Alder & Stone notes
What a fall 2026 start means for your move-in date
Most clients who break ground in October are in by July. Here's the month-by-month timeline we built our process around, and the two phases that always take longer than people expect.
If you're targeting a fall 2026 break-ground, you should be talking to us in May or June. Permitting in our jurisdictions runs 8–10 weeks reliably; we can occasionally pull it to 6 weeks on a re-permit of a teardown, but the safer planning number is 9.
A typical custom build from break-ground to handoff is 9 months of construction + 2 months of finishing work + 1 month of punch-list and walk-throughs. So an October 1 start lines up with a July 4 move-in, conservatively. The two phases that always take longer than clients expect: foundation curing (we wait 28 days before framing on slab pours; insurance requires it) and cabinet installation (custom cab orders are 12 weeks lead time, and one missed dimension cascades).
The single biggest win you can give yourself is locking the kitchen and bath plans before we break ground. Everything else flexes — those don't.
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