So here’s the deal. I am going to give you an actual check list of what order things are typically done when building. But I need you to know that building a house is dependent on………. weather, humans, and where you are building. Which means that if you have terrible weather (thank you Ohio) this list might change and timing might be adjusted. And because building is so dependent on sub-contractors, if one is running behind it can mess up timing of other things too. Also, depending on where you live this list can have things it is missing or things that need to be added to it (i.e. a structural engineer stamp or added township inspections).
Also, I know you know this but planning is key. I highly suggest you read First Things First: Building a House. This list is really for after you have your land secured and builder selected. Also, because I am super nice if you want this in a PDF list scroll to the bottom.
Address
Through Township- Our township trustees are only there a few times/hours a month, but we got it approved the day we took it
Also register mail address with USPS- took a few weeks
Driveway Permit
Through ODOT (Ohio Dept. of Transportation because we built on a State road)
Ours came within a week
Soil Samples
Took about a month
Site Survey/Septic Design
We gave a set of plans we drew up that showed approx. footage off the road, size of house, angle of house, etc.
They used this for official plans which was sent to the Septic Designer who overlaid Septic Plans
Site Survey said 6 weeks out but took more like 8 weeks- dependent on how backed up your contractor is
Once the Septic Designer got the Site Survey and soil results this only took a few weeks
House Plans (working on at the same time as septic etc.)
This took almost 10 weeks and I had to stay on top of them
We did not have to have an engineer stamp
Our plans had trusses not rafters (trusses are stamped by the manufacture of the trusses)
Our plans had the basic electric work up (i.e. pointed out where the double oven was, smoke detectors, etc.) but did not include the number of circuits needed which we got that number from our electrician (we needed this for the permit application)
Township Permit
Through our Township- they are only there a few times/hours a month, but again this was approved the day we took it
You will need your Site Survey
Septic Permit
Through the Board of Health
You will need your Site Survey, Township Permit, and Septic Design
Approved within a week, typically whoever is doing your septic gets this for you but he was busy so we just went ahead and got it
Building Permit
Through our County
You will need your approved Septic Permit, multiple sets of plans, Site Survey, Township permit, and plus we had to fill out an application
We had our plans not accepted once because we needed to mark two small things (CO detectors outside all bedrooms and bathroom exhaust fans needed to vent outside)
The process of turning them in, rejection, then resubmitting and approval took 5 days
Temporary Electric
This was through our electric company and our electrician helped set it up
We had to wait on land clearing and loan completion
Loan Process
Pre-approved in March, construction loan finalized in August. (6 months) (I think this can go faster if you stay on top of the bank. We were not in a rush.)
Items the Bank requested
Financials Records (W2, Tax Returns, paystubs, etc.)
Cost breakdown (Builder’s cost plus all “other” costs)
Builder’s Contract
Builder’s Risk Insurance (through your agent)- this is good for one year
Additionally, since we did do some land clearing and half driveway before our loan was approved we had to send a Letter of Intention
Application fee, plus down payment
Final plan design with Builder
Once we had the loan closing date we scheduled a time with our Builder to go over the plan one more time.
Foundation Poured (footers and basement walls)
Two weeks out from loan closing
I think this depends on what projects they have going and where you are on the list
Footers need inspected.
Also, if like us you do a roughed-in future bathroom in the basement, this will need inspected before you pour concrete.
Framing
Completed within a month of ground breaking
Framing needs inspected.
Dried In
This includes outside wall sheeting, windows, and doors installed
Within 2 months of foundation being poured
HVAC, Electric and Plumbing
Once your house has doors and windows and can be locked you can start on these projects
These all take a lot of time. I’m hesitant to even give a typical time frame as it is really on-going the entire time you are building.
All this will need a “rough-in” inspection and a final inspection.
Water Tap and Permanent electric
Through whoever your utilities are through.
From applying for the taps/meters to install this was about 10 days.
Make sure you meet with these utility companies before they install so you know where you’ll be running these from the road to your house.
Once the tap/permanent electric is done you can run these pipes/conduit to your house
Septic Installation
This can actually be installed as soon as your basement walls are up and your pipe is through the wall. Again, we did not have city sewer and the wait list for contractors in our area was a YEAR. Seriously. It is based on how wet it is, and for us we picked the wettest year in Ohio.
This will need an inspection.
Exterior and Interior Insulation
Took a couple days to do.
This will need to be inspected too. When in doubt get everything inspected.
Drywall
You have to have insulation and HVAC done. Side note: make sure your HVAC does not run when they are sanding drywall. Trust me.
This take about 2 to 3 weeks.
Painting and Staining
About a week.
Doors and Trim
About a week.
Flooring
Again about a week.
Kitchen Cabinets, Appliances, and Counter-Tops
You want to make sure you are timing this right. Our cabinets came in about 4 weeks too early, which the company who we bought the cabinets from was nice enough to let us store them in their warehouse.
Final grading
This will typically include some final landscaping and sidewalks.
Final Inspection
Occupancy Permit
House warming party that you invite me to and serve wine at?
YIKES. Are you still with me????? Did your eyes glaze over???? I’ll admit it is a lot. This was by far my least favorite post to write because of how overwhelming it is. Even now I’m afraid I might have missed something. I still think it gives you a good approximate timing of projects and order. And in full disclosure since we aren’t 100% moved into our house (again thank you Ohio weather) I will update this if it changes. If you just want the PDF of this list click here.
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26
You didn’t read that wrong. God is greater than Santa. Although, I also believe he is much greater than Satan too, my kids don’t know much about Satan yet. They do know about Santa in all his red suit glory though. He’s the man who brings them tangible gifts on Christmas morning. He comes down a chimney, he has reindeer, he likes cookies and milk, you know…. Santa. So when my 6 year old and 4 year old declared God was greater than Santa I felt like mom of the year. No, mom of the decade. I could just quit parenting right then because my kids got it. They were able to rationalize that without God there would be no Santa. To you this may not be a big deal but to them it was. They have physically received something from Santa before. They’ve seen the cookies gone on Christmas morning and they’ve even sat on Santa’s lap. However, God is someone they know about, and although I feel His presence and see Him all around, I can’t be sure that my kids fully grasp that. In fact the conversation pretty much took a sharp u-turn after their amazing declaration because the middle child started asking me if God could juggle. So maybe don’t engrave the “mom of the decade” trophy with my name just yet.
