Anyone?
Not yourself, but had it built.
Anything you wish someone had told you before going into it?
Anything you would have done differently during or after?

 

Triple any initial budget.

Use an architect and quantity surveyor, combined with an expensive builder, (or at least not the cheapest)

Have no regrets

Don't start until you feel you could cope with running seriously over budget, because you will, and like having sex with gorilla, while it might seem a good idea to start, it is not you who decides when to stop.

End up with a happy wife and happy life.

(I have tried other methods, they don't work for me)

In all seriousness, employing those three departments I identified above, saved my sanity.

 

@Spacefruit is quite right but with the addition of 'allow twice as long as you think it might take'.

There are many matters to consider:
do you already own the land?
what is the condition of the land?
do you have the correct permissions to build?
what type of house do you want to build?

all of the above could affect the time and cost of your build.

find someone to design and cost you a house that you want and don't change the design after it goes to site or this will cost you both time and money.
once you have a site and a design, get a site survey done (topo and geotech) before you start anything else - most unlooked for overspends are in the ground.
find a contractor who is both competent and experienced at building the house you want - in the place you want to build it.
make sure you have a proper contract that you can rely upon.
ideally have a professional administer the delivery of the contract.

if you want the house to be 'just so' get a full set of drawings done (with details and materials) and have a contractor price it.
if you're happy with a 'nice house' with no particularly special items, you can use a more 'design and build' approach, (effectively using planning drawings with indicative details and materials) this will likely be less expensive.

for both options you can get a fixed price and have the contractor take the risk (excepting that you can never- ever- be sure of what is in the ground).

Ideally get three prices but if there aren't that many competent contractors available get your professionals to sense check the prices you do get.
You don't have to go for the most expensive contractor but don't take the cheapest price because its the cheapest.

Finally, if there are client decisions to be made, make them quickly and decisively - this should help keep you on track for both budget and programme.

hope that helps (and good luck!)

 

Great advice so far. I'll elaborate a little:

Try to completely plan out every detail of your project before you start--this will avoid cost increases and time delays.

Don't plan your project at the limits of what you can afford: have a healthy contingency on hand.

Find competent professionals on the design and build sides that you can trust, and listen to them--the earlier you can make them part of your project the better.

Try to have fun? The items above will help you be able to relax more and trust the process and, who knows, maybe even enjoy it.

 

If you have a partner, building will put a lot of stress in your relationship. I know of a few cases where couples divorced soon after the building was completed.

people simply have different ascetics. It's not just mid-century modern versus Victorian, but granite versus marble counters, light fixtures, nickle versus chrome fixtures. There are hundreds of design decisions that must be made and you won't agree. There are no insignificant design questions, it would seem.

Building a house is probably the highlight of a person's life. There are high expectations. We do not often understand why we feel or think certain ways, as it is a lifetime's worth of experience that has informed our taste and design. Very few people will have the exact same taste on everything.

Be prepared for compromise and lots of communication. Neither partner should get their way on everything. Try to recognize when your partner is agitated over a design decision, even if they can't express why it is important to them. Let them decide. Remember, they chose you, so they don't have terrible taste and it'll all be okay in the end. If you end up in a perfect house that is exactly how you wanted it, you may end up living in it by yourself.

Have fun.

 

Appreciate the replies so far.
This was originally something that was 5 years out, give or take. However we have the opportunity to start now (I think) so we are in the early stages of exploring a build now for our forever home, or that's the idea at least.
I have a lot that currently has a house on it that will be demo'd.
Survey happens next week. Already met with 2 builders and have a meeting with an architect tomorrow.
Wife knows exactly what she wants and does not mind naming herself project manager/GC lol.
Luckily, my wife and I can agree on design as we have very similar tastes. We have already re-done a kitchen and 2 bathrooms in our current home and she nailed it.
All I want is a nice garage and back yard hah.
My main concern is controlling costs. The builder that I'm pretty sure we are going with has given us a rough price per sqft and has allowances for finishes.
But still...

 

Advice after the intro . . .

I bought a half-acre property in a very nice area back in 1981. On the property was a 1900 square foot center-hall colonial that, as it turns out was a 450 square foot side hall colonial built between 1860 and 1880 which was added to in the 1940s. On the property was a four-horse stable that was converted into a 450 square foot unit and also a 2-car garage. The place was a bit run down when I bought it.

