From Zero Knowledge to an Architecture-Loving Client: How to Start Building a Home Without Regrets

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Introduction

Actually, long before I started building a home, Iloved watching room tour videos.

Floor plans with circular flow, cool kitchens, large windows reaching the ceiling. Every time I watched, I would let my imagination run wild, thinking, "If I were to build a house..."

However, the house I lived in at the time was a 5-year-old home built by my parents-in-law. I wasn't in a position to have a say in the floor plan or facilities. The design was neither good nor bad. The performance was... well, average.
That's why, as I wrote in my previous article, when the talk of renovation turned into building a new house—

something inside me caught fire.

"This time, I will build the house I truly want to live in."
This is a record of my intense study of home building that began after that fire was lit.

Watching YouTube exhaustively

There are various ways to study, but the first thing I relied on wasYouTube.

I read books and magazines too, but honestly, YouTube is visually easier to understand. Videos convey the lives of the owners and the atmosphere of the actual space. I can watch them even while commuting. I can also learn technical terms "by ear."

I watched channels from various perspectives—builders, architects, interior designers, and homeowners—without bias.
Here, I realized one thing.

Depending on the creator, what they say is quite different.

For example, there are people called the airtightness police or insulation special forces, while others say you don't need to worry that much about airtightness.

Some house manufacturers say floor heating is the best facility, while others say it breaks, consumes electricity, and is unnecessary.

House manufacturers speak for their own convenience, and builders speak for theirs. Homeowners speak from their own usability and subjectivity. While understanding each position and interest, I compared multiple perspectives to create my own standards.

"Don't trust just one piece of information."This was the first thing I learned.

Performance talk—at first, it was like a spell

As you research home building, there are numbers that always come up.
UA value, C value, seismic resistance grade, HEAT20 G1/G2 grades...
At first, it was completely like a spell. I thought they were industry jargon and just let them pass by.

I can memorize spells from Dragon Quest, but as an adult, words that sound like difficult spells just don't stick in my head. It's like being hit by a Medapani spell.
But as I studied without running away, I gradually began to understand.

Among them, what was particularly shocking was the story of the C value. The C value is a number indicating airtight performance, and it is often not listed in catalogs. The reason is that it is a number that doesn't appear unless you measure it.

In other words, there are plenty of contractors who just say "we are highly airtight" without actually measuring it.
The problem I wrote about in the previous article, "the whole house was cold even though there was floor heating." The reason for that finally made sense here.

The warmth was escaping through the gaps.

Even if you warm the floor, heat escapes through walls, windows, and every gap. It's like the feeling of freezing while standing by a bonfire outside, or like Goku having his energy absorbed by a Yakon while trying to gather it. All of this was about the C value.

My design preferences changed

When I started studying home building, my design preference wassimple modern, so-called hotel-like.

Monotone exteriors, indirect lighting, clean spaces. When I started watching room tour videos, I couldn't help but admire such houses.
But after watching more than three videos every day for nearly two years—

I got bored. lol

Wallpaper with vague patterns, kitchens finished with melamine surface materials printed with wood grain or stone patterns... everywhere I looked, it was the same kind of house. Like Slime to Slime Bass, Dracky to Drackymage to Tahoe Dracky, Thorn Devil to Bomb Baby...

Things I initially thought were "incredibly cool!" gradually started to look likesymbols.
And I realized.

"This isn't the real thing."

Authentic materials mean walls that are not "-style" wallpaper, but tiles, plaster, or paint. Kitchens made of real materials like stainless steel, natural stone, or solid wood.
The more I saw things like showrooms and samples I had ordered after starting my home building journey, the more I was attracted to the texture and aging of authentic materials.

However, it didn't mean I became completely natural-oriented.
Purely natural styles that use plenty of wood are wonderful, but what I really like is a little different.

In a simple and clean space, subtly incorporate natural materials like wood and stone.

I realized that balance felt the most right.
And above all, I thought this:

"This is not a hotel or a facility. It's a home."

Because it's a house I'll live in for a long time, authenticity over trends. Comfort over coolness. This way of thinking became the axis of my design.