My kids do have a tendency to point out my flaws though. You see I am equally parts “God is the most powerful” and then turning around questioning if God can “juggle” or if he can be trusted to protect my kids at school, if I can trust Him with my finances, or questioning Him why bad things happen to good people.
I told you already I had major control issues, but let me introduce you to my other wonderful flaw: I don’t know God enough to know how powerful He is.
Every time I turn around I am limiting God. I view Him through a human lens. For example for me it is sometimes tough to love someone, not judge them but hold them accountable, and stand firm in my beliefs so that I don’t seem lukewarm (Revelations 3:16). So usually I just pick one of those things to concentrate on. It’s too complicated to be ALL the things God asks me to be, so I usually just concentrate on one area and make sure I am being all in all a good person. One of the problems with this mentality is that it means I sometimes forget that God can be all those things. Because I can’t do it I ridiculously assume God can’t do it.
Not only is this probably highly offensive to God but I know this isn’t what God wants. He’s tired of me compartmentalizing Him. He’s probably rolled His eyes at me 100 times saying “Sam are we seriously having this conversation again?”. He’s led me more times than I can count to the perfect verse to calm my soul. He’s taken care of things I didn’t even know I needed taken care of. He’s loved me, nudged me when I’m not being who He created me to be, and He’s had the most consistent character of anyone I’ve ever known. He’s all the things at once, and He’s not just like that with me but with everyone. Yikes. I can barely keep up with 1 husband and 3 kids let alone everyone.
The positive thing is that He’s constantly giving me chances to see how great He is. When tough issues arise that I honestly don’t know which side I’m on, He gently reminds me that I can ask for wisdom. He knows I am not going to understand it all. He knows I will fall short. Oh and He knows I am never going to totally get it. But He wants me to get it.
He wants me to understand Him a little more every day. He knows if I get to know His character more then:
1) I will love Him more- because how couldn’t you? When I discover new things my kids can do it literally makes my heart so full and happy. I love them more day after day. The same is true for God, the more you know Him the more you love Him.
2) If I know what His character is I would know how He would respond. Which would make my life a lot easier.
So how do I get to know Him better? It’s kind of sad to me that I keep forgetting that there is an actual manual for life. I can’t tell you how many times when my kids were babies I would complain to my mom that there was no book that told you how to do it exactly. She’d always laugh and tell me it is because she has yet to see a book about babies written by the expert themselves: the baby. That’s not the case with God. He’s given us a book written by the expert. He’s laid out every single scenario possible and told us what would make our life easier. And because He knew we’d question it, He sent down His son to say “yes, actually it is possible. Maybe not for you but through me it is”.
I can’t promise to always remember what God is capable of. What I can promise myself, and what I would love to encourage you to do also, is to try to know Him a little more each day. Maybe tomorrow we might remember that God is greater than Santa and He can juggle too.
So I told you in 5+ Ways to Save $ on Building a house that Kyle and I (heavy emphasis on Kyle) did some of the work ourselves. So I wanted to provide you some honest feedback on what worked for us and what didn’t.
I’ll be real (and maybe a bit braggy) Kyle and I rarely fight. It’s not because I’m an amazing person who solves conflict well or never does anything wrong- it is mostly because Kyle hates conflict and is really easy going. Ah– but that was prior to building a house together. I still think we weathered the house building storm well as a couple but if we did fight about anything on the house…… it’s most likely on this list.
Being our own general contractor. The beginning part of building and being your own contractor is hard. Knowing what steps you have to start with and filling out permits are a bit confusing. Thankfully, we found a lot of helpful people at our township and county, plus some friends who had built/build houses for a living. The biggest part is how time consuming it is. Being there for inspections, filling out the permits, scheduling the temporary and permanent electric, etc. I would suggest only doing this if you have some type of flexibility. Kyle saved up all his vacation time and he scheduled things on his lunch hour. Not to mention the time before work and after.
Some land clearing. We bought 8 acres of trees. Tall trees, small trees, dead trees, beautiful trees, just lots and lots of trees. Kyle started cutting up trees for where our driveway and house would be in February 2018. A year later and he is still cutting up trees. Two of our builders’ quotes included tree clearing at about $10K. This is a high price because DISCLAIMER cutting down trees is dangerous. I still lean on the side that this was probably worth doing it ourselves Kyle doing it (the boys need their mom so I wasn’t cutting up any trees!). We could work at our own pace and the only thing it bothers is that the outside of the house is a little messier than I’d prefer. But for $10K I can handle it looking like a tornado went through. (We also spent money to have a landscaping company clear the undergrowth and cut ATV trails in our woods. This was about $1,500 and well worth it!)
Electric and Plumbing. Well. Here goes. It was nice being married while it lasted. My answer is this is absolutely not worth it. We saved about $2K from our original quote and Kyle spent about 90 hours in total to save that amount. Now here’s the thing, Kyle needed to have a part in our house build. I am not sure if your spouse (or maybe you do too) find worth in having your hands in the actual building of the house, but my husband finds worth in this. He doesn’t care about the paint color or kitchen cabinets, he was about as useless as they came when picking out flooring or tile. But he wanted to run the electric and plumbing and there is value in that. Plus he now knows intimately all the workings of our house. So although my answer still leans towards the not worth it column on this in general, if I wanted to be a great supportive wife I’d tell you that by doing it ourselves we saved some money and the quality can’t be beat.
Fireplace Installation. Kyle did all the framing and installation of the fireplace. This took about 5 hours and saved us $900. One thing I want to make sure I mention here is that for $50 the same place who was going to charge us $900 to install the fireplace came out to inspect my husband’s handiwork. This ensured our warranty was able to be enforced (just in case) and honestly gave us peace of mind. Totally worth it.
Fireplace mantel, hearth, and surround. We are still working on this so I’ll update this post once we are finished with a full report.
Kitchen Cabinet Installation. Between the Builder helping (for free!) and my husband we saved about $2K on installing our kitchen cabinets. I can’t recommend enough to just check with your Builder to see what they would charge to install the cabinets vs. what the company where you buy your cabinets will charge. Like I’ve said before get multiple quotes for everything!
