Finally, the plans for your dream home are ready, the design is perfect in every way, but there’s one major problem – it’s over budget. After spending hours figuring out your space needs and sweating over the details, it’s quite disappointing to find out that you can’t afford what you want to build. Rather than chop the living room in half or forego a basement, there are better ways make a house more affordable.

The first cost cutting strategy is to re-evaluate the size and scope of the project. Perhaps some of the work can be phased over time, such as a family room addition in a year or two. A finished basement can wait and much of this work can be done without the assistance of a contractor. Rather than build a brick fireplace right away, provide the foundation and space for one so it can easily be installed later.

Try to reduce the overall square footage by designing a more efficient floor plan which wastes less space on circulation. If the plan is already tight, try shrinking everything by 5 or 10 percent to reduce the square footage. Where it’s not possible to eliminate a large single item, such as a garage, reduce costs by looking for many small savings.

With building materials, look for items that you can trade down. Buying the best materials available is preferable, but substituting materials of average quality in place of top-of-the-line products sometimes makes the difference between building or postponing the project. If you really want a granite kitchen countertop, substitute a plastic laminate countertop which resembles granite at a fraction of the cost.

When checking out substitutions, be wary of cheap, inferior products which won’t last long and have little or no warranty period. Avoid downgrading everything to the point where you are unhappy with the results. If you find yourself doing that, it’s better to wait until you have a healthier bank account before tackling the project at all.

Look for things that you can do yourself. Demolition, landscaping, clean-up, plastering and painting are popular do-it-yourself things. Discuss how much these things are worth with the contractor and seek price reductions. Leave heavy duty items to the contractor where safety is a concern.

Shopping around for more experienced contractors is another option, especially if you’ve only solicited two or three bids so far. Experienced builders can look at a house plan and quickly identify potential cost savings. Beware of super low prices from unscrupulous bidders who may cost you more in the long run. After talking to a number of builders, you’ll develop a feel for construction prices and know where you can trim costs.

No doubt, you’ll face the ultimate builder’s conundrum – you can’t get accurate prices without a detailed set of plans, but you can’t prepare a detailed set of plans unless you know how much things cost. This is where the services of a professional architect can help.

An architect offers up-to-date advice on construction costs as the design evolves from conceptual sketch to detailed working drawings. This eliminates the last minute surprise of finding out you’ve blown your budget. It’s much better to hear the bad news early on in the game before the working drawings are finalized and prices are requested from contractors.

The key to getting a house built on budget is flexibility. Be ready to make trade-offs and compromises along the way. Get a grip on prices at the conceptual design stage and hopefully you won’t need to build too much of the house yourself!