Thank you for giving owner-builders a platform to share our experiences from. I’ve gotten several ideas from posts on your website. For instance, I’d never heard of PEX before running across mention of it on ownerbuilderbook.com; afterward, I researched it and decided to use it in my home. You are doing us all a great service. Jack Mullins

Second month's progress

Posted to Phil-and-Lauras-home by Phil in Tulsa, OK on 5/17/2007

We have selected an architect after interviewing nine. We went with a local architect who designed the house for a friend. The cost is $15K, which we though was quite reasonable. When we had our first meeting, I brought our dreambook and a spreadsheet of room sizes. He was very impressed. Our plans are still on track. Now that summer is here, we will be attending home shows and open houses for more ideas. I can hardly wait to see his first draft in two weeks!!

First month's progress

Posted to Phil-and-Lauras-home by Phil in Tulsa, OK on 4/10/2007

Well,

We are now completing our first month in the O-B program, and what a difference it has made! I would have to say this biggest accomplishment has been getting organized. We have a project plan broken down by quarters, and have allocated our 1,000 hours of planning commitment across the five quarters we believe it will take to build the house. If anyone is interested, we can pass along this worksheet. So far we have logged 66 hours. In that time we have created and expanded our dream book, our list of house features, by room, measured rooms in houses and floor plans we like, and have interviewed five architects. Our goal is to get the architect/designer selected by the first part of May. We decided to go with an architect since this will be our retirement home, and we want things exactly the way we want them. So we decided that this is not the place to save money. We do have a question, though. We are currently living in Chicago, but are building in Tulsa. So do we choose an architect here or there? I will be asking the O-B Forum their opinion. See ya next month!

Getting started

Posted to Phil-and-Lauras-home by Phil in Tulsa, OK on 3/19/2007

Well,

We visited our friends' new home that they are moving into. They are owner-builders, and told us that before we did anything else, we had to go buy this book and join the O-B community. So here we are. We had already collected some pictures and some floorplan examples we liked, but didn't know what to do with them. Now we do.

It is exactly one year away from groundbreaking, so we are just in time to start our 1,000 hours of planning. Our home will be 3,500-4,000 sq ft in a forest on top of a large hill in Tulsa. It will be our retirement home just a few miles from our grandchildren. We look forward to slowing down from our hectic lives and just being granddad and grandma for them.

I am sure we will be asking for a lot of help as we go through this O-B adventure. We look forward to meeting many of you.

Phil and Laura