Island knee wall and stove vent hood. This is another thing we are still working on, so TBD. But I’ll let you know that custom shiplap vent hoods are super pricey! Like over a thousand dollars pricey. So I think it’s probably safe to assume this is in the win column for saving money but I’ll update once it is 100% done.
Running Water/Electric to house. So first, a big shout out to our brother-in-law Joe who helped Kyle with this! Along with hiring a friend who owns a mini excavator, Kyle was able to run electric and water from the road to our house for about $1.5K. This took one 8 hour day and was worth it. We’d estimate we saved a few thousand dollars by doing this.
Interior Insulation. We spent $760 on the actual material to reduce the sound in our walls since we have an open concept living area. It took Kyle, his dad, and myself 3 hours to do this one night. We probably saved at least a few hundred $’s and honestly it was some of the most uninterrupted conversation time Kyle and I have had….since….well….. since having the first kid. Well worth it!
There are still some areas of the house we are working on but for the most part this is what we tried to tackle ourselves. If you are going to build (and want to do some of the work yourself) I would sit down beforehand and make sure you have a good estimate on how much time it would take you to do something and if the potential savings is worth it.
Looking back on it we were really happy with the projects we decided to do…… and we are still happily married.
Blah. I am sure you are going to hate seeing this as the opening line to every single one of my posts….. but here it is again…….. this is just who we used to help build our house. You can take this list or leave it. Although, I think they do quality work and I would recommend all of our vendors (which I think is unique for someone whose built a house because boy oh boy have I heard horror stories!) you might not have the same experience as me- or know even better vendors. Also, if you aren’t in the Cincinnati area this is probably a pretty useless post for you to read.
General Contractor: Tritek, LLC (even though we didn’t use a General Contractor Joe Speeg was more than helpful at the beginning and answered a ton of questions)
Electric and Plumbing: Kyle and Kena Willingham (OK so here’s the deal he also goes by Pineapple so if you are from our area and are thinking “who is Kena?” it’s Pineapple’s real name) (513-238-0611)
Painting: Adam West (he gave us an amazing quote and we’ve seen his work- unfortunately our Builder had us use his sub-contractor.)
Flooring: RJC Flooring and Construction (513-233-5581, he also gave a great quote and does quality work but we had to use our Builder’s sub-contractor.)
OK, I think that is the list of the vendors we used. What is not included in this list is the sub-contractors our Builder used for drywall, tile, and flooring. They did great work, we just don’t know their contact information since our Builder sub-contracted it out for us.
Also not included is what all we (aka Kyle) did to help build our house and cut down on cost. Check this out for that list!
I feel obligated to tell you (again) that I am not a professional contractor. My goal of writing these blogs is to help those who think they might want to build or are planning to build. I realized that there is a lot of information out there when it came to building. There are blogs about decorating, picking house plans, what not to forget while building, how to build the house yourself, etc. What each of these have in common is that it is based off our own experiences. So what I think is important to mention is not all inclusive but it is what I’ve found helpful………..
And one thing I asked when starting to build is…… where the heck do you start when you decide you want to build?!
Step 1: Homework.
You do not start with picking out house plans, or even picking out where you want to buy land. No, you start by looking at blogs like this or talking to people who have built and getting a good idea of what it entails to build. I can’t imagine I am the only one, but when we decided to build it was a completely foreign concept. I knew how to buy a house- well let me rephrase- I knew how to look up houses on a real estate website and then ask my realtor to show me a house, and then have her draw up all the contracts to buy the house. Building a house is starting from scratch and is so unique from state to state, county to county, and township to township. It is really important to ask questions to people who have built near you and to make some calls to your township/county to see what they require.
Step 2: More homework.
Hopefully when you did your Step 1 homework you included curriculum about figuring out what it costs to build a house. If not, let me spell it out: You need to know what you can afford, what it costs to build in your area, and you need to talk to your preferred lender to see what all they need.
I like to work backwards to figure out what I can afford. I think budgeting a house payment at 25% of your monthly income is recommended by Dave Ramsey and it has worked for me so far. You need to have a really good idea of what you can afford. Not what the bank says you can afford but truly what you can afford. If you have never done a monthly budget- you need to start.
You need to know what it will cost you to build. This was semi-fun for me. I say semi because I love all things budget but it was also shocking to know what some things cost (curse you beautiful board and batten!). Our first quote we received was from a commercial builder. They had model homes we could tour and gave us a quote and a spec sheet after about two hours. This was amazing for us because now we had a baseline to measure against. When we met with other builders we knew exactly what to ask for and could compare apples to apples. Plus they build a house every other day in our area so they walked us through the timeline for our county. Even though we choose a different builder it was a great experience for us with fact gathering.
Just because we knew what we could afford and we had got quotes within that budget doesn’t mean the bank is on the same page. I also got pre-approved for our construction loan. We did this the same way we got pre-approved for a conventional loan. So we provided W2’s, tax returns, bank statements, etc. It wasn’t until we went to actually apply for the loan that we provided our building contract, house plans, and cost sheets.
Step 3: Oh my land-a.
Another part of your homework will be figuring out where you are building. No matter if you are searching for land, buying in a sub-divided neighborhood, or building on your family’s farm, land is a big part of the equation from a price standpoint. We bought 8 acres of trees (anyone need firewood???), a long narrow plot, no access to public sewer, and no existing driveway. This meant we knew we’d have extensive costs for land clearing, a septic system, and to put a driveway in. We already knew we couldn’t afford to build a house way back in the woods because that meant buying a transformer for electric, running water back to the house, and doubling the cost of our driveway so the narrow plot was OK for us. My point is, when looking for the land you plan to build on make sure you are thinking about how you plan to get utilities to it and what it will cost to make it house ready.
Step 4 : Stop looking for 4 bedroom houses.