I always wanted to upgrade the property, but the years rolled by and I did not get to it unto 2019 just before the pandemic hit.

The main house was gutted and 1000 square feet was added to the rear so that it is now about 2,900 square feet. The concrete block garage was in sad shape and so we knocked it down and built a new garage near the little stable/cottage and as a result, had room for an in-ground pool.

I always wanted a lift to work on vintage cars and so, while the zoning would not allow for a footprint larger than 520 square feet for the garage, I was able to go up to 16 feet. I put a loft on one side and a tall lift on the other.

I have no regrets other than I should have started a little sooner perhaps. However; I am older now and am enjoying the place quite a lot. It feels like a deferred dream come true. Now as to the advice . . .

As much as possible, work with local people who may be plugged into the relevant authorities such as building inspection department, electrical inspection, Architectural review board, if any, Zoning board, etc.

Architect?

Interview three architects and pick the one with whom there is a report or chemistry, and one who seems to want to help you realize a dream.

Architects in my 'neck of the woods' want to charge a fee of between 12% and 15% of the construction cost, so if possible, negotiate a flat fee at the outset as I had done . . . or at the very least a "not to exceed" fee. If your budget is "X" and you end up spending "2X" (and you will) then the average architect will expect double the fee.

Pick an architect who will listen carefully to your ideas and requirements, but one who won't be shy in offering you a half dozen alternatives.

Make sure there is a clear understanding as to how much work the architect will put into supervising the construction and how much you will act as supervisor/consultant with the builder. My architect and I agreed that he'd go to the site about once every other week and report back to me with progress and recommendations. I went to the site often as well. Eventually, he did have to show up at all.

Builder?

This could turn out to be a real nightmare if a bad decision were made. I interviewed about five builders and the guy I picked was a regular down-to-earth licensed carpenter who came recommended by an architect friend's, architect friend . . . one who had hired the guy to put an extension on his home not far from mine. It helped that he had just finished a house around the corner and took me on a tour.

Labor rates are high in my area and I had thought to bring a lower cost outfit in from miles away, but that would have led to bad result. As it turns out, the local guy knew all the trades and could get to the site faster and leave to go home nearby and was infinitely more efficient than any "lower-priced" outfit could have been.

Of the guys I interviewed he was the only one who looked over the home carefully and pointed out to me: "You do know, that when we put on the extension, the ceiling will either have to drop 2 1/2" on the first floor in the new area or else there'll be a 2 1/2" rise on the second story."

The old floor joists from days gone by were 11 1/2 inches and we needed 14" today. FYI, with the help of my architect friend and the builder, we eliminated the step by using reinforced flitch plate and LVL beams instead of conventional joists.

Edit: Consider opening up an account at a good local supply house or houses for lumber, stone. etc. and pay for the materials directly. You'll have a good accounting of what went into the place.

I paid for the materials monthly and made monthly progress payments to the builder.

We capped the costs for each element of the job and the builder kept to the caps except where I changed the job on the fly - which was very seldom.

What about the other contractors?

If you picked the right builder, let the guy hire his own regular contractors whether he gets a cut or not.

The builder said the following to me:

"If I hire the contractors, I will pick people who will be at my beck and call - people I know well - and they will know that they are working for me and not you. I'll see to it that they do what we want at a fair price.. If you hire the contractor, they will know that you are the boss and they will be somewhat less likely to do what I tell them to do when I tell them to do it. Someone has to manage the schedule of contractor work so they don't have fist fights between plumber and electrician, for example. Do you want me to be the referee or do you want the job yourself?"

I listened except that I hired my own painter and pool guy. The pool guy was a gem and worked out well at much lower than local pricing, but the painter was a walking disaster. I ended up hiring the builder's painter to repair my guy's shoddy work.

I don't want to write a book for free, so this should help you get started.

Cheers,

Joe

Edit: a couple of typos.

 

I resolved this by saying - you choose. If you are happy, I am happy.

Then I kept quiet

 

I have built Dollhouses. Sometimes using miniature framing and such. In high school I made a 1:24th scale model of the Muir house, which was a National Monument controlled by the park service. I loved watching them do the restorations. There were a lot of other restoring the old victorian houses. Interesting that these at the time were only 70 or 80 years old at the time. Now the house I live in is that old.

I have built and rebuilt walls and such as part of the maintenance. Some of my doll houses had working electric lights. I nearly burned the church down using masking tape as an insulator. One of my friend's fathers let me borrow his his copy of the electric code.