A major house manufacturer or a local builder?

Around the time the direction of design and performance solidified, I hit the next wall.
Where to build.

At first, I was also considering major house manufacturers in parallel. The peace of mind of the brand, the thoroughness of after-sales service, and being able to see the real thing in model houses. There is certainly an appeal to house manufacturers.

But as I repeated meetings and visits, things that bothered me started to appear.
When it came to performance, many companies would say, "ZEH is enough," or "HEAT20 is over-spec."
The region I live in is not a cold region (it's region 5 in terms of regional classification), so I won't say that in itself is wrong.

But I felt something off about their stance of quickly ending the performance talk and pushing "ceiling height" and "large openings" to the forefront.

The major premise is to be comfortable.

A house without heat or cold, with a good air environment. If you think about the family's health, design is secondary.
I think I was able to notice that gap precisely because I had studied.

While visiting several house manufacturers and builders and listening to them, I met a builder I felt I could say, "I want to build with these people" because of their sincere approach to performance and their honesty.

To be honest about one thing, the design of the houses that builder handles was a little different from my preference.
But I thought this:

Leave performance to the pros. Convey what I want to do for the design and have them fulfill it.

If I study, polish my sense, and become a knowledgeable client, I can cover the design myself. Believing that, I decided on that builder.

A troublesome and obsessive client

Once the builder was decided, the meetings began in earnest.
Discussions about floor plans, specifications, and equipment. I researched every single item until I was satisfied, gathering information night after night.

There is one episode from those meetings that still leaves an impression on me.
It was during a meeting to decide the specifications for the cupboards and study counter.
Thinking that "it's faster to show than to explain in words,"I handed the design perspective I drew myself directly to the architect.

It was the one with the dimensions written on it, too.
The architect stared at it for a while, then said this.

"Is it okay if I show this to the people in my office?"

I knew they were surprised. But I never expected it to be circulated around the office, and I suddenly felt embarrassed. Haha.
But at the same time, I thought this:

There might not be many clients who go this far.

If that's the case, the more you study, the more of a "communicative client" you can become. And that leads directly to building a better home.
The outcome of building a home absolutely changes depending on how serious the client is.That was the moment I became convinced of that.

Certainly, it might be good if you happen to work with a top architect at a major house builder or a salesperson with great proposal skills. I also think that, ideally, professionals should think through all the performance and design aspects.

Even so,the difference between "knowing and choosing not to adopt" and "not knowing and being unable to adopt"is like night and day.

Besides, isn't giving shape to your ownlikesthe real thrill of a custom-built home?

Three things to avoid regrets when building a home

After studying a lot and actually building a home, there are a few things I really want to convey.

1. Understand the performance figures yourself

Please make sure you can understand terms like UA value, C value, and seismic resistance grade. Especially for the C value, it is super important to confirm whether it is "actually measured." The figures not listed in the catalog are often the ones that are actually important.

2. Think about design preferences by asking, "Will I still like this in 10 years?"

Just because you thought something was "cool" at first doesn't mean it really suits you. I understand the longing for a hotel-like feel. But you are living in a home, not a hotel. Haha.

3. Don't look at social media with a biased view

House builder-affiliated, construction shop-affiliated, client-affiliated... what they say is slightly different in each case. Not trusting only one source of information and having multiple perspectives is the first step toward becoming a "client who won't be deceived."

Conclusion

Before I knew it, I had come a long way from those days when I was daydreaming while watching room tour videos.

I never imagined I would end up watching more than three videos every day for nearly two years, researching performance figures, putting my design preferences into words, and handing hand-drawn perspectives to an architect. Haha.

But looking back,
the time I spent daydreaming was not wasted.

Because I had accumulated the feeling of "I want to live in a house like this," I was able to take action when the real thing started.

I really want you, who are thinking about building a home from now on, to start with daydreaming. Daydreaming is free.

In the next article, I will write about how I became too obsessed with the floor plan. Look forward to the story of a man whose obsession wouldn't stop.