Did you build your own house?

[250]

I found designing our house to be one of the most fulfilling parts of the process. I spent about 5 years studying hundreds of designs online and in catalogs, studying the topography and orientation of our property, and bouncing ideas on forums. Our house has proven to be perfect for our particular wants and needs. Many, many commercially available designs are awful. I suppose I could have worked with a designer/draftsman/architect, but that wasn't in the budget. The one drawback is that our house would likely be tougher to sell than a typical tract home because of some of the unique features, but I don't care about that. After seeing some of the train wrecks that professionals design, it has occurred to me that perhaps I have a pretty good eye for design despite a lack of formal training.

Our kitchen is a good example of carefully thought-out design. I laid it out so food goes from the fridge (storage) to the prep sink (wash/prep) to the prep area (with a place to sit down while doing prep work) to the range for cooking, to the other sink (yes, I have two sinks) for clean-up. There are no upper cabinets because I hate 'em and the wife cant reach 'em. We have windows instead for wonderful natural light. There are 33 drawers for storage rather than lower cabinets where you have to get down on the floor with a flashlight to find the stuff buried in there. I designed my own drawers so they are frameless, there's nothing to catch so the drawer can't jam, and the bottom drawers incorporate the toe kick for 4" more depth. The refrigerator is recessed into the wall so it is flush with the cabinets instead of buying a pricey counter-depth fridge. The whole kitchen cost $8K, including appliances. I put that much though and detail into the entire house, part of why it took me so long to design and build it.

Mush, any pictures of this house and kitchen that you've shared?

 

[MushCreek]

I attached a couple pics to post #22.

Funny story about taxes. Here, no matter what the plans say, they come out after the final inspection and check the outside dimensions to make sure you're not cheating. When they came up with the 'living space', I successfully argued that the walls on our house are over a foot thick, and I can't live 'in' the walls. They agreed and knocked 150 sq ft off of the final numbers. They don't look at your plans before you build. You fill out a one page form, pay the nice lady, and you're out of there in 15 minutes. After the house is built, you submit very basic sketches with dimensions. They had no interest in engineering drawings or any of that. Just 'how big is it', and how many bedrooms.

 

[yeldogt]

The idea that subs don't like to work with homeowners was not borne out by my experience. I asked almost all my subs about this topic, and all of them indicated that an owner builder or homeowner was much more likely to pay their bills on time. many of the local G.C.'s were slow paying subs . paying cash , promising to pay as soon as they are done, and progress payments really helped get good subs in my experience.

Knowledge is power. Who is a good sub and what should something cost ...??

I have been doing rehabs and building for 35 odd years and I may or may not be able to tell you at any given point. It did not take me very long after losing a guy that really knew the trades to understand how much easier it was with 10 years of beginners luck.

Mostly it's pricing power .. homeowners will not normally get the same price. Why? -- some of it is simple knowledge of the process. The other part of this equation is the sub knowing the project will be ready for him and he can get his work done. As the quality of the project goes up the value the GC can bring to the table is enormous

High end builders have to hire better subs .... they have to know the correct suppliers. It's repeatability .... do here what you did on the Smith project. When you put a project out for a couple builders to take a look .... it's amazing the price differences. Also -- it's interesting to see when the same sub comes in with different prices.

A builder knowing what sub can do something and may want to ... is important as well.

 

[86turbodsl]

I'll throw my hat in the ring. I worked for a couple of contractors in college and worked with my grandad on building projects so i've got several houses under my belt, and last built the house we are in now. It was our dream home.

I'm a design / mechanical engineer, and VERY DIY oriented. Basically nothing i don't like doing working with my hands, from welding, metalwork, woodworking, crafting, wiring, etc. We wanted to build a replica Victorian home, so i bought a few of the home design books on the market, we looked through them until we found one we liked, but ordered the CAD plans from the company. I used Autocad to make a few changes, including widening the house 4' and adding a hallway where there was none. Since i had access to a wide format plotter, i printed all copies of the plans after that.

I acted as GC, and hired a builder to erect the framing and roofing. I hired an HVAC guy (more on that later), and subbed out drywall. I handled all wiring, plumbing, finishing, siding. So subbed trades were excavation, sewer, foundation, framing, roofing, insulation, and HVAC. Getting financing as an owner/builder is tough. We worked through a local lumberyard's owner / builder program. They shepherd you and pay bills on your behalf while they hold the note. When done, they flip to a mortgage company.

Consider this so you can focus on your preferred trades. I did all this while working 50+ hrs day job. We broke ground in May 07, closed in May 09. We built right during the housing crash. There were warning signs as we signed the note, lender said don't worry about it, then it crashed. We closed upside down and i'm certain there was a payoff in there somewhere to get it off the books of the lumber yard. The original note was for $353K. The final house size is ~3000ft with attached 2 car garage with some premium features, but not as many as we should have had. Controlling costs was tough. I got some great deals on distressed items on ebay, ended up with premium Thermador appliances, a fancy lighting controller and a hybrid geothermal/boiler/ radiant floor hvac. My original contractor didn't know the ins/outs of hydronics and delivered a system that didn't work well. We closed with a barely functional system, and i had to buy books and learn hydronics and controls and rip it all out a year later and redo everything myself, which cost me an entire summer of spare time, and over 5G worth of fresh copper lines. After that refit, not counting my time and all the additional costs incurred, we're sitting right around $130/ft.

