Failing to Plan = Planning to Fail

By April of 2010 I was well on my way to planning the budget for the project when the economy hit home - Judy (my wife) got laid off from her job and stayed laid off for the remainder of the year. This of course caused me to put the brakes on new-house progress, which in hindsight was probably exactly what I needed. I was just beginning to wrestle with a detailed budget for the house and trying to settle on a specific design/plan to build. For the next 7 months we literally looked at hundreds of floor plans on the web, went to Parade of Homes to get ideas, and combed through architect's design books.

I've speckled this post with several of the interim "THAT ONE" moments we had on our way to settling on a design - some lasting for months - but all eventually breaking down under pressure when pondering important design details like: "Where will we put the Bakers Rack?" "The Bonus Room isn't wide enough to accommodate the pool table SIDEWAYS", "The screened-in porch isn't recessed", "or The kitties won't have anywhere to sun". Needless to say, picking a design is a very personal thing when it comes down to it. However, aside from budget (we'll get there in a minute) there are a few things that serve to constrain the actual house that you can put on your lot. For example: If you want/need a basement and you live in the south, you better shop for a lot accordingly. You can't feasibly dig a basement here unless you have a lot that slopes and can walk out of at least one side. Also, you should know the maximum value of each house dimension (Length, width, and possibly height) that your lot/site will accommodate. This is often driven not only by the size and geography of your lot, but more-so by zoning laws that dictate mandatory set back distances that a particular edge of the house must be from the front, side, and back property lines as well as the maximum height. In many cases, there are also DEED-restrictions (requirements written into the deed of the property) that require a minimum square footage or other dimension that must be satisfied when building on the land.


Make sure you know all of those constraints before you really start looking at pictures/floor plans so that you could search the websites (such as http://www.dreamhomesource.com/) to obtain options/results that conform to all those constraints. There are many house-plan sites on the web, and specific architects sites also, such as http://www.dongardner.com/ . Obviously, the house plan you ultimately choose will be the single-most driving factor that determines your cost and therefore your budget needed for construction. This is when it starts getting a little scary, because the design you settle on is of monumental importance to what you end up with when complete. You do NOT want to chose a design and then "tweak it" along the way to make it fit things that you think of later. All that should go into the initial decision on the single design you settle on. EVERY change after that has an associated add-on cost. Take your time (I took almost 9 months), KNOW what you want (and don't want) in a design, and choose wisely.

Here are a few things I learned throughout the design-selection process:

1) Defining a detailed line-item budget for a particular design up-front is impossible and a waste of time/energy. Instead, go with basic cost-per-square-foot guidelines for different styles and classes of homes. They're generally very accurate for estimating purposes. There are a number of things that drive these costs up or down by a few percentage points, such as: (a) Material Costs (lumber varies widely throughout the year), (b) labor costs (labor is cheap now because no ones building due to economy), and (c) fuel (gas prices going up makes everything more expensive). These things affect the cost-per-sq.ft. to build, and unless you're paying cash as you go, the cost of financing/money/interest rates is an add-on at the end subject to its own variables.

2) Building yourself rather than hiring a General Contractor to build the home for you will save between 20-25% (maybe more) of YOUR money. The quality of materials, fixtures, appliances, and amenities will dictate your final cost-per-sq.ft. In general, an average 1200-1800 sq.ft. "starter" home with basic amenities might run you $90-$100/sq.ft from a GC/Builder, but only $75-$85/sq.ft. if you build yourself. Also, builders tend to use cheap-shit materials and cut whatever corners they can (e.g. putting in used fixtures left over or laying around from other jobs or returns) because ultimately they're only interested in the profit. When you build your own, you put in higher quality materials and workmanship by design, get EXACTLY what you want AND STILL SAVE 20%! I'm building a slightly higher-end luxury home which from a builder would run $135-$150/sq. ft. (because of added features like hardwood floors, granite counter tops, ceramic tile, walk-up-attic space, brick/stone veneer, etc.). It looks like I shouldn't have a problem coming in at about $100-$105/sq.ft. as my own builder. BTW - none of these numbers include the cost of the lot.

3) Try and think of everything you ever loved or hated about any house you've ever lived in and try to include/exclude those things accordingly. For example, we absolutely love our recessed screened in porch and hate having a "door-behind-a-door" in our bathroom and have assured the new design accommodates. I also like a large garage to work in with a big flat parking pad in front of it. And don't be too afraid to make it yours - with things like surround sound built in, custom-fitted shower nozzles, measured sink/counter/cabinet heights etc. (I'd love a pit in the garage but that's just not practical - and when you see Judy make sure you tell her that EVERYBODY has a pole in the Master Suite now!!).

Next time, I'll need to do a catch-up post so that we can fast-forward to where things stand today. Things are moving fast now and I'd like this to become a fairly real-time blog of the experience. Til next time...