The Round Table Custom Home Design Process
From concept to construction — a complete design system tailored to your home, your life, and your site.
Designing a custom home isn’t just about style — it’s about execution. Getting the home you really want means more than sketching floor plans and hoping the build goes smoothly. It requires alignment — between ideas and realities, between design and budget, and between the people drawing the plans and the people putting hammer to nail.
At Round Table Design Studio, we specialize in custom home design across North Georgia — helping homeowners bring their vision to life with clarity, structure, and precision. Our name reflects our approach. We don’t design in a vacuum. From the very beginning, we round table the conversation — involving architects, engineers, general contractors, and their subcontractors at the right moments. This collaboration ensures your home is not only well-designed, but well-executed, efficient to build, and grounded in the realities of your site and budget.
This is not a one-size-fits-all drafting service. It's not "just plans." It’s a full-spectrum residential design system developed through years of experience and over 100 custom homes across Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and North Carolina. While we work across the Southeast, we’re especially focused on North Georgia’s custom home market — from lakefront properties to mountain builds to in-town lots.
Our two-phase process creates clarity, accountability, and smoother communication — between you, us, and everyone involved in designing and building your home.
Why Two Phases?
You might be asking:
“Why are you explaining your internal process? I care about results, not phases.”
Fair. Here’s the short version:
This process isn’t for us — it’s for you.
Breaking the project into two defined phases protects you from delays, scope creep, and design decisions made in the wrong order. It gives you control over your investment. It keeps everyone on the same page. And most importantly, it produces homes that are more cohesive, more buildable, and more deeply aligned with the lives they’re meant to support.
It also supports one of the most important parts of custom home design: collaboration. By structuring our work into these two stages, we create space to bring in your builder, trades, and consultants at the right time — not too early, not too late. That way, the home we design with you is the home that gets built.
Phase 1: Custom Home Design
This is where your home starts to take shape — not as a dream, but as a plan. In this phase, we explore how your needs, preferences, and site characteristics come together in real space.
Our focus here is creative, iterative, and collaborative. You'll receive unlimited design revisions within your brief, giving you the freedom to refine layouts, orientations, and concepts without worrying about extra fees — as long as the core vision remains consistent.
We guide you through this process with visual tools, regular reviews, and a problem-solving mindset. You bring the goals; we’ll help shape the structure.
Phase 1 includes:
Site study (orientation, slope, access, zoning context)
Design brief development (lifestyle needs, aesthetic preferences, priorities)
Concept design: floor plans, elevations, spatial layout
Unlimited design revisions within the brief
3D modeling of the home and major spaces (so you don’t have to "read plans" to understand your home)
Basic material suggestions and massing studies
Early conversations with your builder (if known)
Goal of Phase 1:
By the end of this phase, you’ll have a fully resolved custom home design that aligns with your site, your vision, and your intended budget — ready to move into technical detailing.
Phase 2: Custom Home Detailing
With the design finalized, we now translate it into a comprehensive set of construction-ready documents — the drawings, dimensions, and callouts your builder, engineer, and permit reviewer need to move forward.
This phase is about precision, coordination, and forward planning. While some projects will require engineering sign-off or architectural stamping, others will not — we’ll help you determine what’s needed and when. We can recommend professionals if required, or defer to your builder’s preferred contacts.
Phase 2 includes:
Full construction drawing set (floor plans, elevations, roof plans, sections, basic framing layouts)
Site layout
Construction details for critical elements
Dimensioned plans and elevations for use by trades
Basic fixture, door, and window scheduling
Recommendations for permit submission (note: submission itself is typically handled by your builder or permit expediter)
Goal of Phase 2:
To produce a clean, buildable, and clearly documented home design that reflects the decisions made in Phase 1 — with enough detail to support permitting, bidding, and smooth construction.
What a Typical Project Looks Like
While every custom home is different, the overall arc tends to follow a similar rhythm. Here's what you can expect when working with us — whether you're building on five acres in North Georgia or a tight lot in a mountain town.
1. You reach out with an idea
Maybe it’s a list of must-haves. Maybe it's a few Pinterest boards and a site you just bought. We start with a conversation to understand your goals, budget range, timeline, and constraints.
