Anyone want to go on and on about their home building experience?

[Carrie12345]

I’ve never truly wanted to build a house, unless you count dreaming about physically building my own little off grid cabin in the woods without government intervention.  But our market is crazy tight, and I’m watching inventory dwindle to absurdly low numbers. (About 1,000 listings in the entire county, half of those with homes on them, half of *those with 4 or more bedrooms, and less than half of THOSE on an acre or more. And we’re limited to a very small township within the county, but there’s no appropriate zip code to enter for search purposes.) We’ve already lost a bid on a good house with lots of competition in the first few days of listing.

I am so torn between waiting however long for the right listing and just spending that time having a house built. Moving is stressful enough, and I’m sure building is much more so.

We’re an area of custom builders on individual lots, not so much tract homes.  There was clearly some tract building in the past, but that boom died out. The only limitation in place is our budget. 😛 

I want to hear your nightmares and dream stories!

[Melissa in Australia]

do you mean building your own home or having builders build you a home?

 we built our own home. that is DH did. it is a very different experience to having builders build the place for you 

 

[Guest]

Well, my dh is in construction and built our house twice. I don't think it is much more stressful than moving house ordinarily is, but I think moving house is ordinarily stressful. 

One thing that can be difficult is if both partners have well-formed ideas about finishes, layout, size, style - and these do not match. I joke that my marriage almost ended a year in over carpet in my previous house. It's a joke but also...not really a joke. 

[Carrie12345]

12 minutes ago, Melissa in Australia said:

do you mean building your own home or having builders build you a home?

 we built our own home. that is DH did. it is a very different experience to having builders build the place for you 

 

Oh, no no no. Having a builder, lol. I have dreams, not actual applicable skills. 😄 

[Carrie12345]

6 minutes ago, Quill said:

Well, my dh is in construction and built our house twice. I don't think it is much more stressful than moving house ordinarily is, but I think moving house is ordinarily stressful. 

One thing that can be difficult is if both partners have well-formed ideas about finishes, layout, size, style - and these do not match. I joke that my marriage almost ended a year in over carpet in my previous house. It's a joke but also...not really a joke. 

Definitely a potential issue, but it’s also an issue in house hunting. The last house we saw was a no-go for both of us, but we still disagree about some of the features it had... that he’s obviously wrong about. 😉 

Edited January 6, 2021 by Carrie12345

[Katy]

You should be aware the price of construction lumber has gone way up. The price of a 2x4 has quadrupled in the past year in my area. 
 

It may be best to plan on staying put until the pandemic is over. 

[RootAnn]

I always thought we'd be a good couple to work on house design but I think I thought I am a better person than I am. We are redoing our kitchen and I got snippy a few too many times over stupid things like slow close hinges (DH in favor, I didn't want to pay the extra $/hinge) and other topics that I can't even recall. Sooooo.... just reinforcing that it is hard on a relationship! And the whole process takes longer than when you buy a house.

[TechWife]

We have had two different houses built for us. The first one went seamlessly. The second one, which we moved into a year ago, not so much. The builder caused unnecessary delays because he basically had the equivalent of a temper tantrum when we needed something changed because it didn’t meet our needs and stopped working on our house for about two months. Hindsight being what it is, we would never have chosen this builder if we had known some of the shenanigans he has pulled with different people. Our real estate agent was encouraging us to look in a different neighborhood and o wish she had told us why. Previously we ha an agent that steered us away from less than stellar builders, so I know it’s possible for them to do that. 
 

The house itself has been mostly fine. There have been a few things that need repair, but they are common “punch list” items. 

We have the perfect house for us, too. The layout and finishes are exactly what we both wanted. We were in agreement on what layout we were looking for, what were must-have features, nice to have features and stay away from that features. We were also in agreement on our finishes, so much so the builder rep. at the selection meeting was amazed. Honestly, we’ve been married for 28 years and we have a great rhythm to our marriage so this didn’t stress our marriage at all. 
 

