Who here has built a house?

[Deleted]

Oct 9, 2012 10:03:21 GMT -5 financialpeace said:

My husband and I are having a house built right now. It has been one of the most miserable experiences of my life. The amount of decisions you have to make is overwhelming. Keeping tabs on the work to make sure it is being done correctly is very stressful. I think it will be worth it in the end, but I just don't know yet. If you do go this route, make sure you and your SO can handle the stress. Some parts of the process have definitely put a strain on my marriage.

I agree. I had a custom house built on my property and it sucked. I hated everything about it, and then I started having flooding problems due to bad landscaping and a poor septic design. 13 years later I think I have most of those things under control (God I hope so because I just paid 25K to finish the lower level).

[zibazinski]

Hell, we remodeled and I thought I was going to put a pillow over DFs head! The only way we survived it was that I finally just "bowed out" and let him do what he wanted. The Florida place will be mine, all mine!

[Deleted]

I loved having a house built. I loved picking out the floor plan and all the flooring and cabinets and etc. Liked being able to customize certain things (removed the closet in the office for example). I still miss that house.

[kgb18]

I would suggest you begin looking at existing homes.

We've been looking at existing homes for awhile. A lot of the housing stock on the market right now in our area are either very old homes that need a lot of work, or newer homes that are way out of our price range.

[thyme4change]

My Dad built his own house - like with his own two hands. That dude is crazy. I have no lessons learned from him - except that if I want to keep up, I'm going to have to drink more coffee.

[kgb18]

My Dad built his own house - like with his own two hands.

My dad did too! That was 35 years ago. It's funny because now he has no idea what houses cost. My parents had a home loan for around $25k. He was stunned to find out a new house for us was going to cost like 10 times that. He apparently thought we could find a 4-bedroom, 2,000 sq. ft. house for around $80k.

The lesson I learned from my parents' stories of building was not to have your grandfathers work together. Apparently my dad's dad and my mom's dad had a disagreement about how to do the roof. My dad sided with his FIL because he was a professional carpenter/roofer. My dad's dad got pissed, walked off and didn't come back for the rest of the project.

[thyme4change]

LOL. The house my father built was a vacation home (still nicer than my house, but whatever.) My father did hire out a few things he didn't want to do. He hired a guy to put in the hard wood floors, gave him the keys and went up to check on him. It sounds like the guy, his wife and his baby were living there. They played it off like the wife and baby had just stopped by, but after the job was over, they found clues that they had likely slept there. They left food in the fridge and stuff. The guy did keep saying that he really, really liked the house. My father had a pretty good sense of humor about it. My parents still laugh about it.

[happyscooter]

What singlemom said is true. There is a difference in buying a home from a builder who has his money invested and one who you hire and pay. (In the case of the builder and his own money, that is why you have title searches. And anyone who doesn't want to pay a few hundred dollars to have that done is CRAZY.)

[2kids10horses]

I had one built.

A couple of things:

Allowances. The builder will allow a dollar figure for light fixtures and appliances. They're never enough. They have accounts at certain stores where you go to pick out your fixtures.

We found that we could save THOUSANDS by buying our own lighting fixtures at closeout places, storing them, and then bringing them to the house when they were ready to be installed.

We did the same with carpeting.

And appliances.

Things I would do while the house is under construction:

Upgrade the moulding. The cost difference between putting in heavy crown mould vs light is very little. The labor is the same. Same with door casings.

Prewire for home theatre, security system, intercom, CAT5 cabling, whole house stereo, and central vac. I would do it, even if you don't plan to use it. It's a selling feature if you ever decide to sell in the future. (And you will.)

This may or may not apply to you: Lightening rods. I live in what used to be a cow pasture. There are a few trees, but when we have lightening storms, we're a target. I had lightening rods installed, and while you don't see the wires too much, it would have been better if they were there from the beginning. (Two of my neighbors have had their houses hit, and numerous trees, at least 4 on my property, have been hit in the 10 years I've been here, so I decided it was just a matter or time before I was hit. So, I installed them on the house and barn.)

[Deleted]

Oct 9, 2012 11:19:53 GMT -5 @singlemominmd said:

I loved having a house built. I loved picking out the floor plan and all the flooring and cabinets and etc. Liked being able to customize certain things (removed the closet in the office for example). I still miss that house.

Yuck, yuck, yuck. I can think of nothing worse than sitting in a carpet/tile place pouring over 700 types of flooring. Cabinets, counters, light fixtures, fireplace stone...they all have a million choices and I hate spending time on things like that.

Plus, we did all the electrical, central vac install, painting and staining ourselves. It saved us nearly 25K, even after buying materials, but there were a lot of work nights that we were out there (in an unfinished house in MN during the winter!) until all hours of the night.

I had the lower level finished this spring and let my 10 year old son pick practically everything. He did a really good job.

