111–120 of 229 posts
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Sounds cool, but the fire concern is very real and not so much flames as it is being unable to escape the smoke.
True. But like I said, there's not a lot to burn... just furniture and the kitchen cabinets. Everything else is concrete and metal. Of course, if there's a forest fire, you don't want to be on the mountain regardless.
I've built a house, in the sense that I was working as the general contractor and hiring out crews and tradespeople to do the actual work. My involvement differed anywhere between hire-a-crew and pay them when they are done down to doing certain things myself 100%. A few takeaways: - Things seem simple from the outside, before you do them for the first time. They are in actuality quite complicated. Even something as…
No, I have not built a house. However, I highly recommend you take a look at two books before you move earth. The first is "House" by Tracy Kidder. https://www.amazon.com/House-Tracy-Kidder/dp/0618001913 The second is "Renovation" by Michael Litchfield. https://www.amazon.com/Renovation-4th-Completely-Revised-Upd... The first book is a detailed, engrossing narrative about building an actual house (it exists). The sec…
In 2007, I had an architect design the outside both for aesthetics and to smooth negotiating with the Santa Cruz mafia planning department, but his floor plans were abysmal, and I would have hated life, stubbing my toes daily. So I took over that task, drove my girlfriend at the time absolutely nuts iterating over it, then one day showed her something she said was bleeping perfect. We built that plan relying on a nei…
Congrats for managing to create buildable plans!
I hope you used metal/plastic conduits to pass wires between the floors/walls (so they could be theoretically upgraded with fiber or something better).
Hi, I build two homes in WA state in a rural area (more on this later) while I was working as a webmaster and all around sysadmin for a small wood distributor co. First house: 2600sq ft, Full size basement with 2 stories on top of a traditional timber frame structure, wrapped in S.I.Ps (structural insulated panels). We had plans drawn by architects and we went BIG. I ended up acting as the general contractor as the g…
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>Even something as straightforward as painting a wall will be hard when you are doing it for the first time. Painting is one of the things I do myself, in part because it's something I do often enough that I more or less know the various gotchas, techniques, etc. It's also the case that, when redoing areas that were already painted which is most of what I do these days, I can take some very timesaving shortcuts that…
I've never hired anybody to do interior paint, so I'm wondering: do pros ever actually tape a ceiling border? I've always just cut in by hand. I've found that it's usually high enough that any minor imperfections aren't noticeable. The last time I did a wall or ceiling, the crown molding had been painted so many times, it would have been nigh impossible to tape it and get a satisfactory result. But I've been living i…
Nope. They either use something that looks like a trowel, or freehand it.
Rough timeline ( just under two years from start to finish ): - starting looking seriously in Nov 2016 - Found property in Jan 2017 and closed on April 2017 - interviewed half a dozen GCs / architects, had one lined up by May 2018 - basic design / layout of house done by July 2018 - started permit process in July 2018 - Demo'd existing house Nov 2018 - All permits finally approved Dec 2018 - Construction Dec 2018 - present ( projected finish Oct 2018 )
What I learned:
+ If this is your first house and you don't have experience, hire the best general contractor you can find for your project. Hire a general contractor prior to selecting a site if possible, as they would be very helpful in helping you with the pros and cons of each build site. Your choice of contractor is one of the biggest choicest you can make in terms of how enjoyable the process will be. The best way you can automate the process is your selection of GC.
+ We worked with a design/build firm that did both the architectural work + the contracting.
+ The general contractor is CEO. You are the Chairperson of the Board. Your role isn't making day to day decisions, but rather finding a CEO that can perform the job, providing what he or she needs to do the job you asked ( mainly timely money and decisions ), and confirming the job has been done.
+ Minimize change orders, but don't be afraid to make changes during the construction. Decisions get exponentially more expensive to change as you go along. We only had one change order --- ripped out a sliding door and replaced it with a window. That change, which would have only cost $75 at drafting time, cost us ~$5k. However, if we had waited until the project was finished the cost would have been $8-10k+. Also know, that if you ask for an estimated cost on a change order or add-on during construction, expect it to actually cost 25-50%.
+ Even seasoned pros make mistakes. Accept upfront that mistakes / delays will happen. If you stress about every mistake and try to optimize everything, you'll drive yourself crazy. Focus on avoiding the mistakes that would be prohibitively expensive to fix properly.
+ Permitting time is a lot longer than you think. We hired the site engineer in July and didn't get approved permits until Dec ( there was never any push back on the permits, but they all had long processing times and could not be run in parallel.
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> - Things seem simple from the outside, before you do them for the first time. They are in actuality quite complicated. Even something as straightforward as painting a wall will be hard when you are doing it for the first time. You will make mistakes if you do it yourself. Try to do it yourself only in areas where you can tolerate such mistakes. I'm not a home-builder but I am a home-owner. Let me add that any work…
As someone who has done some home renovation projects, this is so true. For example, if you mess up a grout line when you tile, your eyes will be drawn to it every time you see it.
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> - Things seem simple from the outside, before you do them for the first time. They are in actuality quite complicated. Even something as straightforward as painting a wall will be hard when you are doing it for the first time. You will make mistakes if you do it yourself. Try to do it yourself only in areas where you can tolerate such mistakes. I'm not a home-builder but I am a home-owner. Let me add that any work…
I think that depends on personality maybe? I'd rather live with sloppy work I'm proud I did myself than to think I hired somebody and they delivered a bad job.