Ok, maybe this is too in the weeds of my own build but I swear this was eye opening to me! When we started to look at house plans I kept putting in the desired number of bedrooms. It wasn’t until we started obtaining quotes that I switched my mindset to looking for square feet. If you are building a custom home you can configure it anyway you’d like. I started to be less concerned with how many rooms there were to concentrating more on the structure of the house. Is it open concept, what is the roof pitch, in general where are things laid out? Once I knew what my budget was I knew I couldn’t afford more than 2,500 square feet. We found a three bedroom plan with a formal dining room that we turned into the fourth bedroom we needed.
Step 5: Go on tour.
I think this is an extremely important part of the building process. When Kyle and I first moved in together we lived in a lovely trailer built in the 70’s or 80’s (?). We had a mouse problem, an insulation problem (it was cold in the winter and hot in the summer), and it was an amazing house for the two poor kids we were. We upgraded after about 5 years to a foreclosed house that we loved. It had three bedrooms, no master bath, color-blind previous owners, and a hodge podge of furniture and fixtures. We added three boys to that house and we quickly realized our once forever house was really a 7 year house. What I am trying to say here is that we did not even know what our preferences were when it came to a forever house. We took a list of things we didn’t like about our old house, what we loved about it, and then married it with what was out there. One way we did that was by just seeing what was out there. We toured model homes, asked friends what they loved about their house, or wished they had. We went to home shows. We used a lot of date nights to look at houses and research together to know what we wanted out of our house.
As you can see, RESEARCH is the first step when building a house. As you might recall in my 5+ Ways to Save Money When Building a House post I said one way you can save money is by planning well. Doing a lot of research up front will make your build run more smoothly and hopefully save you money.
I hate snakes. Like seriously– snakes are terrible. They are cold blooded, which I always associate with being a killer. They climb trees, but they have 0 arms or legs. And how the heck do they swim on top of the water??? Unnatural. They creep along and are mostly camouflaged so you never know when you will be attacked by one. I’ve actually never been attacked by one, but I did have one CRAWL over my bare foot when I was walking in my back yard once- so pretty much the same thing. I like it when people tell me “they are more afraid of you than you are of them”. I disagree. If that snake was afraid of me it wouldn’t have had the nerve to invade my personal space like it did.
I think this stems back to my childhood when my older brother would catch baby snakes and throw them at me. The fear escalated when I would go over to my aunt’s house and her two boys, my cousins, would randomly catch snakes and bring them in her house.
So when God blessed me with not 1 but 3 little boys I had serious post-traumatic flash backs to how the boys in my family couldn’t get enough of the evil creatures.
This real ugly fear of snakes was something I was determined to not pass down to my boys. At the zoo I finally acknowledged there was a reptile house and even ventured in there from time to time. When a picture of a snake came up in a book we were reading or Wild Kratts showed how Python mothers lay all these eggs and then like the terrible creatures they are abandon them, I hid my gags. My kids quickly caught on though that their mom wasn’t a huge fan of snakes.
Unfortunately, instead of me passing down this particular fear to them, I instead passed down my humor. Because now it was a game. One time the oldest was walking through the zoo and they had a snake you could pet. He slyly looked at me and said “Mom, I want to pet it.” so instead of panic I started grabbing the hand-sanitizer so that I could wash his hands of that filth as soon as he touched it. Then the little snake (the kid, not the actual snake) said “but it’s big. Can you touch it first?” Blah. So like the good mother I pretend to be on Facebook I touched it. Then my own flesh and blood started to walk away. My eyes got so big and I am sure CPS was about to be called when he turned around and said “I changed my mind I don’t want to touch it.” Still to this day he’s not in the will because of this little trick.
Ah, it gets better though. From time to time my middle child will be hiking, playing in a creek, or just having fun outside. Then all of a sudden he’ll make a bee-line for something. 9 out of 10 times he pops up with a little snake in his hands. Yes, I have a snake catcher living in my house.
Isn’t that how life is though? We have a plan, it includes avoiding anything that could cause us to stumble and also takes a hard turn when we encounter something we fear.
Fear is a big motivator for me. At one point in my life I was so fearful of becoming a mom that I told Kyle I didn’t want kids. I felt I wouldn’t be a very good mom (still debatable) and I wasn’t a natural at it like other people I’ve seen. Once I had kids, I became fearful of this world in a way that is hard to explain. I gave up watching the news because of how sad it was, I wouldn’t let my kids go with anyone but a few trusted people and once that even included my own dad because I thought he might get into a car wreck. Because, you know, I’m immune to getting into car accidents.
It also manifested in an ugly way of being over critical of my kids. I’m not joking when I say that I am not a natural mother. From the time I was pregnant to now I am constantly researching all things motherhood, asking people how to parent, and in general just winging it. I’d take lists to my OB of questions I had. But they actually weren’t questions, they were fears. Did I weigh too much to have a healthy pregnancy? I had low iron- so how will that effect the baby? Should I start a gestational diabetic eating plan at 10 weeks- because I might have it? Can you tell if I’ll need a c-section? What can I do now to ensure that I’ll be able to breastfeed?
When I had my son it didn’t get better. Was he making eye contact appropriately? Did he have enough muscle mass? Is he eating enough? Is he hitting milestones like he should? My sister was an early childhood intervention specialist- so you better believe I made her do evaluations on my kid. I was constantly reading to him, making him play developmentally appropriate games, and in all honesty trying to condition him into the perfect child. I think all moms go through this a little bit but I think I might have been taking it to an extreme.
You know why I didn’t want my fear of snakes to pass down to my kids? Because I didn’t want to limit them. I didn’t want a fear of snakes to keep them from enjoying swimming in a pond (which I still will not do to this day). I didn’t want them to not want to go on a hike because they might see a snake. I didn’t want them to miss out on something enjoyable because of fear. It was so easy to identify my fear of snakes. It was harder to realize I had a deep fear of being a mom, or a fear of screwing up my kids. I was turning something amazing like motherhood into something not as enjoyable because of my constant fears of if I was doing it right. The hardest part? I realized I might be pushing those fears on my kids. I was making them anxious. The oldest started biting his nails and you could tell he felt a pressure to behave a certain way. It was my worst fear- I screwed up my kid.
It didn’t happen right away but little by little I gave my fear up. I tried to consciously not let fear dictate my life. How? Well for me, I did it by calling out the fear and prayerfully giving it to God. I also let my kids see me pray about it and talk about it. I wanted them to know that even though I was nervous about something it wasn’t going to stop me from going about my day.