[sheilaincali]

We had a custom house built (when I moved to CA I sold it to my sister). I loved the house and so does my sister but it was such a headache having it built. The different trades people didn't always get along so we were forever getting complaints from the plumber about the electrician or the guy doing the grade about the guy doing the grass seeding, etc. It was never ending.
Our house was all concrete (ICF) with concrete floors as well. So we had one contractor to do the exterior ICF walls, one to do the interior framing, one to do the concrete floors, etc. The interior framing contractor was a complete pain in the ass.
He wanted us to get our mill-work from one particular company in town, we showed up to pick out our doors and trim and that and the salesman said "Well, these are the door knobs Craig likes, and this is the door brand Craig likes, etc" I told him "sorry, but Craig's not paying the bill or living in the house and this is what I like!"

When you build you have to make all the decisions and it can be very tedious. What type of light switch do you want? Standard or rocker? Dimmers? What color? White ? off White? Ecru? etc It's a million and one small decisions that towards the end have you saying "I don't care, whatever just get the damn thing done!"

My house took about 9-10 months from when they dug the basement to when we moved in. My parents house took nearly 18 months but they hired a guy that does 90% of the work himself or with the help of an assistant.

Building inspectors- hire an independent one to double check the city/county one but DON'T USE who your builder recommends. The same is true if you are buying a house, don't use the guy your real estate agent recommends.

[Deleted]

Oct 10, 2012 8:33:20 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Oct 9, 2012 11:19:53 GMT -5 @singlemominmd said:

I loved having a house built. I loved picking out the floor plan and all the flooring and cabinets and etc. Liked being able to customize certain things (removed the closet in the office for example). I still miss that house.

Yuck, yuck, yuck. I can think of nothing worse than sitting in a carpet/tile place pouring over 700 types of flooring. Cabinets, counters, light fixtures, fireplace stone...they all have a million choices and I hate spending time on things like that.

Plus, we did all the electrical, central vac install, painting and staining ourselves. It saved us nearly 25K, even after buying materials, but there were a lot of work nights that we were out there (in an unfinished house in MN during the winter!) until all hours of the night.

I had the lower level finished this spring and let my 10 year old son pick practically everything. He did a really good job.

well I didn't have that many choices. You picked from 10 styles/colors of kitchen cabinets that were included in your base price. You picked from 20 carpet colors that were in your base price. you picked finish of appliances. the builder was building 100 lots in a planned community. You picked your model, elevation, siding, etc. If you wanted anything painted in something other than the contractor color you paid extra. It really wasn't all that many choices to be overwhelming.

[kgb18]

When you build you have to make all the decisions and it can be very tedious. What type of light switch do you want? Standard or rocker? Dimmers? What color? White ? off White? Ecru? etc It's a million and one small decisions that towards the end have you saying "I don't care, whatever just get the damn thing done!"

I am definitely a detail-oriented person. At least, so says my children's pediatrician. I really like the idea of picking out exactly what we want. A lot of the houses on the market that we look at I'll think, "Well I like the flooring in the kitchen, but I hate the cabinets." Or, "The floor plan is nice, but the paint is dreadful and we'll have to repaint the whole house."

And some things, like paint, aren't difficult or expensive changes, but it's a PITA. I'd rather move into a house that is exactly what we want so we can just enjoy living in our home for awhile.

[sheilaincali]

kgb- I understand what you are saying. Building was tedious but worth it in the end. When we bought our house in CA we looked at probably 30 to 40 before we found one we liked. Same thing when we moved back to Minnesota. We basically looked at every single house in our town that was in our price range. I can fix paint colors and decor but I wasn't in the mood to buy something that needed major changes.

[Deleted]

Oct 10, 2012 9:54:58 GMT -5 @singlemominmd said:

well I didn't have that many choices. You picked from 10 styles/colors of kitchen cabinets that were included in your base price. You picked from 20 carpet colors that were in your base price. you picked finish of appliances. the builder was building 100 lots in a planned community. You picked your model, elevation, siding, etc. If you wanted anything painted in something other than the contractor color you paid extra. It really wasn't all that many choices to be overwhelming.

Well, mine wasn't like that. I hired a general contractor to build a house on the land I owned and there were no limits to the choices. There were allowances for everything, but I could get whatever I wanted from wherever I wanted. I could do the floorplan however I wanted, make the rooms any size I wanted, put the windows, doors, outlets and light fixtures wherever I wanted. Some people might love that kind of control and customization, but not my idea of a good time. I would have been fine with a spec house.

[swamp]

Oct 10, 2012 9:55:42 GMT -5 kgb18 said:

When you build you have to make all the decisions and it can be very tedious. What type of light switch do you want? Standard or rocker? Dimmers? What color? White ? off White? Ecru? etc It's a million and one small decisions that towards the end have you saying "I don't care, whatever just get the damn thing done!"

