I have no words to describe how I feel about finally moving in to a home that is OURS! Not only is it our own, but we touched and helped with every single step of the way. We drew up custom blueprints, planned out every detail, general contracted it ourselves, and either did the work ourselves or closely helped the sub contractor working on each part of the project. And the very best part is that we waited long enough to save the money for this so we don’t have a mortgage hanging over our heads. FREEDOM!!
Seriously though, as far as renting goes Farmer and I had about as good as it gets before we built. I mean it doesn’t get much better than Grandma Farmer as your landlady! But for nearly ten years now, my dream has been to build our own farm house, exactly the way I wanted it, and live happily ever after. Now after all that waiting, dreaming, planning, and saving money, it’s finally here and I am ecstatic!
So without further ado…. here is the long awaited 10 month update and stats:
September 8th 2016 – ground breaking day
December 22nd 2016 – Josh, Matt, and Mikey (they 3 guys we hired by the hour to help us for the first half of the build) finished up framing the house and went back home to Utah.
January and into February 2017 – we took 6 weeks off because of record cold and snow, and also to reassess finances and plans before we started back up.
Mid February 2017 – began work again with the “living parts” of the house (plumbing, electrical, and HVAC)
May 2017 – drywall, paint, exterior doors, and the bare minimum of what we needed to finish before moving in
July 2017 – Moved in!
That is just a quick timeline overview of how it all went. A few things I wanted to point out about the timing:
- Very rarely were we hurrying. We could have moved much faster had we wanted to. I wanted this experience to be as relaxed as possible so we could make good and educated decisions, and also so Farmer and I would not have reason to fight about things. At one point (towards the beginning of our 6 week break in January) we even discussed taking several months off and starting back up in the summer so we didn’t have to juggle time between farming and building the house. Our building permits are good for 3 years and we didn’t take out a loan from the bank, so we didn’t have any pressing dates that we were in a hurry for.
- We took a large break in January and February because we were buried in snow and the weather was hovering around 10 degrees and ….. we just wanted a break. We attempted to heat the inside of the house with several portable heaters but it didn’t make enough of a difference because we didn’t have any insulation yet. So, we just decided to give it a few weeks and then hit it hard when the weather warmed up a bit. I am really glad we did that. I needed a few days to do something other than work on the house or make phone calls.
- We took it pretty easy after starting back up again in February. We did several of the jobs ourselves, but the ones that we hired sub contractors for I always told them that we weren’t in a hurry and that we could wait if needed. I don’t regret it, but I do know that we got pushed back a few times because I was willing to let them do that. I felt like the sub contractors treated me better because I wasn’t pressuring them to hurry up. A few of them gave me great deals and did extra favors for me because I let them work on their own timeline so that turned out nice for us. However, the second half of our build so far could have gone a lot faster had I needed it to.
- When we moved in, the house was very unfinished. Had we taken the time to finish it first, it would have taken us several more months. If we were hiring out the rest of the work, it could have been finished in around two months I believe. However, we plan to do basically all of the finish work ourselves, so it would have been another 3-6 months beyond that before we could have moved in.
I always tell everyone that if it is an option for you, it’s so nice to be able to take things a little slower. I realize that is not an option for many situation, but if it is, I highly recommend it. Farmer and I had a better time together, sub contractors were nicer to me, and the whole process was less stressful than it would have been if I had rushed things.
So what exactly did we finish to move into an “unfinished” house?
From the beginning, Farmer and I knew that we would be moving into an unfinished house. We knew we didn’t have 100% of the money for our new house, in fact we weren’t even close. We just wanted to see how far it would get us. Our real goal was to finish enough of it to move in, and then complete it at our own pace.
Let me be very clear that we were both totally fine with this plan. Don’t feel sorry for me please. I actually love having no flooring right now so the kids can roller blade in the house and I don’t have to worry about it. I don’t mind only having one working bathroom because of how young my kids are. No one is spending half an hour in front of the mirror getting ready. And who needs beautiful white trim around their windows and doors when it’s just calling your two year old to draw on it with marker? No ma’am, I am more than okay living in a completely unfinished home.