Maybe you too have fear that keeps you from enjoying things like you should. Maybe you’re at the step where you need to identify what that fear might be. What trait do you not want to pass down to your kids? Is it your fear of snakes? Or something more?
Since I was working with a limited budget I was mostly concerned with saving money, not spending it while building our house. (if you’re interested in where we saved the most money check this out) However, there are some things (for us at least) that are just worth the money.
I think these fall into a few categories:
Things you can’t do down the road.
Things that you can do down the road, but let’s be serious you probably won’t.
Things that might add to the bottom line but are worth it.
Things you can’t do later down the road.
There are certain things you can upgrade or do later down the road when building and then there are things that you can’t- or rather if you do it will cost you more than it is worth.
We built an open concept living room, kitchen, and dining room type of house. You know, just like any other modern farmhouse. I don’t regret this at all. There is a con to this type of floor plan though- it is loud. I’m not sure who you live with- but I live with three boys who would be excellent salesmen for earplugs. So for $760 we invested in sound insulation for our interior walls. When you build, you usually only insulate the exterior walls. I am so thankful we went ahead and did this (and when I say we I mean my husband and I used a date night to shove batts of insulation in the walls). However, could you imagine if we got into our house and decided a few years into it that we wanted to do this? We would of had to take off one side of the drywall, put the insulation in, put the drywall back up, and then repaint. Yeah, no thanks. $760 well spent in my opinion. Here are some other structural type changes I’m glad we did:
Interior insulation.
Running gas to our back porch for a grill.
Rough-in plumbing in our basement even though it is unfinished.
Two extra conduit pipes from our attic to basement for future wires (i.e. future security systems or TV setup).
Electric and conduit from where we would mount a TV in the living room to the closet to hide wires.
Bigger garage. My husband’s truck is a crew-cab, long-bed- enough said.
1st floor master and wheelchair accessible doors and hallways. Just in case- after what we’ve spent we don’t ever plan to move.
Bonus: Our bonus room above our garage was also something we added that increased the price but for us will be needed space eventually. Adding it on now was much cheaper than adding it on in the future.
Things you can do later on, but let’s be serious you won’t.
I’m not sure about you but my house usually has an entire list of things that need to be done that never get done. I keep telling myself we will do it, but let’s be real, when I get home from work the last thing on my mind is home improvements. In fact in our old house we finally painted the hallways…. just to make it look better to sell.
One thing we went ahead and upgraded on that falls in this category is cabinets and counter tops. We could replace them down the road, but it wouldn’t be anytime soon and it would be a lot of work to replace them. If you’re building a house I suggest putting some money into the kitchen. You do not want to upgrade that thing right off the bat.
Kitchen upgrades.
Trim. Trust me- no one replaces trim. If you want wide trim just get it.
Flooring. I know I said you can save money here but make sure you are buying something you won’t just want to replace in a few years. That’s a lot of work.
Bonus: This might be a preference but smooth ceilings is sometimes an upgrade with builders that I personally think it is easier to do now than later.
Things that might add to the bottom line but are worth it.
I really don’t think of this category as “upgrades”. I think of it more as good ideas to remember when building because you’ll probably find them useful……..
Dimmer switches or some USB electric outlets in strategic places.
Extra lights. In front of closets, extra kitchen or bathroom lights, etc.
Extra outlets. In and under cabinets, one where you plan to put your Christmas tree, in the pantry, in the entry way , in closets, floor outlets, outlets in the garage, outlets on the porch, etc. – make sure you have enough outlets.
Tank-less water heater or our preference: an electric heat pump- water heater (in our old house it dropped our electric bill $30 a month!)
Bonus: Alternative heating and air. We installed an outdoor wood burning stove. This helps reduce energy costs in the winter and heats our water too. We also installed an attic fan- this let’s us keep our air conditioner off for at least two weeks extra in the summer.
I’ll be honest. I can find a whole list of things that I think were worth my money when it came to building. For example: a pot filler. My boys (husband included) think that pasta is a side dish to every meal, so it was worth it to me. However, I wanted to keep this list as a high-level concept list vs. a “do it exactly how I did it” list. The wonderful thing about building is that YOU get to choose what is too important to compromise. Hopefully this list gave you a framework to think about those things.
I love to apologize. I remember getting a letter when I was a kid from a really dear friend of mine that said “I wish you’d stop saying sorry so much”. My first gut reaction was to apologize. I so badly wanted to go up to her and ask her if she was still my friend even though I was annoying.
Sometimes I use the word “sorry” to replace “excuse me”. Like when my kid gets up to use the bathroom during a play and we are in the middle of the row I like to say “Oh, I’m so sorry, can we get past you?”. Sometimes I say sorry in a sarcastic type of way like “I’m so sorry you can’t be bothered to answer my call Kyle- who else could possibly be more important than your WIFE!”. Most of the time though I really am sorry and I like to tell people how sorry I am.
There is probably a lot of insecurity issues and childhood traumas that have led me to being an overly apologetic human being. But of all things I am not sorry about, it is being sorry all the time.
Have any of you experienced a time where someone did something offensive to you and they say the dreaded sentence “well, I’m sorry you took it that way”? Another personal favorite of mine is “I’m sorry but x,y,z happened” aka it’s not my fault.
When I hear things like this it makes me feel as a society that we have become so adverse to showing any signs of weakness or being honest in our failures that we forget there is usually another actual person on the other side that has worth. That is a mouth full of a sentence so let me break it down. When you apologize it is for the benefit of the other person. It is not to show your weakness. If you are saying sorry right, it has nothing to do with your weakness or with your failures and everything to do with making sure the person you are apologizing to still knows they are important, or worthy.
I actually had an example of this that played out today and sorry (lol) that I am being vague but there are people I want to protect. Anyways, I was telling someone that I didn’t receive some information that I should have. I handled it the right way and let the person who didn’t give me the information know they really needed to make sure they let me know in the future and let it go. Within the next hour I had been forwarded an email where in fact they did send me the information. I immediately apologized that I had missed it, and I also went out of my way to let the person I told originally know I actually did receive it.
