If you've read The Owner-Builder Book you've already started. I've found it to be one of the best confidence builders yet. It gave me exactly what I needed to get started. For real. What I mean by that is, starting is not clearing land or putting a hole in the ground. It's planning and understanding what you are up against. This book covers it very well. Jeff in Hampton, VA

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Here we go...

Posted to BrandonBuildingBlog by T. Scott in Layton, UT on 3/4/2007

I don't really know where to begin, so I'll just start with introductions. My name is Scott, and with my wife Teresa we have five children (and three dogs, two frogs, a cat and a duck!). That's quite a houseful. We currently live in Utah, where we own a multi-national marketing company, but are moving to Washington state.  We have many reasons for moving, not the least of which is to be nearer my retired parents.

With such a large family we have run into some difficulty locating suitable housing in the area of Washington we prefer (Puget Sound). When we first discussed moving, we looked for existing homes, but couldn't find any suitable homes within our budget. Next we considered buying a newly-constructed home, but ran into the same budgetary constraints. Finally we decided that we would have to build a home to fit our family and started contacting builders in the area. 

After speaking with 8-10 builders we decided that custom building would not be possible (quotes ranged from $180/sq. ft. to $320/sq. ft.), until we found a low-cost builder who assured us they could build a suitable home within our budget. We had located a beautifully forested 10-acre building lot on Whidbey Island, selected a plan and were preparing to sign contracts when our Realtor found some information about a large number of disgruntled customers who had nightmare stories to tell about their building experience with our selected contractor. Thankfully, we narrowly avoided a horror story of our own.

In discussing our challenges with a friend, he recommended Mark's excellent book, and Teresa and I have been voraciously reading ever since. The first thing that we noticed was that, although we have been actively planning our building project for over two years, we have done so in a very disorganized way. After we started reading together, we began to formally organize our thoughts and information. We started by computerizing the pages and binders full of notes we have collected as we prepared for building. 

First, we put our budget (both high-level and detailed, though the detail is still not completely populated) into an Excel spreadsheet, along with calculations that will allow us to play with different budget configurations as we consider upgrades. We also laid out a list of home selling points, listing our preferences first, and also checking local "sold" listings (something we have been actively doing since putting our existing home on the market 6 months ago) for key features. Next we computerized our must-haves and nice-to-haves for both lot (including city and lot requirements) and plan (both structure and room design). Finally, we put together a task list based on the one in Chapter 4. 

As I blog, Teresa is compiling this and other information into our study binders. One binder is for home plans (interior and exterior), another for cities, lots and schools and a third for information we have not yet cataloged.

Our home plans binder includes copies of each house plan that we liked (7 in all) from our online, book and magazine studies. Our plan requirements include: 3,000+ sq. ft., 6+ BR, office/study, master on the main level, master opposite the utility and garage, library (we are bibliophiles), breakfast nook and eating bar, mud room (with shower if possible), large covered porch, large laundry room with utility sink, ample closet/storage space, a guest suite (or other suitable area for overnight guests) and an open family room/play area for the children. Our nice-to-haves include:  nothing above or below the master, office located near the master and kitchen open to the family room/gathering area. Only two of the 7 house plans we have identified have all of the requirements and nice-to-haves. Also included in the "plans" binder are room samples with ideas, configurations, designs and fittings that we prefer.

Our cities, lots and schools binder includes city demographic information, average weather information, Superfund environmental risk analysis and a map of each city in which we have found a suitable building lot. The binder also contains the MLS listing for each building lot we found that falls within our budget. Due to the size of the home we plan to build, we need at least 1/3 acre, which is sufficient if the lot is configured perfectly for one of our plans and we are able to hook up to city sewer and water. However, in order to ensure that we will have ample space available for the children to play in once construction is complete, we are only looking at lots that are .5 acres or more. Finally, we included school information showing the test scores, along with state and national ranking for the elementary school(s) and junior high or middle schools in each city.

Our catch-all binder is currently empty, but ready for anything we have missed so far.

This weekend we spent a combined 15 hours going to potential suppliers and designers to get more ideas about interiors. We came home armed with new information and about 20 pounds of new literature covering topics ranging from garage door openers to crown molding--and virtually everything in between. Looks like we're going to need some bigger binders! :-)

That's all for tonight's entry, more soon to follow...