I understand and respect that not everyone shares that viewpoint. If you are sickened by the thought of moving into a construction zone, that’s okay! As long as you and whoever you are building with talk about it before you start, and you both know that the house must be finished before moving in. No problems!
So here is a list and a few pictures of what we “finished” before moving in:
- Wall insulation, drywall, and paint
- 1/2 a bathroom (I will explain in a minute)
- All exterior doors except one (it was in the back bathroom and we boarded it up)
- Most of the electrical
- All of the rough in plumbing and septic tank
That is a really short list, so maybe I should make a list of the things that we left “unfinished” also:
- No flooring except one bathroom
- No interior doors (we just used curtains for awhile)
- No siding on the exterior, just moisture barrier wrap
- 3 bathrooms completely unfinished except rough in plumbing, drywall, and paint
- No interior trim anywhere
- No HVAC system
Now let me explain a bit.
The exterior of our house does look like a construction zone. There is no pretty siding, rock, or trim to cover up the ugly plastic wrap. At least we had a garden right?! Here is a picture from the garden, looking at the back side of the house. We do have gravel for our driveway. When you walk to my front door there are no concrete steps poured, so you have to step up on a wood pallet.
When you enter our house, it looks completely unfinished, but not really like a construction zone. There are no exposed 2×4’s (except my unfinished fireplace) or wires hanging out of the walls. Every room has completed drywall and has been painted. Here are pictures from a couple different angles in the great room.
There is no flooring except in the 1 bathroom we are working on finishing. We did however paint most of the sub floors with cheap white maintenance paint which made an enormous difference. It was a very inexpensive fix that made our floors quite nice for temporary use.
My kitchen table is made out of sawhorses and 3 huge 14′ boards that were left over from building the stairs. I love it really.
The rest of my kitchen is a hodgepodge of tables, shelves, and appliances. None of it is new right now. The kitchen will be finished later. The fireplace in our great room is just a frame built out of 2×4’s for now.
None of our closets have any built in shelves yet. My laundry room just has a washer and dryer, but no flooring or cabinets/shelves.
All of the can lights and outlets are in, but we have not installed any of our ceiling fans or the few light fixtures we will be adding. There are can lights in every room, so the only places that suffer from the lack of lighting is the entry way and the garage.
We have no garage doors. We have no trim on any windows or doors.
Our floor plan has four bathrooms. Three of those bathrooms have rough plumbing and electrical finished, but nothing more than drywall in them. They look about like this.
We needed one working bathroom to move in, but we didn’t quite get it finished all the way before moving in. (at the last minute we were in a hurry so that Farmer’s brother and his family could move into our old house) We put in the floor and the toilet before moving in. Right after moving in, we put in the cabinet and sink.
However, we ran into a few problems with the shower that put us back a week or two. So when we first moved in, Farmer and I were taking showers at his moms house down the street, and the kiddos were taking baths in a tub on the back porch. It made for some pretty fun memories!
Does that give you a pretty good idea of what we moved into? I described it to our neighbors and friends as “one step up from camping”. We had a working kitchen and a working bathroom. None of it was pretty or finished yet. But the very best part of all of this, and the whole reason that none of this bothered me one bit, was the fact that is was OURS.
It will be pretty one day. It will be finished one day. But for now, it’s absolutely perfect for our young family, and we are all loving being in our forever home.
If you have any more questions about moving in early or unfinished, just leave me a comment below or send me an email at farmerswife@farmhousefromscratch.com
Which things we did ourselves, helped with, hired out
Plenty of people are under the misconception that to owner build you have to do a bunch of the actual building yourself. That’s not true. You can still be your own general contractor, save more than 20% on your home, and never do any of the actual construction yourself.
Obviously, the more labor you do yourself the more you will save. But it is not necessary to do that to save big money.
Farmer and I chose to do some of the work ourselves, and to help out with a lot of the rest of it. We were not comfortable with doing most of the beginning construction part, not to mention Farmer works 80 hour weeks through the summer and I have four kids at home with me. However, we were comfortable doing a great majority of the finish work which could be done on our own timetable a lot easier.