Overall having this house built was well worth it. I do recommend that you talk to several builders and that you also talk to the town or county building inspection office. They will have the scoop on quality. 

[PeterPan]

We built our house 16 years ago, so I guess time flies. Dd was just about to start K5 and turn 5, sniff. Anyways, building a house can be as stressful or not as you set it up to be. My dh was doing it, so I didn't have to worry about the honesty thing. Once you have the honest contractor and the money issues completely in order (because it's easy to spend more), then you have materials choices. My dh handled permits and all that junk. Mainly, don't take on yourself stress you don't want. If you aren't that opinionated about something, let someone else choose, kwim? But mainly, if you go through and choose the materials ahead, it can be less stressful. 

No, it's stressful no matter what. LOL

I don't know about the price of lumber. I think if you start calling builders, you can figure that out pretty quickly. Is there a compelling reason to move right now? Could you do a small remodel/addition on your current house to make it fit you a bit longer and use the knowledge you gain there to be more efficient on building a house in a year or two?

[Amy in NH]

1 hour ago, Katy said:

You should be aware the price of construction lumber has gone way up. The price of a 2x4 has quadrupled in the past year in my area. 
 

It may be best to plan on staying put until the pandemic is over. 

My DH is also in construction, and it's not just lumber that has gone up!  Building supplies are through the roof (lol).  Builders around here are a year out on breaking ground.  They sub a lot of stuff out because they just can't find skilled help.  Initial planning, architecture, and engineering through completion is taking a solid year.

[Carrie12345]

29 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

I don't know about the price of lumber. I think if you start calling builders, you can figure that out pretty quickly. Is there a compelling reason to move right now? Could you do a small remodel/addition on your current house to make it fit you a bit longer and use the knowledge you gain there to be more efficient on building a house in a year or two?

We’re basically overdue to move by more than a decade. We moved into our little starter house when our kids were 7, 3, and 2. Now they’re 22, 18, 17, 13, and 10.  Theoretically, we could eventually get a call for 2 more elementary aged kids, too. 
 

I sort of managed to stay relatively same while finances (including the market crash that pushed us under water by HALF) forced us to stay put. With that barrier now gone, I’m less patient about it.

We have looked into additions, but they’re relatively complex and expensive with our house’s architecture, and I’d like to leave our gated community. 
Our most recent quote was $300k, which is about average for whole new construction, and still didn’t give me the greatest layout. 

[PeterPan]

4 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

I am so torn between waiting however long for the right listing

Once you're to that point, where not just any random house will do because you really want what you want, you're probably building.

So what if you go ahead and buy the lot, even if you're not ready to build? You said the finances are ok to make a move. That gives you time to sort through the details on your plan, pick materials, etc. if the price of lumber is high. It locks you in if property values are going up in your area. 

The stress is mostly choosing materials. So the more you've done that, the smoother it goes. It's all these stupid things like which shade of beige, what height of toilet, colors of fixtures, tile, stair railings, on and on. 

[Serenade]

8 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

 

So what if you go ahead and buy the lot, even if you're not ready to build?

This is what we did.  We bought our lot several years before we actually began the building process.

[mommyoffive]

We built our first home (still in) and it was super easy and no problems at all.  I am so glad that we did it.  Buying an existing house would have been fine. The other thing we were thinking about was a fixer upper and I am so glad we didn't do that. 

We also are in the same spot.  When we had the home built we had 1 baby.  Now we have 5 kids.  The home doesn't fit us at all.  Plus we didn't know that we would have them doing school at home and working from home.  We probably would have moved this summer if I could just decide on the city to live in.  We bought in 2006 and were underwater for a long time.  Now our area is booming.  Houses have offers so fast.  And we are not in an area were that has happened in the last 14 years.  We have talked about buying land and looked a lot and can't find the perfect location.  I guess no land is perfect. 

I would love to build because for the same price I can have a new home with all new parts.  