2. We develop and refine your design
We move through Phase 1, typically over 4–16 weeks, depending on complexity and your responsiveness. We explore spatial layouts, room flow, outdoor access, sun angles, and massing. You’ll review plans and 3D views and provide feedback until the design feels right.
3. We prepare the build-ready documentation
Phase 2 typically takes another 4–8 weeks. This is where we fine-tune dimensions, generate building sections and construction details, and create a clean permit-ready drawing set. If your project requires engineering, this is when we coordinate those pieces.
4. You or your builder handle permit submission
Most of our clients engage a local builder — either someone they bring to us or someone we’ve worked with before. That contractor typically submits the permit set and handles engineering coordination and construction supervision.
We support your build — start to finish
Our role doesn’t end when the drawings are complete. We remain available throughout the construction process to support your builder with additional details and clarifications as needed. If the permit office requests further documentation, we’ll provide it. If your contractor runs into a structural question on site, we’ll draw up what’s required to keep things moving.
This support is included in our design fee — no hourly charges, no change-order fees. You won’t be left on your own once construction begins. We're here from first concept to final nail.
What Pricing Looks like in 2025
Fixed fees. Flexible process. Transparent from day one.
We keep pricing simple and predictable — no hourly billing, no hidden fees, no change orders. Everything you need to get from concept to permit is included in one clear structure.
Our custom home design service starts at $4,000 USD for homes up to 4,000 square feet of heated (interior) space, then $1 USD per additional square foot beyond that. This is a flat design fee, not based on time spent or revision counts. The price is determined by the initial design brief — not by the final outcome.
You noticed our round table guarantee?
We stand behind our work — not just in quality, but in outcomes.
We guarantee that if your local permitting office requires additional information, drawings, or clarifications related to the documents we’ve prepared, we’ll supply them — at no extra cost — until approval is granted.
And if we cannot provide the information needed to satisfy the permitting office for your custom home design?
We’ll refund everything you’ve paid to Round Table Design Studio.
Typical Round Table project Timeline
Every home is different — but most projects follow this general rhythm:
Phase 1: Custom Home Design
Up to 4 months
This is where most of the thinking, collaboration, and decision-making happens
We develop the design from scratch, align it with your site and lifestyle, and revise until you’re fully confident in the layout and vision
Phase 2: Custom Home Detailing
4–8 weeks
Once the design is finalized, our team develops the full construction documentation
Because the design has been locked in, this phase is typically faster and more predictable
Permit submission is handled by your contractor (or by you) — we provide all the drawings and documents needed for submission, but we don’t file permits ourselves
FAQs
What should I bring to begin designing?
Ideally, a clear list of your needs and wants — room types, must-have features, aesthetic preferences, site location, and any zoning or HOA rules you know of. Don’t worry if it’s rough — we’ll help you shape it into a working brief.
Should I buy a plan online?
You can — but if you want a home truly suited to your site, lifestyle, and budget, you're often better off investing in custom design. Stock plans may look appealing, but they rarely account for things like North Georgia terrain, solar orientation, or local code variations. We can help you assess if modifying an existing plan is viable.
I already have a few plans and styles I like. Can you edit them to make them into my dream home?
Absolutely. Many clients start with ideas pulled from magazines, builder plans, or online sources. We can either develop a new design inspired by those, or adapt existing materials into a more tailored design — provided we have the appropriate copyright permissions.
Do you provide interior design?
No — we focus on the architectural elements. However, we’ve been around a while - if you need an interior designer, we’re happy to connect you with professionals we trust.
What if I need an engineer?
Not all projects require one — it depends on your location, size, and local building authority. We’ll help determine what’s necessary and recommend contacts if needed. In most cases, engineering is coordinated through your builder.
What does "unlimited design revisions" mean?
It means we’ll keep working with you to refine the design during Phase 1 — without extra charges — as long as your core brief doesn’t change. If you decide to move from a ranch to a two-story farmhouse mid-process, that’s a new brief and we’ll reset accordingly.
Do you help with permits or builder selection?
We prepare all necessary drawings for permit, but the submission is handled by the client or their contractor. If you don’t have a builder, we can recommend someone in your area, but we do not formally manage a tender process.