Simple right? I wanted to make sure my friend knew I recognized my mistake so that next time it wouldn’t happen. I wanted them to know that I knew they did what they were supposed to and they were worthy. I also didn’t want the other person to think poorly about the friend. Did it make it look like I missed the information the first time and was irresponsible? Probably. Do I think anyone gave it that much thought afterwards? Probably not.
Could you imagine if I didn’t apologize? If that friend continued to think that the other friend didn’t do what I needed, or if the one friend thought I thought they were irresponsible? It would make for some complex relationships.
You see when you say sorry for a simple error it stays like that….. a simple error.
Instead, what I see all the time is when the simple mistakes aren’t dealt with they stop being simple and start to become complex. It starts to become something that festers and gets bigger and bigger and bigger. In our marriages I see it all the time. We let something as simple as not taking out the trash stop being something as simple as just taking out the trash and instead it becomes “you never listen to me” or “you think x,y,z are more important than me”.
With our kids; when they ask us to do something like play a game of UNO and we tell them “after dinner” and then forget, it is simple to say “I’m sorry I forgot, we don’t have time for UNO now but I’ll read you a book”. It is more complex to deal with a child who becomes accustomed to someone always letting them down than to just say sorry and try to do better next time.
Not repeating your mistakes or trying to do better is just as important as saying the actual words “I’m sorry”. We as a society need to do better about linking actions to words. When a child becomes an adult and hasn’t seen their parents actually apologize, something as simple as just saying sorry becomes a more complex issue of a future adult who doesn’t know how to take responsibility for their actions.
Saying sorry also forces you to become vulnerable. I think the world teaches us that being vulnerable equals weakness. Now I’m a Bible believer so I know that our weakness is where God shows up. You might not think that so let me take another approach to this; Vulnerability shows someone that you can be honest and trusted. How much better would this world be if we had more honest and trustworthy people in it? A lot.
Now saying sorry for a simple error vs. saying sorry for something you can’t take back or where you can’t try to better next time because there is no next time, is not called “being sorry”. That’s called asking for grace. That is really different…….. and sorry to say………. a whole other post.
I’ve invited you to small group for a while now. You sometimes ignore my text or call, sometimes you answer me and say maybe, and sometimes you say yes- but we both know you aren’t coming.
You see, I know you have a sweet baby at home. One that is still nursing. One that still needs you and only you to tuck them in. One that you haven’t seen all day because you are at work and miss your baby so much that as soon as you get home you can’t possibly think about leaving them again.
I see how hard you work to give your baby just the right amount of kisses and cuddles. You make sure you’ve read to them each night. You know you only have a small window that they are little and you need to soak up as much time with them as possible.
I know this season of life is tough. I know you are juggling hungry babies, moody toddlers, and independent-think-they-don’t-need-you-anymore little kids. So I know you skip church more than you’d like. You don’t want to impose your child’s tantrums on the nursery volunteer and most Sundays the kids distract you too much to actually get anything out of a sermon.
I was you, I am you.
Oh, how I know how hard it is to get the kids out of the house on time. Some days I swear it is my boys sole objective to see how many times I can tell them to get dressed. Surely they are keeping a tally of the times I yell and they are just trying to see if they can beat their all time record.
I also know time slips by way too fast. I still can’t believe that my oldest is in school. I miss him. I mean I miss him being a baby- reflux and all. I miss his tantrums, although he still has them from time to time, they aren’t quite as sweet as his pouting wails because I broke his granola bar in two.
I understand why you don’t come to small group and I feel you on a gut level of why you avoid church. I know you’ll come when life isn’t so hectic. Or when your baby doesn’t need you as much.
But what I need to tell you is that your baby needs you to go to small group. Those babies need to scream at those nursery volunteers. Ok, maybe that is a stretch but hear me out.
There is going to come a time where you need to know your identity is not defined by your kids. This might manifest because one of your kids does something terrible and you need to know that your kids make their own choices (good and bad) and it does not matter how amazing their upbringing was. They aren’t perfect and mistakes will be made. You need to know that your kids mistakes aren’t all your fault.
There will come a time where you find yourself with more free time than you had before. Maybe it is while sitting at a t-ball practice, but I promise you, you will not always be nursing or rocking a baby to sleep. It is during these times a small whisper will say “now what?”.
You need a tribe of friends to help you navigate these things. They will calm your soul and say sweet things like “I know”. They won’t try to fix you, they’ll just cry with you. Your pain will be their pain, you will share joy and laughter like you’ve never experienced. You’ll learn together how to get through the struggles of life by relying on the truths God laid out for you to follow.
Your kids need to see this. There will be a day when they aren’t guided 100% by you. They’ll be influenced by their friends. They need to know how to pick good friends. They need to see what that looks like. That it isn’t a one sided relationship, that a real friend is your cheerleader and a real friend truly cares about your happiness. They are a friend who holds you accountable– and sometimes that means telling you “that’s not how you’re supposed to act”.
Though church might be hard right now, you need to try. As a mom I know you know this but they aren’t going to stay this little forever. This season of tantrums when you drop them off will slowly fade, they won’t always scream “let me down” while their baby brother is being dedicated in front of the church, and they won’t always make a bee line for the drums on stage. The church needs to see them in all their glory. Sometimes I think it’s because God needs a chuckle that day. But I know it’s also because when you see a child grow up before your eyes, you are more invested in that child. Your child needs people who are looking out for them against this world.
Also, sweet momma, sometimes God repays you for your faithfulness and provides you amazing moments. Moments so tender you think you can’t possibly love any deeper. Moments where your six year old and four year old have discussions in the car about how strong God is and declare loudly that God is better than Santa because without God there would be no Santa. You need those moments.
But I understand why you’re just not quite ready yet. I know you, when God nudges you, you’ll follow. Until then please know I wished you’d join me at church- mostly because I’m tired of it always being my kids who try to blow out the advent candles but also because your kids need you to be there.
In my previous post I shocked you with how much our original budget was to build our dream house. But I also told you my loan was significantly less than that- so what gives? In this post I want to share with you some practical money saving tips- and maybe a few “not fun to hear” ways to save money.