[Serenade]

12 minutes ago, Serenade said:

This is what we did.  We bought our lot several years before we actually began the building process.

 

Adding that building a house can be very stressful.  It's not something I'd want to do again, but I'm glad we did it.  We had an architect design our house, too, and that took up a bit of time as well.  Surprisingly, the architectural design didn't cost as much as I thought it would, although the guy who did it consulted on the side, apart from the architectural firm he worked for, and that helped with costs.  However, I think you can do just as well buying plans that are already made and then customizing them a bit.  My biggest advice is don't build cost plus.  That was a huge mistake we made.   Our builder, who had a good reputation (had been pres of home builders association), was unscrupulous, and we ended up paying a lot more for our house than we should have because there was no incentive for him to control costs.   Costs he put in the original budget were not accurate and were not nearly enough to cover things promised.

[cjzimmer1]

I think someone of how easy/hard it will be will depend on your personalities and how much in agreement you and your husband are.  We had our house built for us and I LOVED the process.  But DH and I had very similar ideas on most things.  For instance, the builder handed us a ring full of siding choices and told us to take it home and let him know what color we wanted.  We both looed at this ring of 20-30 choices pointed to the exact same one and said "that one".  The hardest part was the builder had contracted with carpet place for certain choices of carpet ( all shaded of tans and beige) and we hated them because we like color.  We ended up paying the carpet people extra to upgrade to the blue/green/pink colors we wanted. 

On the other hand, my friend had a small family room finished in her basement after they bought their house.  She agonized and stressed over the color of the carpet and the color of the brick on the fireplace (the only 2 things they were given choice on). They spent more time picking out those two things than we did on all the flooring, light fixtures, siding, roofing etc for our entire house.

Now that our family has grown (we had 1 child when we built this house), my dream would be have the opportunity to build again.  I really did love being able to pick out everything.

[Alte Veste Academy]

We had our current house built for us. We closed in May 2019. DH and I found the process fun and not stressful at all, but our builder was great about keeping us updated on progress, and we made frequent trips to the construction site to watch the build as it progressed. We had looked for ages and knew exactly what we wanted but could never find it. It is amazing to have the perfect layout for us, a perfect "forever home" layout that will allow us to have kids comfortably return for holidays or just if they need to stay with us for a time at any point. But their rooms are in their own area, upstairs and out of the way so that when we are empty nesters, we have our own space without feeling like we are walking by/through unused space every day. Two things that were musts for middle-aged me were a downstairs master (in case of mobility issues later) and a downstairs guest room/bath for older guests with mobility issues now). Honestly, the only compromise I made was getting a two story (which DH was completely neutral on anyway), but that worked out beautifully as well, because when all the kids are in their rooms and DH is in his game room, I feel like I have a very nice large, cozy apartment downstairs with no noisy people around me. LOL

Picking the finishes was absolutely the most fun. DH and I are very decisive about what we want and, as we tend to do, stuck to our lanes. I love living in a house where I picked everything, down to every tree and plant in the landscape. 

Edited January 6, 2021 by Alte Veste Academy

[Kassia]

We had our home built in 1997.  The big mistake we made was choosing a builder who was recommended to us in our first home, but he wasn't local to where we were building so he didn't end up using the same people he always used in his area.  So the experts he used like a plumber, electrician, etc. weren't people he was familiar with and he just chose inexpensive workers who ended up screwing up a lot of things that caused both big and small problems.  

 

I would definitely like to build again, but I doubt it will happen.  It was very nice moving into a new home with everything chosen by us.  

 

 

[Amy in NH]

4 hours ago, Serenade said:

Costs he put in the original budget were not accurate and were not nearly enough to cover things promised.

That's what happens with the cost of materials goes up. 

DH does estimating.  He can give a price for what it will cost you RIGHT NOW, but if you don't buy the supplies now and put them in a storage container then the price may go up by the time you actually purchase them when you get to that stage of the build in 6 months.  Not his fault... 