After about 10 years being upside down, the house has finally appraised high enough to get into a refi and i dropped my monthly cost by 1/2. I also had to carry a 2nd mortgage for a lot of that time. NO FUN.

When we started the process, i had banked on a lot of help from friends and neighbors and what i got was one neighbor helping me a little, mom and dad a little and a lot of bailing friends. So consider your actual needs doing this.

It is one of the most stressful things you can do in life, and if your marriage isn't VERY strong, don't attempt it.
Would i do it again, i would say maybe, but would significantly change what i do, and my wife would say NEVER.

Hope this helps.

 

[KEH]

Didn't build our house years ago, but we did paint the house to save money. House is brick veneer, so most of the painting was inside. Through the years we have repainted it but now have a professional painter paint the outside.

KEH

 

[red61cj5]

I built ours, as far as footer, framing, electric, plumbing, roofing. I only sub'd out the foundation blockwork, HVAC, drywall. I had a relative help with the wiring, but it was free. Rural WV is pretty lax about permits, only real inspection was the septic. I spent right around 65k, in 2006-07, for a decent 2k sq ft rancher. I had about 4 years of house framing experience from back in the day, so the hammer and nail stuff was easy.

 

[MushCreek]

The local building department can certainly affect your DIY experience. Here in SC, permits were easy and cheap ($400; 15 minutes) and inspections were pretty light. I'll give you an example: I had the basement slab inspected and passed. The next inspection was rough framing, electrical, and plumbing. I built the entire shell of the house and roughed in the plumbing and electrical. They were there 3 minutes for this huge inspection. They didn't even shut their truck off! A year's work for me; three minutes for them. When I called for the final electrical on my shop, the guy signed off on it without even coming out to look at it!

 

[35k0]

We thought about it, but ultimately ended up going with a 2x6 stick built modular from Wisconsin Homes. Incredible build quality, good pricing and we finished everything ourselves. They craned it onto our 9' ICF basement, ours came in 2 sections, they shingled the roof, finished the sheetrock inside and we took it from there. You can have them do as much or as little as you want. We choose to paint, do flooring, siding, etc.. It was a good process.
This was In 2018/2019 we came in at around $150 sq/ft including the unfinished basement, excavation & septic.
I know this isn't what you asked for, but I thought it was a good alternative in case you had not thought about it.

 

[brownbagg]

you dont make money when you GC, all the subs come in high and dont care about quality. if you going build your own home, you need too drive the nails too. My 1200 sq ft with land shop concrete driveway, septic tank, came in at $49,000 in 2005 if i had to hire labor, it would of been an additional 40k

house is value today at $120,000

 

[dcg9381]

Edited:

you dont make money when you [SELF] GC, all the subs come in high and dont care about quality. if you going build your own home, you need too drive the nails too. My 1200 sq ft with land shop concrete driveway, septic tank, came in at $49,000 in 2005 if i had to hire labor, it would of been an additional 40k. house is value today at $120,000

I agree with this, in the current market, if you self-GC, you're a one-trick pony and are unlikely to get the same deal as someone who is building several homes per year. Those bids will (often) exceed what you're saving in GC fees.

Many of our subs would prioritize jobs based on margin, so our plumber took a REALLY long time to finish. As soon as he'd get a commercial job, he'd be gone for a few months and come back later... If you were holding construction costs / financing, it adds cost to your build.

The money savings is in doing a lot of the trade labor yourself...

 

[cannuck]

As DCG post implies: the savings are in doing most of the trade work yourself...IF you have the skills and/or a good tradesman to make sure you are actually doing things correctly and to code.

I had my first home-building experience when I was 19 and Dad was retiring from Army. He bought a first stick build package from Nelson Lumber and he and I built it....one of the last things we did together before he died (on the day of his retirement). Next go around a few years later - one of my business partners built a home or two everywhere he went (insurance company exec) so on is advice, I designed a fairly large A frame but also a bit unconventional. So, there we were in our early 20s wife with job and me running a fairly large business with NO extra time - but NONE of the local GCs or builders would tackle something different, so we were now a 05:00-08:00 and 20:00-23:00 every day and all weekend GC. Must have done something right, as home is still standing and inhabited, but the lessons learned were quite significant. Built my own steel frame and envelope shop in back yard 37 years ago when the wooden one burned and have designed and built MANY tension fabric structures since then.

So, here we are about a half century later ready to embark on one last major design/build project. We will first do workshop with concrete (insulating) walls but MIP roof and hangar door (for aircraft to fit in) and after that a home with pre-cast (on site) PFCC (or maybe EPS/PFCC) STRUCTURAL wall and roof panels post tensioned together. That's the plan, but will require a LOT of research, engineering and approvals before the residential build.

What I am inferring: don't be afraid to take a build or even design/build on, but DO be aware of what your skillset and financial limitations are before getting too carried away (IF ONLY I COULD TAKE MY OWN ADVICE?!!!!!)

 

[brownbagg]

when i started, it was, I cant do this. this buddy said, can you hang a door, yes, can you wire a plug, can you put in a window, can you, can you

well one weekend, hang doors, another weekend, wire plugs, another frame walls
18 months later, I was done and did not owe a penny on it, all payroll