So here is a list of the jobs we did ourselves, a list of the jobs we provided significant labor help with, and a list of the jobs we just hired out completely. (Remember we still aren’t completely finished with the house. The remainder of the jobs will mostly be under the “ourselves” column.
Ourselves:
- Building permits
- Temp power set up
- Excavation
- Insulation
- Entire finished bathroom (tile, custom shower, finish plumbing, finish electrical, etc.)
- All cleaning (general contractors hire a cleaning crew usually)
Hired someone but we helped out to save on labor:
- Blueprints
- Foundation/concrete work
- I joists and sub floor
- All framing, windows, and doors
- Roofing
- Electrical
Hired out completely:
- Wetland assessment
- Power to the site
- Rough plumbing
- Well drilling
- Well pump install
- Septic system
- Drywall and paint
- HVAC and propane line
What we would do differently
I have loved this project. I love that my entire family got to be a part of building our family home. I love the amount of construction information I was able to learn and that I actually understand the process of building a house now. And I love the crazy amount of money we saved by doing it this way.
But owner building comes with a lot of challenges. That is why most people hire a general contractor for these things. It is a TON of work. It’s also a TON of information to learn, and you just can’t do every single thing perfectly on one house. You will make mistakes and that is okay. (Even if you hire a general contractor he will make mistakes too, you just won’t hear about all of them)
The best way for me to keep myself positive in a situation that I have “blown” as the general contractor is to remind myself how much money we have saved. I may have messed up on this one thing, but look at all the other things I did right that made it so we could even build this dream home of ours. Try your best not to dwell on the things that go wrong while you are in charge. Next month you will be the only one who knows you made a mistake anyways.
Because this website is to help all of you guys doing the same thing we are doing, I have to volunteer to share all of that embarrassing information or I wouldn’t be helping you much. Oh well. Just go easy on me! Here are the things I wish I could go back and change about our build:
- I let myself get carried away with a situation that was too good to be true. I happened upon someone who was willing to do a job for VERY inexpensive. His story sounded convincing and I ignored my own advice of calling references and making sure this person was someone we wanted working on our house. I was too anxious to nail down this killer deal so I went for it. Farmer and I actually ended up finishing that job ourselves because of all the problems we had. We didn’t lose out on extra money thankfully, but we did lose out on our own time since we couldn’t afford to hire someone else to clean up the mess. Lesson learned: DO YOUR HOMEWORK BEFORE HIRING SOMEONE
- I gave up looking for sub contractors and went with what I thought was my only option. On one particular job I spent two days calling people. I couldn’t get anyone to return my calls except one guy. It was infuriating. I concluded that he was my only option, and I would just have to make it work. At first everything seemed fine although every time he came nothing seemed to get done. Then one day he never came back and he wouldn’t return my phone calls. As I called around to find a replacement, we discovered that he had a rather terrible reputation, and I felt extra stupid for giving up on my hiring search before gathering enough quotes. We lost out on the money we had paid him, and we had to hire someone else to redo the entire job. Lesson learned: Do not stop searching until you have at least 3 quotes/companies to compare
- I was unrealistically optimistic about the amount of work I could handle. I am an optimist and Farmer is a ….. he says a realist. Before you ask, yes he is right 95% of the time. There were a few jobs that after much researching and consideration, I determined I could handle myself. Most of them weren’t very big, but several of them had a bit of a time limit that I needed to accomplish them in. Against Farmer’s advice, I decided I would prove him wrong and save us a bunch of money by handling it alone. I seem to forget that I have four little kids at home and that I can’t spend an entire day on any project, especially one where I don’t have a kitchen or a bedroom to put the babies down to sleep. Well what happens when I do this and can’t finish my job? It puts Farmer in a tough position where he has to come to my rescue and do the job for me so that it gets done in time. I don’t know how he puts up with me sometimes, but I am glad he does! Lesson learned: Farmer is always right, just listen to what he says.