I am definitely a detail-oriented person. At least, so says my children's pediatrician. I really like the idea of picking out exactly what we want. A lot of the houses on the market that we look at I'll think, "Well I like the flooring in the kitchen, but I hate the cabinets." Or, "The floor plan is nice, but the paint is dreadful and we'll have to repaint the whole house."

And some things, like paint, aren't difficult or expensive changes, but it's a PITA. I'd rather move into a house that is exactly what we want so we can just enjoy living in our home for awhile.

even if you build to spec, after you move in you'll find somethings you wish you had done differently.

[swamp]

Oct 10, 2012 10:16:12 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Oct 10, 2012 9:54:58 GMT -5 @singlemominmd said:

well I didn't have that many choices. You picked from 10 styles/colors of kitchen cabinets that were included in your base price. You picked from 20 carpet colors that were in your base price. you picked finish of appliances. the builder was building 100 lots in a planned community. You picked your model, elevation, siding, etc. If you wanted anything painted in something other than the contractor color you paid extra. It really wasn't all that many choices to be overwhelming.

Well, mine wasn't like that. I hired a general contractor to build a house on the land I owned and there were no limits to the choices. There were allowances for everything, but I could get whatever I wanted from wherever I wanted. I could do the floorplan however I wanted, make the rooms any size I wanted, put the windows, doors, outlets and light fixtures wherever I wanted. Some people might love that kind of control and customization, but not my idea of a good time. I would have been fine with a spec house.

Mine was the same way, and all the choices drove me batty.

[sheilaincali]

We hired the general and all of the subs ourselves. I designed the floor plan and took it to an architect for the "official" finished version. I did the lighting plan, layouts of the bathrooms, designed the kitchen with the cabinet manufacturer, did custom concrete flooring (in 3 rooms) and countertops, picked out all of the fixtures, finishes, carpet, wood, trim, windows, doors, tiles, light switches, electrical outlets (did the layout and placement with the electrician) light fixtures, closet door, closet rods, etc.
The way we did it there was no base option everything had to be picked out by us.

We paid the general and the subs directly for their labor but the materials we bought directly from the individual stores/showrooms/etc.

Our house was really screwy because it was technically built as a research and development house and it was the first of it's kind in our area. We had tours during construction, training classes held on site for subs, site visits from the manufacturers of some of the products, people flew in from all over during construction. After it was done it was on the parade of homes, won some awards and was written about in some trade magazines. I was glad to sell it to my sister when I moved because she appreciated the uniqueness of the house but people still refer to it as my house.

The damn thing is twice the size that we actually needed and my sister threatens to trade houses with me all the time. Nope- I loved that house but cleaning 6,000 sf and maintaining over an acre of landscaping was a nightmare. I'm happy with my current 2800 SF thankyouverymuch.

[kgb18]

The house we are looking at would be built by a developer. We have a choice of floor plans, though we have our top choice already picked out, and you are given a certain number of choices regarding cabinets, flooring, lighting fixtures, etc.

The builder offers different upgrades at no extra cost. DH's friend who is building was given $10k in kitchen upgrades at no extra cost and chose to upgrade to cherry cabinets and granite countertops.

[tskeeter]

Oct 10, 2012 11:10:50 GMT -5 kgb18 said:

The house we are looking at would be built by a developer. We have a choice of floor plans, though we have our top choice already picked out, and you are given a certain number of choices regarding cabinets, flooring, lighting fixtures, etc.

The builder offers different upgrades at no extra cost. DH's friend who is building was given $10k in kitchen upgrades at no extra cost and chose to upgrade to cherry cabinets and granite countertops.

KGB, beware of builder upgrades. Many developers make the real money on the upgrades. The developer who built our house wanted $12K to put in granite counter tops in the kitchen. For $6K the contractor we hired removed the tile counter tops installed by the developer and put in granite, installed travertine back splashes with decorative trim pieces from the counter top to the cabinets, and fabricated and installed a granite top on the cabinetry housing the wine cooler. Makes me think the developer's profit on the granite counters must have been close to $9K. To bump out and elevate a kitchen cabinet and install slightly larger crown molding (estimated cost $200 - $300), this developer wanted $4K - $6K for a "cabinet upgrade". Same cabinets. Just hung in slightly different locations. Easy to see how some of our neighbors spent more than $50K on upgrades.

But some options or upgrades can be a good deal. We paid a $250 up charge to have the walls painted something other than builder white. Can't buy the paint, much less paint the walls for $250. In another house, the developer would install additional outlets in the garage, etc. for $50 each. Even in those days you couldn't get an electrician to come to your door for $50. In an unfinished garage, additional outlets would have run at least $150 each if we had installed them after we took possession of the house.