3100 sq. ft.  Georgian Colonial

5 car garage

tiling

hardwood floors

insulation

potable water

radiant heat

paint

cabinets

5 car garage

full radiant heat even in garages

custom kitchen & appliances

I work for a huge construction company.  Our company allows us to use all the assets and pricing discounts the company gets.   We do 10 million dollars worth of business with our lumber wholesaler alone.

I saved around 10-30% on all materials

Do your homework and preplan everything.   Ask questions from subs.  i.e. how would you do something for your house, etc.

Lot's of vacation time!!!

understand the building process before you break ground.

CONTRACTS!!!!!

EXCEL

Microsoft Money

All my engineer friends (HVAC, Plumbing, Site work, etc.)

Warm floors   I love radiant heat

Land location

9' ceilings

Radiant heat

Lot's of insulation

94% efficient Buderus Boiler

5 car garage

Land view is amazing (10 acres)

Custom Kitchen and hardwood floors through out the house.

Use a computer for all the aspects of the build.

Excel for budgeting

Microsoft Money for keeping track of the budget.

Buy a cheap scanner so you can scan in all invoice, checks, bids, etc.

Wired entire house with help from brother-in-law.

Ran all the radiant heat by myself.

Not having very detailed contracts.

Not realizing that you are going to go over budget a little.

We don't have inspections in the State of Vermont.  The only inspection

I had  was for the Septic System.  That's it.

Excavation   $50,000

Framing labor  $35,000

Cabinets  $22000

The company I work for does $130,000,000 in construction business.  I have a lot

of subs available to me.

no

To much work!

Subs not showing up.

Not knowledgable enough with building trades. 

not showing up.  Called the plumber the night before to verify he would be there

and then never showed up.  Waited 3 days then used a different sub.

Not budgeting enough for Outside Trim.

Not budgeting enough for copper wire.  Prices really went up.

Just with a framer I first interviewed.  He came in at $60,000.  I ended up using a out of town guy and he did it for $35,000.   Found out later that the first framer has been sued multipe times.

Mostly labor savings.  The materials I got were pretty rock bottom pricing.

my wife

brother in law helped with electrical (He is a Union Electrician)

Fine Homebuilding

owner builder

home depot

lowes

no

Placed stakes with yellow string, then spray painted along string lines on the ground.

rain

self work always seemed to take longer than scheduled.

At least 200.  You don't realize all the little stuff like tape, staples, etc that you need.

The 2nd house will be a lot easier.  I have kept a journal on all the little things I bought.

Insulation and vapor barrier

running all the pex tubing between floor joists.

mostly just making sure that materials were onsite for the subs.

Save up as much vacation time as possible.  If you can carry vacation time forward to the next year it really pays off.

Discuss with your boss varying your hours.  I was able to go into work at 10am and leave at 6pm.   This allowed me to spend 3-4 hours in the morning getting the subs ready.   

I had a great framer.   He was a little crabby sometimes but he did a really good job.

Speed Channel

HDNET

HGTV

Fox News

Local supple companies

Indymac Bank in California

Fine Homebuilding

Save money

I work for a large construction company.  I get a lot of discounted prices.  My house was an actually job number through my work.  I was able to get very very good pricing on everything.  My company spends $10 million a year just in lumber.