There is something for everybody at this year ’ s show — from the 180-sq . ft . ‘ Tiny House ’ to the 4,600-sq . ft . ‘ Future Dream Home ’ — all bases would appear to be covered .

But it was a behind-the-scenes look that I found to be the most revealing .

Before the scheduled opening of the show last Friday at 10:00 , I had a chance to meet with many of the builders and designers of the Future Dream Home , a cutting edge home with the latest in

MARTIN SLOFSTRA

smart-home technologies and environmentally friendly features .

There was a slight problem though , the Future Dream Home had not been completed in time for the show to open .

So , what I saw were crews of workers working feverishly behind a fenced off area . The only way for me to see it was to wear construction boots and a hard hat ( which I borrowed from one of the workers , seriously !)

I would have loved to have seen this dream home in its finished state , but I did learn something — if anything , my planned tour would instead become a lesson on how much goes into building a new home , let alone one that is a home of the future .

Dream homes are an annual tradition at this show . And with its 4,600 square feet of absolute beauty and stunning design , this one was the most ambitious ever .

Drawing back to nature , the Future Dream Home is meant to bring the outside in — the stunning , panoramic oversized 8-foot by 10-foot window panels make it feel very inviting .

And the home ’ s design is exquisite , from the selection of organic and natural materials throughout , to the opulent bath tub made of imported crushed volcanic limestone with its special heat-retention characteristics and the water-fountain wall in the front foyer — complete with live plants .

Lesson learned : Building a beautiful home is hard work and it involves a lot of people .

Leading me on the behindthe-scenes tour was project manager , Maria Perketa , owner of her own design firm , and member of a design dream team which includes Nicholas Rosaci , Erica Gelman and builder / visionary Michael Upshall .

From her perspective , it ’ s the

Maria Perketa , project manager stands in front of the waterfall foyer at the Future Dream Home . The National Home Show runs until Sunday .

team approach that makes it work and is becoming the way all homes are built .

It used to be builders , designers and suppliers would work in isolation and operate in silos , “ now we share our knowledge like never before ,” she says .

Communications is everything and feedback has become the all-important part of the process .

This teamwork shows up , for example , in how everything needs to be interconnected , from pre-wiring the media room , to home control and monitoring systems , to any of a number of a home ’ s safety features .

Managing all of that , well that ’ s where the real work begins for Perketa , who in the course of our interview , had been interrupted a few times to field urgent questions from the workers .

If building a beautiful home is hard work , my second lesson of the day was , then so is renovating one .

Later in the morning , I had a chance to sit down with Debbie Travis , internationally renowned designer and author .

( Check out her weekly series La Dolce Debbie on the Oprah Winfrey Network , Tuesdays at 8 p . m . where she renovates a ‘ dream ’ Tuscany home . The results are stunning .)

Among her challenges was managing a crew of 80 workers over the five years it took to do the restoration , and working in

unfamiliar country . Language was only one of the issues .

Everybody is familiar with Debbie Travis , famous TV personality and celebrity designer . She tells me the Tuscany renovation was more about being a project manager , dealing with all kinds of unforeseen circumstance and painstaking hard work that at times left her exhausted .

The lesson in all this ? Yes , go ahead and dare to dream big , but building or renovating that dream home is — more than anything — a lot of hard work . Just ask Maria or Debbie .