfortable in their choice of builder; they knew they would get a luxury home built exactly to their tastes.
It’s OK to Make Mistakes
Far along in the building process Roger and June realized they’d made a mistake—the stain on their flooring just didn’t look right and they panicked. Everything was installed and the whole house was otherwise ready to go. Because of their strong relationship with their builder, they were able to set things right before move-in day.
“They just had guys come in, sand it all down and they made it right. They helped us choose a colour, the designer came down and they just made it right.”
