Sarah Gallop Design Inc.

09/08/2026

How much does it cost to build a custom home in BC in 2026? Search that question and you'll find figures from $250 to well over $1,000 per square foot, all published this year, all describing the same province.

They aren't contradicting each other. They're measuring different things. Some quote construction only. Others fold in design, permits, and servicing. A few include land, which can double the total in Metro Vancouver.

The most useful question you can ask of any figure is what it includes. That one habit clears up most of the confusion, and it's the same discipline that makes a real budget hold together later.

A per-square-foot rate is a helpful first check, but it isn't a budget. A real budget comes from a complete set of design documents, priced by a builder, with the decisions still yours to adjust.

Our latest post breaks down what those numbers actually contain, and what quietly moves them. Read it through https://sarahgallop.com/cost-to-build-custom-home-bc-2026/

What does it cost to build a custom home in BC in 2026? Current per square foot ranges for Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, plus the soft costs to plan for.

09/04/2026

In most fields, expertise is visible. You can see the skill in the finished thing. In residential design, the highest skill often disappears.

The concealed hinge that lets a door sit flush, with no visible hardware. The shadow gap that lets a wall meet the floor without a baseboard. The reveal that lets two materials meet cleanly instead of being trimmed over. The sight line that lands on exactly the right view, so precisely it feels like luck. None of these ask to be seen. Most people never consciously register them.

That invisibility is the achievement. A detail you notice is a detail asking for attention. A detail you don't notice is one doing its work so well it has vanished into the architecture.

This is the quiet paradox of considered design. The more skilled the decision, the less likely you are to see it at all. The rooms that feel effortless are almost always the ones that took the most effort to resolve.

The finest details in a home are the ones you never notice 👌✨

Design Sarah Gallop Design Inc. | Build Monolith Design Build Ltd

09/03/2026

Opalite is a Richmond home where the primary bathroom was designed as a retreat, and the calm was built into the architecture rather than styled on top of it.

The restfulness of this room comes from a few quiet decisions. The proportion of the room. The continuity of material from floor to wall. The way natural light enters and moves through the space across the day. The absence of visual noise, so nothing competes for the eye. A genuinely restful bathroom is an architectural outcome, not a collection of soft touches.

Every element was chosen to recede rather than announce itself. The fittings quiet, the materials continuous, the lines uninterrupted. The room asks nothing of you, which is precisely what makes it somewhere you want to begin and end the day.

The most restful rooms are not decorated into calm. They are designed into it. 👌💕

Design Sarah Gallop Design Inc. | Photography Ravi Gill Photo + Art

09/01/2026

The sound of a room is a large part of how it feels to be in it 👂💕 A home with hard surfaces everywhere, stone, glass, tall flat walls, tends to echo. Voices carry, footsteps ring, the noise of the kitchen travels through the whole floor. A home designed with sound in mind softens this. Textiles, layered materials, considered proportions, and the thoughtful separation of spaces all absorb and contain sound rather than amplifying it.

This is part of why a considered home feels calm in a way that is hard to name. It is not only what you see. It is the quiet underneath it, the absence of echo, the sense that the room holds sound gently rather than throwing it back at you.

A calm home is a quiet home. That quiet is designed, long before anyone moves in.

Design Sarah Gallop Design | Build Monolith Design Build Ltd

08/27/2026

The land comes first. And it quietly determines everything that follows: the design, the timeline, and the budget.

Price, size, and location are the easy things to weigh. The costly surprises tend to live somewhere else entirely: slope, soil, groundwater, and how a given municipality handles permits. Two lots that look nearly identical can sit almost a year apart in permitting, depending only on the city they're in.

Some of our clients won't make an offer on land without us reviewing it first. Most of the time there's nothing to flag. But now and then we catch something at a glance, a zoning change, a hidden stream, an ALR line, that would have meant real cost or delay had the offer already gone in.

Our latest article covers what's worth asking before you buy, and why the land deserves the same scrutiny as the home you plan to build on it.

Read the full article https://sarahgallop.com/what-to-know-before-buying-land/

What to know before buying land for a custom home in Vancouver, from permitting delays to zoning surprises that can affect your budget.

08/27/2026

Sometimes old homes need a bit more than a fresh coat of paint.

Looking to transform your space, give us a call. A recent project in Surrey with Monolith Design Build Ltd

4 real images stitched together with AI, but it is oh so very real!

08/27/2026

A quiet truth in residential design: a room is shaped by its shadows as much as its light. 🖤

The instinct in most homes is to chase brightness. More windows, more fixtures, every corner evenly lit. But a room lit flatly, everywhere, loses its depth. It has nowhere for the eye to rest and nothing for the light to play against.

A considered interior uses darkness deliberately. The shadow gap where millwork meets the floor. The deep reveal around a window that gives the opening weight. The corner allowed to soften rather than glare. These are the moments that give a room dimension, so the light has something to be measured against.

Light gets the attention. Shadow does the quiet work of making a room feel like somewhere, rather than simply bright.

Design Sarah Gallop Design | Construction
Video .ca

08/25/2026

Architect, home designer, or interior designer? On a BC custom home, the three are not interchangeable, and the difference matters more than most homeowners expect.

Here's the surprising part: for the majority of single-family homes in this province, an architect isn't legally required at all. Which shifts the real question from who is permitted to design your home to who is right to design it.

There's a credential wrinkle worth knowing, too. Some of these titles are protected in BC. Others anyone can use.

Our latest journal entry breaks down all three roles, what each is responsible for, and the questions worth asking before you assemble your team.

Read the full article. https://sarahgallop.com/architect-vs-home-designer-bc/

Architect vs home designer BC: who does what on a custom home, when an architect is legally required, and where interior design fits into the team.

08/23/2026

W**e stroll
Tickets on sale now. Check out link in bio at LBA page. Or. https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/2026-lba-art-wine-stroll-tickets-1993711318222?utm_experiment=test_share_listing&aff=ebdsshios&sg=56dae935ea27338e44d8d55b89169aa3c62154e8b65307227a2513b59f703e1ce52dd3cdafddd18a6fe0c78a3a6600ab4e611d4eb73c5d3184aed6a82ed8ebdef682ef00101459eeda5602b0c3

08/20/2026

She’s an absolute beauty❣️ on location in Burnaby Heights for photo day at this recently completed custom home 🏡 designed by Sarah Gallop Design with niki built by Clay Construction Custom Homes … can’t wait to share more with you soon 🤩