Basically when I look back, everything I really messed up on could have been completely avoided if I had done what I know I should do. These problems were not because I had never built a house before. They were mostly because I got lazy for a moment, or too prideful to listen to someone else’s advice.
So learn from my mistakes guys! Even if you screw up a few times like me, you can still save $200,000 like me too! It’s well worth a few hiccups along the way.
Finances
Okay, now on to the finances. This is the number 1 reason why we moved in to an unfinished house. To be honest here, Farmer and I ran out of money. We went into this project with around $200,000 which is a far cry from the $500,000 estimate we received to build our home. We KNEW we would run out of money, we just didn’t know exactly when.
My house budget was drawn up around the goal of finishing it enough to move in, not to finish the whole house completely with $200,000. That would have been near impossible unless Farmer and I did 100% of the work ourselves or we made some serious changes to the size of the house…. which we were unwilling to do.
Budgeting percentages instead of line items
In case you haven’t read about my percentage based budget yet, here is a quick overview so you can understand my strategy.
Figuring out each line item is definitely a more specific and accurate way to make a budget for building a home. However, it’s a really difficult and time consuming thing to do especially if you have never done it before. Even when I tried to do it, I was at a loss because I knew so little about building. I could look for prices, but I didn’t even know what things I needed to buy. I finally gave up after working on it for several weeks and switched over to a percentage based budget.
I loved it! It cut out hours of price searching while still giving me a number to shoot for. Because I had a base number to start with ($500,000) all it took was one math problem to figure out how much I should be paying for each contractor/job. This way I could stick with my budget, but I didn’t have to have it written out ahead of time when I had no clue what I was doing. Here is how it worked.
We took our plans to a general contractor for a bid. That bid came back at $500,000. So this would be 100% of the cost (not our budget).
I did some research and found out that the average general contractor in our area charges about 20% for their services. This is a pretty middle-of-the-road estimate even if you are not from my area. In other states I have heard of as low as 12% and as high as 38%. To find out what it is in your area, you will have to call some general contractors and ask them.
So by me being our general contractor I can deduct 20% from that $500,000 total, which brings us down to $400,000. This savings is pretty close to what I should save just by doing my own hiring. This does not require me to do any of the physical building work myself, only to make the phone calls, schedule the sub contractors, manage everyone, etc.
The next numbers are a little harder to nail down, but still give a very good idea of a budget. There are a number of other things you can do to bring your percentage down, it just depends on what you personally want to do. Here are some of the major things that I lumped together:
- Doing any of the sub contractor jobs yourself (excavation, roofing, painting, electrical, tile work, etc.)
This can range from 1% – 40% savings. Yes you read that right. Labor is nearly half of what you will spend on your new home. Therefore, if you do ALL of your own labor and just purchase the materials, you can chop off 40% of your total. One important thing to remember though is what money you will lose out on by doing all your own labor. If you have to take time off your day job and therefore don’t bring in your regular wages, then you are losing out on income at the same time. Just something to consider…
Farmer and I planned to do a lot of our own finish work and help a little with the rest of it. He would need to take a little time off work, but a lot of it could be done after hours. So the savings number that I settled on for this was 10%. That would be another $50,000 savings.
2. Price comparison shopping (for contractors and/or materials)
Are you a good shopper? Do you find good deals on clothes or do you coupon? Then you will be a pro.
This one is all about how willing you are to shop hard and to make offers. This is an art really. I created an entire course on how to hire the best people while still naming your own price, because of how difficult it is to do. It takes a great deal of time and work, but can result in a large percentage savings on your home if you are willing to put in the effort. I set a goal for Farmer and I to knock off another 10% for shopping and haggling. That’s an additional $50,000.
Beyond those two things, there are some other small things you can factor in.
- Do you have any good connections with someone in a construction trade? Like maybe your brother does drywall for a living and would be willing to give you a serious discount on your project.
- Do you have a skill that is good for making trades? Website design is a big one. Many companies are willing to make trades for professional website help.
- Do you already own (or know someone who owns) a ton of construction equipment so you don’t have to buy or rent any tools and full price?
