Thank you all so much for making my post, Ten Things I’m Glad We Did While Building A New Home, one of the most popular posts on my blog! Since there seems to be such an interest in the home building process, and some of your comments have helped me remember things I forgot to include in the original post, I wanted to do another list of ten MORE things I am so glad we did while building our home.
- We widened almost all of the doorways, and we also have a separate shower with a seat in out master bathroom. We wanted our home to be wheelchair accessible to accommodate aging parents or in case we would ever need that feature ourselves in our home in the future. You just never know, and it is a pretty affordable upgrade to widen the doorways while you can.
- My husband asked our electrician to install outlets in the roof of our covered porch to make Christmas decorating easier. We no longer need to run extension cords down the side of our house in the winter. I never would have thought to do that, but I do think it’s pretty cool.
- We redesigned the dormers on the front of the house. The original plans for our home showed two small dormers on the front. I saw a picture of a similar house that had one larger gable, the way ours is now, and I stopped production completely and made everyone start over because I just knew that was the way our house was meant to look. It costs us a great deal of time and I think some plans had to be resubmitted for permits. I still think it was worth it. We look at our house several times every day and I would still be regretting it if I had not insisted we change those plans. I think the current look is more symmetrical and brings in the lines from the right side of the house.
- We switched home builders. Originally, we were going to put a modular home on our property and had gone so far as to have several meetings with that builder. Everything should have been in place, but the more we met with them, the less we liked them. We hadn’t signed anything binding yet, so we decided to meet with a private home builder from our church and have him give us an estimate as well, and we were very pleasantly surprised. Mike was great at being able to take the ideas I had in my head and translate them into a language my husband could understand and the cost difference between modular and stick-built was negligible in our case. He stayed on budget and by building a custom home we got to choose everything in our house. I really think finding a builder you are comfortable with is key to making the process a pleasant one. I know several people who say they would never go through the process of building their own home again. It is stressful, but we had a very pleasant experience. I would build another house with Mike in a heartbeat.
- We added a utility sink in the garage. For some reason, plumbing for a sink in the garage was not in the original plans for our house. But we use that sink all the time while we are doing yard work or if the kids need to wash up after playing outside. Make sure to check your plans very thoroughly so that things like that don’t get overlooked.
- We changed the layout of our kitchen. Originally, the kitchen island was supposed to be a raised breakfast bar on one side. But this island sits directly in between our dining room and an eating nook. I did not think I really needed three separate eating areas within ten feet of each other, but I knew what I did need was storage. So instead of making this area a raised breakfast bar, we made the entire island the same height to get more counter space, and we made the entire back side of the island drawers for additional storage.
- We put a double vanity in the kids’ bathroom. You don’t often see two sinks in a hallway bathroom, but we have three children who share that bathroom to brush their teeth every night and get ready for school every morning. I think it’s only going to get worse as they get older and the girls start wanting to do their hair and makeup. I’m really glad we have the double vanity in there for storage and the additional sink.
- We chose historic paint colors. Once everything is done and it is time to put the paint on the walls, it is easy to get overwhelmed because there are SO many choices and you don’t want to make a bad decision and have this brand new house you spent so much money on look terrible. Even though it is “just paint,” when you are talking about enough paint for an entire house, it does get expensive to make mistakes. We chose all of our paint colors from the National Trust for Historic Preservation line at Lowes. I found that knowing I was sticking to those colors really helped me feel less overwhelmed with all of the choices out there, and it gave our finished home a classic feel that isn’t too trendy and won’t go out of style. We tried to think about all of the possible uses for every room. Right now we use our office as an office. But in the future we might need to use it as a bedroom for an aging parent or grandparent, or we might want to turn it into another family room space and have an entertainment center in there. I talked about all of those uses with our electrician and then he suggested where to install cable and phone jacks and outlets, accordingly.
- Sometimes when you are building it is easy to let the “But I want it” urge take over, and that is how you get yourself over budget with upgrades and extras. If we ever decided that we wanted to add something extra, we took something else away. I found myself constantly asking the question, “How often am I going to use that?” For example, one of the ways we saved a large chunk of money was by making two sets of french doors into the kind of doors where only one side opens and the other “door” is basically just a large stationary window that can’t be opened. To be honest, I really didn’t want to do that. I wanted my french doors to be able to open on both sides. But I also wanted real hardwood floors and solid surface countertops and something was just going to have to give if we wanted to stay on budget. I use my floors and my counters every day. So far we have lived in this house for a few years and the only days I wish that those other doors opened are when we are moving in a very large piece of furniture, which is maybe once a year.