The homeowners for the current house-build he is managing have done just that - they bought their supplies now and put them in rented storage containers on site.  Not just to lock in the price, but to make sure the supples are available so that completion is not delayed.

Back in the spring, when everyone wanted to build a new deck,  pressure treated lumber was not to be found for any price.  You can bet the cost went up precipitously when it came back in stock.

Another issue that comes up - supplier/installer subs that are agreed upon in contract, but then changed mid-build by the homeowner when they find a finish they like better somewhere else.  For example:  The flooring price is for a grade of flooring (agreed upon ahead of time) purchased through and installed by xyz subcontractor.  If the buyer then decides they like such-and-such flooring from another supplier, they need to find a new installer as well, which is likely to cost more.

There are SO MANY little details that will drive up your cost!

 

[TAFKAPastry]

8 hours ago, Katy said:

You should be aware the price of construction lumber has gone way up. The price of a 2x4 has quadrupled in the past year in my area. 
 

It may be best to plan on staying put until the pandemic is over. 

Steel studs are an excellent option. Our house had them put in way back mid century, and the systems are fast to install and economical now. Slightly higher material cost than lumber used to be, but now very competitive and durable. Much easier to get a true wall surface and square corners, too.

[Katy]

3 minutes ago, TAFKAPastry said:

Steel studs are an excellent option. Our house had them put in way back mid century, and the systems are fast to install and economical now. Slightly higher material cost than lumber used to be, but now very competitive and durable. Much easier to get a true wall surface and square corners, too.

Yes. Also a pain when you’re trying to hang something. Probably what we’ll go with too. My parents home in Florida had them for the same reasons. 

[Carol in Cal.]

I have never done this, but over the years I have heard:

Figure on it costing 1.5-2X as much as projected, and taking at least twice as long.

Schedules are complete baloney.

Visit often, and address things early rather than later on.  For instance, my brother found a squeaky floorboard before the final flooring went in, and called it to the builder’s attention when it was still easy to access the cause of it.  He was told that if he hadn’t done that then, it would never have been fixed.  He visited 2-3X weekly at first, and every day toward the end.  He stayed really friendly about it.

Get recommendations for everyone working on it.

Also, just in general—there are long term crooks in this industry.  I have a friend who bought a house recently that had just been built.  The internal finishing was so bad that things are literally falling off of his walls, like cabinets (!!), within a year.  But I have another friend whose house was not fastened together properly at the head of the roof/chimney, and started pulling open just after the 10 year warranty was up.  All of the houses in his neighborhood have this same design flaw, and they have no recourse.  There are good people, too, but I don’t know how to be sure you have one.  So I am leery of building a new house.  I want one that is a bit worn in.

Also, just in general, I don’t have the ability to know proportions from looking at a blueprint, but am very sensitive to them.  I almost need to actually be in the house to know if it’s going to feel good to me or not.  

Also, again just in general, I do well at planning things only with full sized layouts.  That’s how I can really tell whether, for instance, an aisle is too narrow or not.  It’s really, really important to know yourself when it comes to that kind of thing, so you don’t make an expensive mistake that you will need to live with forever.

[Amy in NH]

FWIW, DH was told by one of his main suppliers yesterday to expect prices of building materials to continue to increase through the spring...

[Amy in NH]

19 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:

But I have another friend whose house was not fastened together properly at the head of the roof/chimney, and started pulling open just after the 10 year warranty was up.  All of the houses in his neighborhood have this same design flaw, and they have no recourse. 

Sounds like a tract of prefabricated housing.  When it's done right, it can be as good as or even better than stick-built, but if it's done wrong you won't be able to get a certificate of occupancy.  That actually happened to some poor family next-town-over - the prefab company went out of business, and they never got a CO; house still sits empty 15 years later.