If any of those things are true for you, you can take off up to an extra percentage point or two depending on the situation.
Okay that turned into a much longer explanation than I had planned, sorry. All in all, our percentage budget plan looked like this:
100% (estimated cost) – 20% (general contracting) – 10% (doing our own labor) – 10% (shopping and haggling) = 60%
or
$500,000 – $100,000 – $50,000 – $50,000 = $300,000
So our budget total is $300,000. (or what we wanted to finish the house for)
From there, in order to stay on budget, I just use the formula for each job/section. Need an example?
If the average bid for my roof trusses is $18,000 then I can determine that I have saved $3,600 (20%) by making the phone calls myself and getting the bids. Now I need to come up with a way to save an additional $3,600 (20%) to stay on budget. If the lowest quote was $13,500 then I could take that quote and it would keep me under budget.
But, let’s say I found out that company was known for messing up orders and I don’t want to use them. The next lowest quote is $14,900. I wouldn’t quite hit budget, but this company is known for quality work so I decide to use them. I can accept that bid and make up for going over budget on the next job, or I can see if they will accept an offer for my budgeted amount.
After each job, you reevaluate to see what percentage you are at and what needs to be adjusted.
Every single job/section does not need to come out to that exact savings, but overall they need to average out. So if I can only save 7% on one thing, I need to make up for it on something else. It’s an ongoing and evolving budget, but it absolutely works.
Why we started building before we had the money
It’s important to note that we could have waited another few years to save up more money before beginning. However, as I began researching things a few years ago, we quickly realized a hard truth. The price to build was going up almost as fast as we were saving money. If we waiting to save up another $100,000 by the time we reached that goal, our home might have cost an addition $100,000 to build anyways. By waiting, we weren’t doing ourselves any favors. We decided it was a better idea to begin building now with the money we did have. Then when we ran out, we could take a little break and pick up where we left off when we have more funds.
This only worked because we weren’t taking out a loan. Banks won’t allow you to build a house over the course of a few years. Usually you have 6 months to a year to complete your house when dealing with a bank loan.
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Of all the things I have talked about today, each one was carefully thought out and individual to our families situation. None of you will have the same financial situation, timeline, house plan, budget, or construction experience. This is just what worked will for us, but you will certainly have some big differences for your project.
One thing that I am pretty sure we do have in common though is that we aren’t general contractors, and we don’t have a ton of experience (if any) building houses. If that is not true for you, then I have no idea why you would be here reading this right now.
My goal with this website has, and always will be, to help others like myself who really don’t know what they are doing, to have the confidence and a little guidance to owner build. You don’t have to have experience. You don’t have to build your own walls or tile your own floors (unless you want to). And you can still save a ton of money doing this. I have never regretted being our general contractor. It’s hard but it’s worth it, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
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Actual budget
The final item of business today is how our actual budget has come out so far. I get asked about this at least once a week, and I don’t blame you guys!
When we were starting out, I looked high and low for someone’s real life numbers to be able to compare with and I couldn’t find them a.n.y.w.h.e.r.e. So I have updated the cost breakdown sheet for you guys to analyze. It has all of our actual expenses up until the point of moving in to our unfinished house. It’s separated into sections so you can see what each trade or sub contractor cost us, and totals at the end.
So are we still under our $300,000 budget? Yes, yes we are, and with a pretty decent cushion to finish the rest of the house with!
The cost breakdown sheet is located on the checklists, schedules, and printables page HERE. If you have not signed up for that page yet, just enter your email below for the password and free lifetime access that will never expire. It’s loaded with helpful lists, and other things I have created that you can print out and use for free to save money building your own house. It would be stupid not to sign up for this free resource, seriously.
How is your house project coming along?
~Farmer’s Wife
Christopher says
How did you get a certificate of occupancy in order to get electricity in an unfinished dwelling so you could move in?
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
They hooked up our electricity immediately after the rough electrical inspection. We were not required to have our certificate of occupancy for that. Every county/city is different. Check with your local building department and power company to find out what the requirements are in your area.
