M. Curtis McCoy

Legally, in most places, no. Practically, yes. Almost no U.S. jurisdiction requires a licensed architect to stamp plans for a single-family home.

For a custom home, plan on 12 to 24 months from first drawing to move-in. Roughly a third of that is design,

Custom home design is the phase where your budget is actually decided. Not at bid time. Not at framing. By the time

Most home additions in Colorado stall at the county counter, not on the job site. Setbacks, septic capacity, wildfire code, and floodplain

Building on a steep lot is not a harder version of building on a flat one. It is a different project. The

Building in the Colorado mountains costs more than the same house on the plains, and almost none of the difference is the

Owning the land is the easy part. Proving it can be built on is the project. Water, wastewater, legal access, power, and

The cost to design a home is usually quoted as a percentage of construction, and that framing hides what you are actually

Most people vetting custom home builders in Montrose compare bids. That is the wrong first move. Bids on an undesigned house are

The cost to put in well and septic runs about $10,000 to $26,000 combined on a good site — and far more

The best questions to ask a general contractor are about scope and accountability, not price. Here are 27, grouped by what they

The custom home building process runs in nine stages and starts with a design agreement, not a foundation. Here is the sequence