Discover What’s Possible Before You Build
The Building Guide
Vacation Style Living® (VSL) Building Guide is your personalized roadmap to understanding your project's scope, budget, and timeline — a strategic first step toward designing a dream home built around your lifestyle.
Your Blueprint for a Successful Home Project
Before you ever commit to design or construction, there’s one crucial step that determines whether your dream home will succeed or struggle: clarity.
The Vacation Style Living® (VSL) Building Guide gives you that clarity. It’s not a guess, a template, or an estimate — it’s a comprehensive feasibility analysis built by a team that sees your project from every angle: architecture, engineering, construction and real estate.
One Guide. Four Professions. Decades of Expertise.
Your Building Guide is prepared by our integrated team of architects, builders, engineers, and real estate experts who work together to evaluate your project across six critical pillars:
Your VSL Building Guide includes:
- A Professional Analysis
Expert analysis of your Lifestyle Brief through the lens of architecture, engineering, construction and real estate. - Spatial Programming
Recommended rooms, functions, and relationships between key spaces. - Square Footage Strategy
Proposed square footage allocations by function to balance design, comfort, and efficiency. - Site & Engineering Review
An architectural and engineering evaluation of your site covering issues such as lot size, topography and grading, sun orientation, engineering and utility considerations for buildability. - Real-World Budget Intelligence
A preliminary square foot construction budget grounded in data from completed luxury projects. This includes a breakout for the home, the site considerations and specials amenities requested from your Lifestyle Brief. - A Project Timeline Framework
A realistic, customized sequence outlining the estimated project duration from concept to completion.
Why It Matters: Don't Skip This Step!
Most homeowners rush to design or hire a builder too soon.
They fall in love with an idea, a sketch, or a lot — only to discover later that the home they imagined can’t be built as planned, fits poorly on the site, or far exceeds their budget.
The VSL Building Guide is designed to prevent that.
It’s the first and most important step in your homebuilding journey — the step that saves you time, money, and heartache.
This is where we ask and answer the hard questions before you’re deep into design fees or construction costs:
- Can your chosen lot support what you want to build?
- How large should your home be — not in theory, but in real, livable square footage?
- Does your lifestyle align with your desired scope and budget?
Our goal is simple: to make sure every decision you make from this point forward is informed, intentional, and achievable.
Why Us: Integrated Under One Roof
Most firms can give you partial answers.
An architect can speak to design.
A builder can estimate costs.
An engineer can flag site issues.
A realtor can advise on location.
But none of them can connect all those dots — unless they’re all working together.
At AV Architects + Builders, they are.
The VSL Building Guide in Three Simple Steps
1.
Complete Your Lifestyle Brief
Tell us about your vision, your routines, and what “home” means to you.
This step helps us design around how you truly live — not just how floor plans look online.
2.
We Prepare Your Building Guide
Our architects, builders, engineers, and real estate experts collaborate to analyze your goals, lot, and lifestyle. We bring data from real projects to create your tailored VSL Building Guide — complete with budget, square footage, and site recommendations.
3.
Receive Your Personalized Review
You’ll receive your guide before our one-hour consultation, where we walk through each section and answer your questions. You’ll leave with complete clarity — and the roadmap for every step that follows.
More Services
VSL Vision
Vacation Style Living (VSL) Vision turns your ideas into a complete architectural concept with schematic floor plans, 3D massing model, and your personalized roadmap for your custom home.
VSL Design
Vacation Style Living® (VSL) Design takes your vision and gives you ready-to-bid architectural drawings and specifications tailored to fit your lifestyle.
VSL Design-Build
Vacation Style Living® (VSL) Design-Build combines architecture, engineering, and construction under one roof — giving you a white-glove, turnkey experience guided by precision and peace of mind.
VSL Consulting
Whether you’re just getting started, fine-tuning your plans, or preparing to build, our consulting services gives you access to professional expertise when you need it most.
Frequently asked questions
The VSL Building Guide is designed for anyone who’s ready to start their home journey with confidence — whether you’re:
- Dreaming of building a custom home and unsure where to begin
- Evaluating a piece of land and wondering what’s buildable
- Exploring a renovation or teardown and need clarity on feasibility
- Planning a multigenerational or legacy home for your family
This is the right service if you want to know:
Can my vision actually work — and how much will it take to achieve?
The VSL Building Guide is not for people who:
- Already have complete architectural plans
- Are currently under construction
- Prefer to buy a home from the market
- Want a quick, cookie-cutter solution