1. Adjust your expectations.
Sorry. It’s not fun to hear that your dream house costs $500K. The U.S. Census Bureau just released the median household income figures for 2017 and it is $60,309 for individuals and for families it is $76,676. (https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/income/data/tables.html)
So that’s to say that the typical American cannot afford to build a $500K house. So something has to give.
For me this was a custom kitchen, another 100+ square feet of living room space, and black framed windows. It also meant a metal roof, but not a standing seam metal roof. I also compromised on our land. I would have loved 20+ acres with the grade being more elevated so I could have had a walkout basement vs. a walk-up basement.
For you this might mean vinyl siding vs. board and batten. Or just doing the front of your house in the expensive siding/brick. It could mean not doing a metal roof at all, reducing the square footage of the house, building a two-story vs. ranch style, or not finishing the basement. It could mean 8 ft walls instead of 9 ft. It means something structural has to give.
It does not mean choosing cheap fixtures that you can update later. Although this will save you money it will not save you $100K.
2. Choose the right builder.
This might not be an option for you. You could be buying land in a sub-divided neighborhood where you have to go with a certain builder (I’d still follow rule #4 below even if that is the case). However, if you do get to choose, choose wisely my friend.
Make sure you are comfortable communicating with them. You will at one point disagree with your builder. Can you stand your ground with them? Or is it your cousin’s husband and it would make family gatherings awkward?
Ask for references. References’ the builder gives to you and, I cringe saying this because this could be a rabbit hole, references from friends and family.
Don’t steer clear of a builder because of one bad review, or you will probably never find a builder. Really listen to the person complaining- was it because of the builder or was it because of a contractor they used? Was it because of a personality clash?
Physically view some of the builder’s work. How is the quality?
Ask if you are allowed to do any of the work yourself or use other sub-contractors. This was a huge savings for us. My husband is really handy. He was able to help do our electric and plumbing, he installed the fireplace, he ran the water line from the road to our house, etc.
Compare spec sheet to spec sheet. One of our quotes from a builder came back with 2×4 walls, it was an upgrade to go with 2×6 walls. With our other quotes 2×6 walls were standard.
Know what parts you will be responsible for as the owner and what the builder will be responsible for. Some builders are the general contractor and will pull permits for you and coordinate sub-contractors- so essentially you’ll only be responsible for choosing preferences. Some builders are really just the ones handling building the house- so you will need a general contractor or to be your own general contractor Which leads me to my next money saving tip…….
3. Be smart about what you do yourself.
I am reasonably intelligent. I have a college education. I even at one point got straight A’s. However, when it comes to building a house I felt really uneducated. I was a little naive. My husband can pretty much build anything I ask him to, plus he operates an entire sewer plant and regularly uses heavy equipment to replace water and sewer lines. I thought for sure I could handle the paperwork side of things and he could handle the mechanical side of building. So we decided to save some money and be our own general contractor PLUS do some of the work ourselves. All of which happened, but it wasn’t pretty folks. It took more back and forth than I care to admit. Knowing you needed to have your soil tested, then have your septic designed, then submit your site plan to the township, who then approves it before you can go to the county to get the official building permit was not something we knew. Now if you have the time (because it also means being there for all inspections) and the emotional capacity to do this…. it might be worth the $30K savings for a general contractor. But be realistic. We now understand why we received a $30K quote for a general contractor. They do a lot of work.
Also, make sure when you are figuring out cost savings you are 1) adding the additional time it would take you to do something vs. a professional and 2) ask yourself if the cost savings is really worth it? For example: physically we could do our own wood flooring. It would take my husband probably a week or better (leaning towards the “or better”), it probably wouldn’t be perfect, and the savings for us would have been $2.50 a square foot in labor (so about $4,500). We took a hard pass on doing it ourselves. First, I think making a rule that if it takes you more than a week to do and doesn’t save you at least $5K then you shouldn’t do it is a great rule to have when building. Second, on something like the flooring it was easier to save money on material than labor. We picked out an engineered hardwood that we liked and saved $3 in material and didn’t lift a finger. Win, win.
4. Get another quote, then another.
I cannot stress this enough. I am going to give you two examples in our build of how this worked out.
Again, we choose a builder who let us bid certain things out (he wouldn’t let us bid out the foundation work or the roof because he had guarantees on those parts of the house). But we were allowed to bid out our heating and air costs. Our second quote came in at over $7,500 cheaper and get this……… the unit was a better brand and more efficient!
Even if you aren’t allowed to bid it out, sometimes a second quote gives you some negotiation power. By the end of our build we had saved so much money that our builder was questioning letting us do anything else ourselves. He had a certain $ amount he wanted to make on our house and we had a certain amount we wanted to save…… and in all cases like this the builder wins. I won’t lie it was a pretty sad day when he said he was finishing it up himself…..including the painting. We had just got our other painting quotes in. Our original quote was $13,825 for painting and staining where as our second quote came in at $5,900 for a very reputable painter in our area- an $8K difference. So being the typical middle aged mother I am without the “let me talk to the manager” haircut I simply let the builder know how much cheaper it would be to go with the other guy. To which our builder (bless his soul) said “OK, let me see what I can do”. Now, we didn’t save $8K but we saved something,so I put that in the win column.
5. Pick something cheaper.
I won’t write too much about this. I do think you can save some money by buying cheaper fixtures, doing laminate flooring instead of hardwood, or upgrading to granite later on down the road. It’s really up to you on how much you can save here. I’d estimate (if you went with super cheap finishes everywhere) you could save $10K, maybe more.
For me this was the area where I exchanged money. I really wanted matte black fixtures in the master bath- so my other bathrooms got brushed nickle. I had a very particular front door I wanted so that meant my back patio door wasn’t as fancy. The list goes on, but you get the gist.
6. Buy used.
Ok, this might be gross but we totally got our toilets used for our bathrooms. The plumber who helped my husband on our house had done a bathroom remodel and gave us (for free) the white basic toilets from the previous house. One part of me was grossed out, the other part of me said if I bought a house vs. built one I’d be buying used toilets……….
Auction sites, reuse centers, Craigslist are all free game if you want to save money. An auction site was where I was able to get my brand new free-standing tub for $95 and my brand new farmhouse sink for $110. Those two items alone were over $2K in savings based off their original sticker price.