- We got our hands dirty too. Some things we did ourselves to save time and money. I am very fortunate because my husband is very handy (and I am not that bad either, if I do say so myself). He was able to run the system for our surround sound before our walls went up. We also did our Airstone fireplace installation ourselves. When it comes to building an entire house, it is important to know what you are legally allowed to do in your area and what you should hire licensed professionals to do for you.
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Hi Steph,
We are just starting the process. The plans came in the mail today. Love your posts. So much to think about and it is good to hear from someone who did this recently.
We live in Maine and plan to build on 4 acres.
Thanks for all the ideas!
Theressa
Hi Theressa, I’m so glad my posts are helpful to you! Best of luck in the building process. I bet you can’t wait to fast forward a few months (or years) and be in your new home!
We built our house 16 years ago and also took pictures of all the walls before the drywall was installed. Sure is nice to know exactly what is behind the drywall when you want to put a nail in the wall. We also vacuumed and painted the subfloor before the carpet was installed.. We went to Lowes and bought their miss-mixed paint (it was going to be covered so color didn’t matter). That cut down on the dust tremendously and helped my allergies.
Thank you so much for the useful information, we are just starting the building/planning process. I would love to know what your floor plans look like.
Hi Andy, we bought our plans from Donald Gardiner at http://www.dongardner.com/
Hi,
We are about to build a custom farmhouse as well. I’ve been studying plans until I can’t see straight! Which Don Gardner plan did you choose? Thanks!
Hi April,
Congratulations on getting ready to build your dream house! We purchased the plans for the Michaelson and then modified them to meet our needs. For example, we extended the office a few feet, relocated the laundry area to our master bedroom closet, and enlarged the pantry. Good luck!
This is so amazing!!! My friend just had her house build (or should i say, dropped and loaded) on her 2 acre of land. She did get a modular home and she picked the one that suit her and her lifestyle. The one thing I love is that the home was already built and set up less than 2 months. I can’t wait until I get my land and my home shipped to me as well.
oops! built not build
What modular company did you use? We live in MI
“When it comes to building an entire house, it is important to know what you are legally allowed to do in your area and what you should hire licensed professionals to do for you.”
Except for MA, that would be everything. Maybe not your well in some states but that’s just because most people don’t have the equipment to do it properly and you can’t rent it. That’s not to say you should do all the things yourself. Most people can barely dress themselves let alone build a whole house all by themselves.
I enjoyed the post. Thanks for taking the time to capture the experiences. We are getting ready to embark on a similar process. Based on your experience did you use an architect to modify the plans or did you rely on your builder to interpret and make the changes? Also, do you mind telling me if your builder quoted a fixed cost upfront or if it was cost plus?
Please keep up the posting. And I look forward to you getting chickens. Thanks again.
Hi Chuck,
Our builder made the changes, and my husband happens to be an engineer, so that was very helpful during the process. Most of the changes we made didn’t disrupt the structural integrity. There was a fixed price for the first round of changes, but then if we changed our minds again, obviously we also had to pay for additional changes we made after that as well. I hope that helps! – Stephanie (posting from Eddie’s account)
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The 2 most important things when it comes to building your own house is choosing the right people (contractors/ workers) and choosing the right products. I recently renovated our Porch Area as my wooden trims where completely ruined due to the weather and other external factors. I have to research day and night to understand how to renovate the porch, read 100s of articles so nothing goes wrong. Since then everyone one started advising me on how I should get rid off wooden trims and I’ve been such a fool to use wooden trims for all these years and kept paying more to maintain it. Well, they were right. So I decided to give Echon PVC trims a try.
Honestly, the end result looks pretty much the same as a wooden trim, Beautiful, and classy, but the maintenance cost and efforts have drastically reduced. Here’s the article that taught me everything about PVC trim boards, incase anyone is curious to know: https://echonbuildingproducts.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-pvc-trim-boards/“