Katy says
Does your state/county allow you to move in before the final inspection? Is this something that you had to fight for? In our county, we can request temporary move-in but I think the interior of the house has to be complete.
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Every county is very different. I just called the building department and had a friendly conversation with them about it. I have heard that most places will grant a temporary move in if you are planning to finish it while you live in it. Good luck!
April says
One more bonus of NOT using a bank–because everything must be finished and certificate given before you can move in if you are financing through a bank.
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Absolutely! There are WAY fewer requirements and stipulations if you don’t use a bank. It’s soooo much nicer to not have to deal with that.
Andrea says
The clip system you used to lay the tile is the same we used on a bathroom remodel. We tiled all the walls and floors in 2’x4′ tile. Those clips are the ONLY reason we were able to get it done! Lifesaver!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
I really liked the clips too Andrea, but I sure wish we didn’t have to go through so many! We have been back to the store like 5 times to buy them as we work our way through tiling all the bathrooms. Thank goodness they are only a few bucks. They certainly do the trick!
Kari says
I hope it’s ok to ask, How much money did it cost you roughly to be able to move in your home in this state? Thanks for posting it is so helpful for me! We’re looking at building our own home also and looking at land in Ephrata.
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Check out the cost breakdown on the checklists, schedules, and printables page here: https://farmhousefromscratch.com/checklists-schedules-and-printables-for-subscribers/
You will find all of our expenses there, plus the total amount spent.
If you aren’t subscribed yet for that free page, just subscribe in an email box anywhere on the website and the password will be sent to you.
Ali says
I do have a question. My husband and I are talking about building our house and his main concern is the warping of the wood in the winter and rain. Did you have much of that issue? Or were you able to get it done quick enough where there wasn’t any warping?
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
If you have wood that is sitting and soaking in the wet, it can become a problem real fast. When we have bundles of wood, we cover them with a tarp and we don’t have any problems. Our floor got rained on several times before we got the roof put over it. If you sweep off the rain or snow so it doesn’t sit forever, it really helps. However, we do have a tiny bit of warping on the edges of our sub floor. It won’t cause any major problems, but we may have to sand them down a bit before putting our flooring on. I wouldn’t recommend letting your wood floor sit through the winter unprotected. However, once you have the walls and roof on, the problem is a lot smaller. As long as the water can run off instead of sitting in a puddle, we didn’t notice any problems at all. I don’t see it being a problem unless you leave it like that for more than a year or two. Once your roof is shingled and your house has house wrap on, you are quite protected. We had a friend who left it like that for years with no problems.
Many people build through the winter with no problems. Just be mindful of your wood. Protect it when needed. Keep the water from puddling for too long. The serious problems arise when it’s over a prolonged period of time.
deborah says
You really felt that you needed this much room? Lotta space to heat and cool which means high utility bills.
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Thanks for your comment Deborah. Everyone has a different idea for their dream home. This was what Farmer and I and our large family wanted our forever home to be. But yes, you are right, the utility bills are higher.
Cheryl says
My daughter sent us your link and OMG!!! We were up until 2:45 a.m. reading and printing every list! Thank you soooo much for this is exactly what we needed to focus and finish our dream home. We bought 20 acres of foreclosed land 5 years ago. My husband has dug and laid the waterlines himself and saved the approximately $6500 estimates from 4 contractors, had them checked by the county and we are good to go! We just sold one of 3 homes we bought in 2015 to flip. We will be following your method of building with the cash and assets we have. No bank loans. We are building a very large home of 10,000 sq.ft because this is what we worked for all our lives, retired, and and what WE WANT. (addressing a comment as to if you needed this much space) We lost my father 4 years ago, but husband is surprising my mother with a 1500 sq ft wing of the home for her. We have 9 grandchildren between us and expect to have many happy years of gatherings with the large families we both came from. As well we are starting a tree farm and raised bed gardens to grow fresh vegetables and flowers to sell because we enjoy it now and to help pay for the dream life we have chosen for us at this stage. We are beyond excited and we thank you and look forward to adding more of your ideas and journey to our dream home binder over the next year of our building journey!!!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Hey Cheryl, sorry I am just back from maternity leave so it took me forever to answer!