My husband’s motto is “if it’s for free, it’s for me”. Which I always add and say “only if we really need it…. please…..”.
7. Buy at the right time.
This is another area I won’t spend a lot of time on. I try not to be an impulse buyer. I also tell myself regularly I don’t need to buy something just because it is on sale. I know it will be on sale some other time. However, I do know there are certain times of the year that things are usually marked down to their lowest. In this case I am going to talk about appliances. Appliances are usually cheapest during Black Friday. They are also significantly reduced around tax return season. If you can time it right, or have a place to store things, it might be worth buying certain things during these two times of the year. For our appliances we bought on Black Friday we were able to save over $1K on the set.
8. It never hurts to ask.
I actually don’t always believe this. Sometimes I think you can offend someone to the point they don’t want to deal with you. Ask any realtor reading this post right now. I bet they have a story where a seller was so offended that someone thought they could take advantage of them and offer some low ball figure that they refused to sell based on principal. I do think though that you can be respectable and take big leaps of faith and ask things. Maybe it is as simple as “can’t you go any lower?”, “I have $X amount in cash right now, would you accept that?”, or “that is a little more than I wanted to spend, if you don’t get an offer would you accept this?” You can negotiate a lot through the building process and you should.
One story I like to tell is how we got our land. If you don’t know my husband (Kyle), let me tell you about him. He is the KING of things just falling in his lap. I kid you not. One night we were talking about needing a bigger fridge. My Dad and his Great Dane lived by themselves in a three bed, two bath, 1,200 square foot house and he graciously let my husband, myself, and our three boys under the age of 6 move in. So to say his fridge wasn’t big enough is an understatement. The next day my husband goes into work and one of his co-workers says “hey, do you know anyone who needs a fridge? It works and is free, just needs moved out of the way.” So I recognize that maybe we don’t all have this gift of asking and then receiving- but maybe you do and you don’t know unless you ask?
Back to our land story: we had looked at houses for almost a year in the area we wanted to live. They were really expensive and there were only a few listings. My husband wanted to stay in our current house and build on. I was anti this because it was out of the school district our boys would be attending. So we kept looking to find the house we wanted, but unless it was the one, we weren’t going anywhere. Finally, we looked at this terrible house priced for $350,000. It was like a light bulb went off in both our heads. We could build a house for $350,000, in our school district, and get more of what we wanted than ANYTHING we’d seen. That same night Kyle called his friend and asked if he had any land he’d sell us. To our amazement he said he might. He was in the process of bidding on some land and if he got it, he’d love to sell us some. At the same time he told us that there were 8 acres across the street from the land he was bidding on that had sat unused for years. So Kyle called the land owner up out of the blue. We asked if he’d ever thought about selling his land. The guy’s exact words were “sure, how much were you thinking?” Next, we offered an insanely low amount. I’m surprised he didn’t get offended, but he still counter offered an amount that was 50% lower per acre than other land for sale in our area.
So that is a really long way of saying that asking (in a respectable way) for what you want can sometimes have great results.
9. Stay humble my friend.
So I mentioned that my Dad let us move in with him. I also mentioned how small my Dad’s house is and that he has an insanely large dog. There have been more times than I can count where I have sent a text to my husband saying “I just can’t do it anymore”. But I keep doing it. I keep living here, finding more gray hairs by the day, and trying to have a thankful heart. It’s not my space and sometimes I feel trapped. My Dad also is an excellent grandpa to my kids- this means he’s great at giving them dessert when they don’t touch a bite of their dinner and he also starts wrestling with them right before bedtime and then leaves it to me to get them settled down. But I’d choose this living situation again and again and again because it means that I have been able to save $20K in the past year. I am so thankful that he let’s us live here rent free. I know this is unique and not everyone is blessed to have a Papal Jim, but what I want to impress upon you is that whatever sacrifices or inconveniences you have to make to build your house, are probably worth it. It is a dream house right? Dreams aren’t built easily.
10. Planning is the key to success.
I have always been a planner. Procrastinating makes my heart race- and not in a good kind of way. I have 1 month budgets, 1 year budgets, 5 year budget plans, and even 20 year budget plans. I knew I was going to the college I went to as a 2nd grader and I knew what my major was going to be before high school.
It is pretty easy to see why planning ahead of time on a house is important- because 1) once you pour concrete that makes it… well…. concrete. 2) if you do change your mind- I don’t know of any builder who isn’t going to charge you for the change and 3) changing your mind equals time and time is money.
For a house things are done in steps. You can’t paint before the walls are up and you can’t put walls up before the foundation is poured. So pre-planning these things is what keeps things running smoothly so that nothing unexpected comes up. And when building a house the word “unexpected” always equates to $’s.
Two examples from our build:
I have wanted a wraparound porch for about as long as I could remember and if I was going to build my own house- it was a non-negotiable. We went with a concrete wraparound because it ended up being not too much more than lumber and who wants to stain a porch every few years??? Turns out when you put concrete all around your house it isn’t as easy as you’d think to run a water line through it. Thankfully Kyle knew this and so when the concrete forms went up he had already laid out his conduit for water and electric. If he didn’t do this he’d be drilling through concrete probably still to this day.
One reason why I stress communication is key with your builder is because of one of my major regrets with our house. We couldn’t do a true walkout because of the elevation of our land. We still wanted a door to the outside in our basement so we went with what I like to call a walk-up style. We also knew that we did not want the stairs to be tucked against the side of the house. If you’ve seen the Friends episode “pivot” you know what I am talking about. If we tucked them to the side we’d be forever yelling pivot to move anything down to the basement. Unfortunately, we did not communicate this enough to our builder- or maybe he’s never seen the “pivot” episode so he didn’t get what we wanted exactly. So on the day the foundation was about to get poured we were still on different pages. The compromise- or what I like to deem as the only choice we had – was a small building attached to the side of the house. It looks out of place and I will forever be trying to find ways to hide it.
See that little shed-like thing??? Boo!
This list isn’t inclusive, but it is where I’ve saved the big dollars that helped reduce my original budget of $425,000 to just over $300,000. If you’ve built a house what else is this list missing? If you are in the process or about to start, did anything here surprise you?