[Farrar]

My parents attempt to have a house built when I was a kid resulted in bankruptcy, their divorce, and a period of homelessness (we were not literally on the streets or anything, but I spent the better part of a year without a permanent home as a child, bouncing from friends' vacation homes to borrowed motor homes and such as my parents tried desperately to figure out how to fix the hole they'd ended up in). I know that's an unusually dire story, but I would never do it in a million years.

[Carrie12345]

I don’t think we’re any closer to a decision, but I’ve been appreciating all of the input!

 

[Soror]

We built before we got married. We had dh's parents and my mine to consult of course along the way, at 20 and 23 we had little knowledge and no experience. We did a basic starter home and did what we could on our own and then finished various things through the years as we could afford it. It was not really a huge hassle as we kept it incredibly basic. We rebuilt after the house burned. That was much more stressful but that was to be expected. I had a baby 2 days after the fire. Dh was working a crap ton of hours and trying to do all these things on the house. After the house fire we increased our insurance to the max possible as if anything happens we don't want to have to go through this a third time. 

Our experiences were pretty smooth compared to many. We didn't have any trouble with the workers we did hire. The second time it was my brother and his in-law's crew. They had tons of experience and did excellent work. Finding workers that do a good job, show up, and are honest is very hard to do. The first time we relied on a friend of fil's recommendation, he owns a major lumber company in town and as such is very familiar with who does a good job and who doesn't. I'd not want to go into it blind, just trying to pick people out on my own. Dh has 2 co-workers that just built these extremely lavish and expensive homes, they recommended this concrete guy. The thing is they know nothing about building to know if he does good work. My brother with lots of building experience and friend whose husband did concrete for decades says the guy doesn't do good work and neither one would recommend him. So, just because some one does a lot of work doesn't mean they are good. 

We've been trying to build a shop for awhile(started last spring trying to get bids). We're planning to have the concrete poured and do the building ourselves. Even getting people to come out and give us bids has been nearly impossible. People say they will show up and they don't, they never call you back. Our experience is not unique, nearly everyone I know that has had work done runs into the same thing. A friend with little building experience hired some workers, of course they thought they hired someone good and they screwed all kinds of things and it has been a battle to get them to fix it and some things are not fixable.

My parents growing up built their own place, I can't remember them hiring out any of the work. Growing up I just remember things being undone for the longest time and then some things weren't done the best because my dad is not a pro. I didn't want to attempt it on our own because of this, it takes time, a lot of time. And my dh is not a pro at everything so he may not do it as well and will def. be slower. We still lived with some things being unfinished but not to the degree that I had growing up.

Building can be a great way to get exactly what you want or save money if you do work yourselves, otherwise it is generally cheaper and easier to just buy a house done. A friend bought a foreclosure, it was a steal of a deal. After that I thought we should have shopped around and found a house like that. We could have put some funds into fixing it up and then had something done.

Edited January 8, 2021 by Soror

[PeterPan]

12 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

I don’t think we’re any closer to a decision, but I’ve been appreciating all of the input!

 

If you still need help deciding...

 

 

[Carrie12345]

1 hour ago, PeterPan said:

If you still need help deciding...

 

 

That was terrific, lol!

I want to say I don’t have to worry about being that crazy, but it might be a lie. I have three different grays in my house and I’m not happy with any of them. 🤪

[PeterPan]

8 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

That was terrific, lol!

I want to say I don’t have to worry about being that crazy, but it might be a lie. I have three different grays in my house and I’m not happy with any of them. 🤪

LOL It's a great movie! You can watch the whole thing and laugh and laugh. 

You want tricks? I learned the hard way that the easiest way to get all the colors in your house to coordinate is either pick a card from the paint store (those ones with 3-5 coor colors) or go to Pottery Barn and get their palette for a given season. They used to have them as free decks but I think now they're online. https://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/color/find-and-explore-colors/pottery-barn-collection  

I used a paint/color person when I was working on the colors for our house, and it still got screwed up. I just thought use an expert, it will be right (well that and we were running late, oops), so I didn't test her choices. Well FORTUNATELY the paint store used the *names* she had written and made those names for a different BRAND than what she had intended! Hahaha, I kid you not. 

