After a VERY dissapointing home search, we've decided to have a house built. Just signed the agreement today. Modernist Pueblo Style with very green amenities like high fly ash concrete floors, reclaimed lumber, no voc paints and a solar hot water system. I must say it's very gratifying to design a home that is exactly what you need and the way you want it. The house is just under 2000sq/ft with a main living area a master suite an office and aspare bedroom. We're also building a small (400sq/ft) studio adjacent to the house for all our toys and hobbies. Being able to have the studio has made us both feel so contented with the whole project...I have to say that the experience of designing has been great...I just hope the build out is as much fun!
Has anyone else here gone through this process? What was your experience like? Was it fun? Horrible? Would you do it again?
Congratulations!
I guess I had thought that you had already found your permanent home in your adopted state. Guess I wasn't paying attention ! Glad to know that you'll now really get what you want. . .
I have not been a homeowner and don't expect to be in my remaining time -- much less have the pleasure of living in a residence of my own design.
But I have read a lot of other people's stories, it seems. I can only repeat what I have heard: change orders are expensive -- lack of adequate communication with builder and others -- subcontractors, building department, architect (if any) -- can add unnecessary delay and expense -- etc etc.
A good friend chose a packaged home -- a pre-cut post-and-beam design from a reputable New England manufacturer, to be erected on her site in a small town in Northern California. Although the company recommended that she hire a recommended job supervisor, she declined, believing that her local builder had the experience with such products, as he claimed. A combination of inattention on his part, and her own inability to recognized her limitations in terms of anticipating problems and design decisions, eventually cost her almost 100 K more than she had expected to spend -- seriously affecting the quality of the home-building experience which she so much looked forward to enjoying,
I know you well enough to believe that you will plan and prepare more than adequately enough to avoid disappointments. The process should, and I would hope can, be rewarding and fulfilling, rather than painful and unnecessarily costly !
Perhaps others will have more pertinent (and enjoyable) advice. . .?
Great news, Olive, I am of...
Great news, Olive, I am of the mind too that you will be the most important player in this progression, although I have heard from my even more rather driven and concise friends that the homebuilding process can really piss you off.
I think you want to pick a good builder. And remember your three L's, location, location, Liebfraumilch.
And that old saying: patience is a virgin,
or something like that.
Mazel tov!
Congrats!
I have never lived in a house, let alone having had one built for me. I would love the opportunity.
Most of what I know about the house building process comes from watching Grand Designs. Do you get that in the US? Highly recommended.
The projects featured on that show all pretty much have the same three key success factors in common: an involved architect, the right project manager, and allowance for contingencies. I was going to put the pretty obvious "realistic time plan" first, but I've seen some realistic time plans break and some crazy ones hold, all due to or thanks to the contribution of those three factors.
Hope to hear a lot more about your progress. Good luck!
Olive,
we built our first house from scratch. We fought alot! Mostly about the finishes, i.e. flooring, lighting, countertops, etc. and always about the money.
Granted we were very, very young and our marriage was in its' infancy. I would like to think that if we did it now after 24 years of marriage we would see more eye to eye, but I don't know because he is still a cheap bastard. Ha, kidding, love you, honey.
P.S. (Not really kidding).
I hope
you consider keeping track of the experience in a blog of some sort.
It could be therapeutic to recap on a daily or weekly basis. You certainly have
the writing skills.
Your area has a much higher success rate with client/contractor relations.
Three friends have built in your area and all had good experiences.
All income brackets. Small, Med and 'super wealthy no limit'.
We built a workshop/studio barn upstate NY that still needs a bit of work.
As a community they bitch that their is no work, but funny enough they
never show up. Always excuses.
One of the better contractor in the area just builds one house at a time and
is always busy. To get the best you often have to get in line...
Incommunicado...
Sorry, I spent the week at my sister's house working my butt off helping her get her home ready to sell. Oddly enough, she's moving house too and we've done thins once before in our very different lives. We should both be moving into our new homes at about the same time!
Rockland, yes, I do think I will blog about the build so my friends and family back east can follow along and certainly you all will be invited too!
As for the advice from all...thanks, some good thoughts there.
We have been extrodinarily lucky to find a builder/designer who has built in a modernist pueblo style out here for 25 years. He used to build very high-end homes until the housing market took a nose dive. Now he's doing smaller (ours will be just under 2000sq/ft) homes with a sustainable bent. We've got lots of passive solar gain in winter, high R-factor insulation, no-VOC paints, energy star appliances, rainwater catchment and a solar water heating system in the design. We'll have cast concrete flooring with radiant heating and windows placed strategically to pull the prevailing afternoon breezes through the house for passive cooling. We're not installing an A/C system at this point we want to see if we can go without it.
One of the best features of the house is a 400sq/ft studio that will be set in front of the house and to one side creating a courtyard entry. Since it's to the northeast, it will also temper the cold winter winds. The other side of the house faces the Ortizand Sandia Mountains giving us a spectacular view. There is designated unbuildable open space protecting that view. We can also see a bit of the Sangre de Christo and Jemez Mountains as well. It's a lovely spot.
What's making all this doable is that the home isn't entirely a custom. The builder has an entire development that he's working his way through and all of the homes follow a basic template. We got to push roomes around the central core of dining/living/kitchen and add the studio. We also picked finishes within a set budget and added upgrades where we really wanted them. But the house is modularized to some extent with SIP walls and other components. It worked for us, the basic layout was so close to what was in my mind's eye that a bit of tinkering just perfected it. The groundbreaking is this week or next and I can't wait!
I do have electronic copies of the plans and I'll post them on my blog and get back to you all so you can go take a look.
Oh, Olive
do a blog, I would love to be a fly on the wall for your build. I'm blogging about my ex-pat (mis)adventures in Switzerland and it's really been a lot of fun.
I don't know if this is allowed, but it's www.trailingwife.blogspot.com. (If that is taboo, just erase this sentence!)
http://www.trailingwife.blogspot.com
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