Your plan sounds like a dream! That is wonderful! I am glad you found me. Best of luck, and let me know if I can help in any way.
Aimee says
Love the blog. My husband and I are starting the process of building our own home. I just started reading and will keep coming back. My husband has done residential construction for years and happy for him to be able to do lots of the labor as well. I am interested where you guys live. I saw you Ziggies… We live in Coeur d’Alene Idaho not too far from Spokane WA.
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Hey Aimee, we are west from Spokane a few hours. Ziggy’s has a few locations and we used the one in Moses Lake.
Alyson Mccullough says
I am all the way down in Florida! BUT you have been such an INSPIRATION! I am a teacher and my husband a logger. We and our 4 children live in a mobile home on our 20 acres mortgage free so I KNOW where your heart is in paying off and living where you own. You have given my the confidence to build ourselves :)!!! THank you! Thank you for all your hours of labor into this blog
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
You are welcome Alyson! Best of luck to you and your family.
B says
How did you figure what percentage you should allot for each job so that it didn’t eat up too much of the overall budget?
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
In the very beginning I used a sample budget that I found in The Owner Builder Book by Mark A Smith. His includes percentages and was a great place to start. However, I didn’t follow it very closely when we began building. Instead I took it 1 trade at a time, so it looked like this: The estimate from the general contractor was $500,000. The average that general contractors in my area were charging was 20%, so I subtracted that which equals $400,000. Then I decided between our shopping, negotiating, trading, and doing some of our own labor we could save another 20% which would put us at $300,000. That was also because Farmer and I could only afford about $300,000 so we needed to hit that number. Then I took it one trade at a time like this: I would gather as many quotes as I could. Then I would figure out the average of all of them. I was already saving the 20% of contracting it myself, now I needed to figure out a way to save another 20%. Sometimes I could do that just by taking the lowest quote. Sometimes I had to negotiate lower prices or make trades. Sometimes we had to do the work ourselves. And sometimes it just wasn’t possible. When I could only get 15% off, I would try and make up for it on the next couple of trades. As long as they all averaged out to about 20% below the average quote for my area, then I knew I was staying where I needed to be in order to hit my goal. I hope that made sense!
M Dodge says
Hello, we are planning on building our dream house in two years. My dad is very very handy and I want him to be the general contractor because he will be cheaper than hiring someone else and he is a 100% reliable and trustworthy. But he has a seasonal job (works in the summer) so I was hoping to get the house closed in before winter and then he can work all winter on the house. My question is how long did it take you to close the house in for the winter, includes heating, water, electrical, etc. The exterior finishes do not need to be done unless they have to be before winter hits. Thanks! Love your posts!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Our goal was similar to your- we wanted to get it closed in before the bad weather hit and then work on the inside through the winter. We started September 8th, and had it dried in just before Christmas. We got lucky though and had great weather through November. I would have liked to have started about 1 month earlier if we could have made that work. We did not however have the exterior finishes on (just the plastic moisture barrier), and we didn’t have our electrical or heating in yet.
Holly says
I love reading your story! We have dreams of building next year on some land that we purchased. I feel confident after reading your post we could manage the GC work. My husband does HVAC for a living and is pretty handy so we would save a ton doing our own HVAC and other items ourselves. Out of curiosity do you have any updated pictures of what’s been done since you moved in? I love watching dreams come to life!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
That will be sooo helpful that your husband is already in the industry! You guys will do great! I haven’t taken any recent pictures of the updates. We are working on a lot of different projects right now … a little here and a little there, but not a lot of finishing yet haha. In a month or two I will try and do another update with lots of new pictures of what we have done.
Darlene Sipe says
Do you have a picture of what your kitchen looked like when you first moved in? Before finishing it?
Darlene Sipe says
Never mind! I just scrolled through again and saw it. What appliances did you have? I saw a microwave, but couldn’t tell what else. I’m trying to talk my other half into us moving in and finishing while living there. He isn’t too keen on the idea right now unfortunately.