In this day and age, though one does not really build houses. Mostly one now has to deal with extortion and bribery. Too many want a piece of the action. Taxes have always been an issue with self building. Old homes lack windows due to the luxury and window taxes. Such things become a form of bullying.

Used to be one could acquire some land and put up a shack (or even a decent house) on it. My grandfather did such in the 1920s. And in Palo Alto too. PA is now one of the most restricted communities anywhere. For my GF it was a hobby. He worked for the Post office. He built or rebuilt at least 3 on the same block. If the family got to large for one, he built another, renting the old one. My uncle sold them staing that real estate will never be higher. That was 50 years ago.

My grandfather also did a lot of the maintenance on our house, I used to like watching him. We put a deck outside the room I used, so he changed a window into a sliding glass door. This was the room what had the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling.

I may still have drawings for one of the mid century modern houses. Some of the relations built their own houses too. The other tradition was to have a second home in the mountains. A cabin. We got the land back in the 1960s. That is when the greedy and selfish people made it to hard to self build.

Of course there are good reasons for some of this (Turkey and other places come to mind.) I also see reports of mountain cabins not handling 200+ percent snow load. The other word that comes to mind (why we have a community government.) Is cholera. What is the elephant in the room for those who deal with free form community living. Also a factor in the zombie apocalypse why there will not be roving bands or predatory people. Amoebic dysentery will also be a factor.

Blight is another bully club used to prevent people from building their own dwelling. City (urban) dwellers do not like rural self sufficiency. So the goal is to urbanize the world.

This can be seen in transportation too. Used to be cars and such were self maintained. I saw an article once what compared cars to homes, and how in the future with self driving cars, the knowledge for self maintenance (and even operation) Will become lost. There was an article in the paper this week about proposed toll roads. The freeways already have toll lanes. What is a bit of an oxymoron. I can remember when such things would have been out of the question. Such things were part of the East Coast culture and simply not done in the west.

Funny (Ironic?) how population migrations often bring the old repressive traditions with them as well.

 

Always a wise path.

 

I have built hundreds of houses in different scales.
I worked as an architectural scale model builder for more than forty years.

 

Ideally, I'm looking to build a 1:1.
There is a well know builder in the area that is doing lots of new projects.
They have about 10 different houses to "choose" from with some of them sharing the same basic floor plan.
From there, you get to pick your finishes. So there is little to no customization. They give you some leeway, but not much.
But at least you know what you're getting into mostly and the turn around is a little better (quicker)
The other builder is actually a long time friend of ours. He has built about 5 or so houses in the area and does excellent work, but they are all custom. We are meeting with the architect he works with tomorrow.
Going that route, I could see the costs adding up, also, we'd be looking at a end of year 2024 move in. Which is fine, there is no real rush.

 

An ultra light tent, while spendy compared to other types of tents, costs so much less than a house.

As a current and former homeowner I can say, "Tents are The Way".

 

The family and I spent the weekend in a pretty nice yurt thing. I'd be down, but not sure about the rest of them...

 

We did a tear down and rebuild in 2019-2020 (final was signed off day before Covid shut down)

We had a good architect and a good builder which are the keys.

@Spacefruit is correct, especially on all the little details like cabinet pulls etc. let your partner decide if they are willing.

The minutia drove me insane. Things like the afore mentioned cabinet pulls, knobs, handles etc. 100 decision about things that I could care less about, but that make it all come together. You need a good partner or a good designer.

Lastly, if building a multi floor home over-insulate the interior floors, staircases etc especially if you are going hardwood flooring. Same with the wet-wall, ask for extra insulation. This is for sound reduction, not heat, if that isn’t obvious.

 

Well if we are going to get into the technical side of things, I would push for Passive House construction if you are in a cold climate.

 

Florida here. Looking to build a 2500 sqft (give or take) 4 bed (3 bed one office/guestroom) 3 bath. Will have to be 2 floors given the lot size (60x110).
Would like a 3 car garage, or at least an over sized 2 car with high ceilings.

 

Im building a house right now. So far nothing major has occurred that would make me hang myself
I guess there are 2 main things upon which a successful house building depends - getting a good architect and finding the right people to build the thing…

 

If you own old cars, motorbikes etc definitely go the route of separate garage. Too much risk of fire, chemicals, petrol and oil smells permeating your house if attached or internal.