Choosing colors randomly can be very stressful. Picking a palette where it's done for you can work. Also, some of the paint fandexes will have certain colors marked. Took me a while to figure out that was their way of saying THIS WAS OUR BEST COLOR AND IF YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR IT HERE IT IS. 

So now, I could do the colors for a house pretty easily. But it's just that learning curve. 

I hope you get to go ahead and buy your lot. We had friends who bought their lot, *camped* on it for a year and had cookouts, and then slowly built it themselves as they had money. So they built the garage and a couple bedrooms, added on a master, added on a deck, built a wrap around porch. They had a vision for where they were going and they just let it grow. When we moved into our house, we lived in the basement and then finished the main floor a few years later. I think maybe I'm still owed a fireplace? Hahaha, hazards of marrying a builder. It's like the cobbler's kids having no shoes, lol. 

Oh you want a pro tip? I think someone already said to think in terms of ADA, wheel chairs, long term. I did a lot of that. I had them redraw/reorient the garage because I wanted NO steps into my house, not even one. It's completely level, which is odd but lovely. I have rolling carts for laundry. But the biggest tip is *build more garage space* than you think you need. Guys get so exuberant with their garage space! My dh keeps thinking things up. We claimed some space like under a porch, etc. to make more space. 

Drywall comes in 10' lengths. Don't do it, don't do 10' walls. I have them and they are NOT cozy. Ain't no paint fixing this. I mean, I try, but I so wish he had trimmed it to 9'. I also wish we had put in a loft.

I decided today that when he dies (which is not eminent, but still), I'm going to have the whole main floor repainted in pastels. Right now it's in vibrant primary tones (yellow, red, etc.), which I love. But just for a change, when I'm ready to have it done, that's what I'll do. But again, those stupid tall walls and vaults and junk, I can't just paint and change it easily, kwim? You end up needing to hire it, which means it doesn't get done.

https://www.amazon.com/Not-So-Big-House-Blueprint/dp/1600850472/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+not+so+big+house&qid=1610154378&sr=8-1  This is what I was reading when we built our house. It's not what happened, and apparently our architect could not think in terms of it either. But you know, read, see what you think. She has another book and probably more by now. If I were building again (which I hope some day I'll get to do, just because I like to think about how life changes or could be different), I probably would go 4 bedrooms and meticulously design my everyday/leisure sitting spaces. I didn't really do that, because I was so in the learning phase of kitchen design, kwim? https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Kitchen-Design-Cooking/dp/0932767095  This is the book I used for that. By the time you really think through how you cook, where you want everything, materials, colors, how that fits with the potential layout the architect has drawn, measurements of every counter, heights for your space area that goes under a bay window, where the tv will go and measure it out and test angles, aisle widths, which types of appliances (french, bottom mount, drawers, on and on), pantry design, etc., there's just not a lot of energy left to fuss over *where you will sit to read in the morning*. Kwim? And yet, once your kitchen is done, what do you really want? Hahaha, that perfect place to sit. 

I've moved my desk multiple times in this house, because the office placement for me was inept. I mean, we put in beautiful cabinets in the first spot the architect chose, but the NOISE from the stupid nonenclosed frig/deep freeze in that entry room (don't get me started) is so much I blur out. I'm probably going to move my desk again soon as I have a new idea I want to try, hehe. 

You did say to go on and on, right? Hahaha, no seriously, have fun. That movie (Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House) is way fun. 

[Carrie12345]

18 hours ago, PeterPan said:

ou did say to go on and on, right? Hahaha

I most certainly did!
We’re supposed to be going to look at an existing house this weekend, but we’re also going to start setting appointments to talk to builders and get some info on a few pieces of land. STILL not sure I want to do that, but we might as well get preliminaries out of the way in the meantime.