We live in Timbucktoo and want to move into our retirement home on Lake Norman next year. Can we get our home designed and built before we actually move to North Carolina?
A. This has become a not-too-uncommon scenario. Fortunately, we live in age where long-distance communication makes this very doable and we have become adept at utilizing email, fax, telephone and regular mail to facilitate this kind of working relationship. On one of our favorite projects much of the design tune-up was done by attaching sketches to emails and then hashing it out between the wife in New Jersy, the husband in Singapore and the ABJ designer at Lake Norman. Once construction began we regularly emailed digital pictures of progress at the construction site. Of course, there are critical points during both the design and construction phases when the homeowner needs to plan on being on-location.
