MOOARRR costs. I have to roar about it because I am a bit weary of them.
This month:
1. $650 for septic redesign. We had to redesign the septic because the way the old septic was it, it was making our house sit an an awkward angle on the lot.
2. $850 for plan engineering.
3. $2100 for the remaining plan drawings. We made some changes so it added additional cost.
4. $1500 earnest money to the builder.
5. $900 property taxes.
6. $580 for appraisal for the construction loan.
Blarg! I am ready for the build to begin and the costs to be paid out of pocket to slow a bit and the loan to take over.
My check book is tired.
Coming up we have:
$5000 for the building permit (this will be refunded by the loan).
So in case you did not know, building a house is expensive. :)
Friday, October 12, 2012
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Floorplan
Here is the floor plan. It took us 2 months of back and forth to get it right. Finally, someone on a home building forum I frequent really helped us nail all the right details. Our criteria was:
1. Bedrooms in the front, kitchen/living/dining in the back.
2. Open kitchen/living/dining.
3. Large mudroom.
4. As many windows as possible.
5. Two windows in each bedroom for cross ventilation.
6. Bonus room on 2nd floor.
The total square footage is about 2400 which was bigger than we wanted but there was really no way to make it smaller. I know that most of the time we will be hanging out in the kitchen/living/dining area and we will have a large, flat backyard and that area has french doors to a patio out the back.
We also had our budget meeting and we came in at $308,000, so a bit over but the house is bigger than we thought it would be. Our builder bid everything out so while I know we might go over in some areas, I don't foresee too many surprises since we are building on a flat part of our land and the house itself is pretty simple.
1. Bedrooms in the front, kitchen/living/dining in the back.
2. Open kitchen/living/dining.
3. Large mudroom.
4. As many windows as possible.
5. Two windows in each bedroom for cross ventilation.
6. Bonus room on 2nd floor.
The total square footage is about 2400 which was bigger than we wanted but there was really no way to make it smaller. I know that most of the time we will be hanging out in the kitchen/living/dining area and we will have a large, flat backyard and that area has french doors to a patio out the back.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Inspiration: Kitchen
Our builder called me last week to say that the custom cabinet quote was coming in too high and that we were going to have to go with Ikea- which was our desire from the beginning. We have our budget meeting in two days so I dropped the girls off with my mom and spent the next four hours in Ikea.
When you go to Ikea to plan a kitchen, they set you down on a nice little stool and you use their software to design the whole thing. Luckily I had the dimensions with me!
The total came to $4,800 which was much less than the $17,000 quoted by the custom guy.
Our kitchen will be white, with grey/white counter tops.
Here were our inspiration photos:
When you go to Ikea to plan a kitchen, they set you down on a nice little stool and you use their software to design the whole thing. Luckily I had the dimensions with me!
The total came to $4,800 which was much less than the $17,000 quoted by the custom guy.
Our kitchen will be white, with grey/white counter tops.
Here were our inspiration photos:
Contemporary Kitchen design by San Francisco Interior Designer Artistic Designs for Living, Tineke Triggs
Thursday, August 2, 2012
We are land owners!
Yay! Our land closed today, so we are officially land owners. Here is how things sit:
Land has an approved septic design. Water hookup has been paid and we have conduit for water, power, cable and telephone to the building site. This morning I just sent check to the designer for our floorplans.
I will state again how nice it was that so much of our utility stuff for the land was done. If you are in the market for raw land (not building in a development) try if you can to find land that has that work done. If you are score a driveway like we did, awesome. Those are expensive, require permits and will affect the total run off of your build if you are doing the driveway at the same time of your build (you can only create so much impervious surface before an engineer must be called in and if your driveway is in before your build, the driveway square footage does not count as an impervious surface because it is already in place. If you have a long driveway you need to put in, that alone can eat up your allowable impervious surface and engineers are expensive!).
I am going to open with our budget here because I really want this blog to help someone else who wants to build fully understand the costs (not including land).
So far we have spent:
$1360 on septic submittal
$1138 deposit for architectural drawings
Coming up:
$1138 remaining payment on drawings
$750 to for an engineer to look at/approve the drawings
$900 for property taxes on the land due in October
$4,000 for building permit (we will hopefully have this refunded by our construction loan)
Then we will get our loan- hoping to stay in the $300,000-$310,000 for construction costs- and that will pay for everything else besides landscaping. We are building a 1,800 square foot one level home with a 350 square foot bonus room above the girls bedrooms. We are not building a garage (we will build a garage with a mother-in-law apartment down the line).
Had we not had all of the utility and driveway stuff done, that would have cost us an additional $15,000+ out of pocket BEFORE we even began to build. Not to mention 6+ months of time for permits/work. Our land closed in just over 45 days.
Land has an approved septic design. Water hookup has been paid and we have conduit for water, power, cable and telephone to the building site. This morning I just sent check to the designer for our floorplans.
I will state again how nice it was that so much of our utility stuff for the land was done. If you are in the market for raw land (not building in a development) try if you can to find land that has that work done. If you are score a driveway like we did, awesome. Those are expensive, require permits and will affect the total run off of your build if you are doing the driveway at the same time of your build (you can only create so much impervious surface before an engineer must be called in and if your driveway is in before your build, the driveway square footage does not count as an impervious surface because it is already in place. If you have a long driveway you need to put in, that alone can eat up your allowable impervious surface and engineers are expensive!).
I am going to open with our budget here because I really want this blog to help someone else who wants to build fully understand the costs (not including land).
So far we have spent:
$1360 on septic submittal
$1138 deposit for architectural drawings
Coming up:
$1138 remaining payment on drawings
$750 to for an engineer to look at/approve the drawings
$900 for property taxes on the land due in October
$4,000 for building permit (we will hopefully have this refunded by our construction loan)
Then we will get our loan- hoping to stay in the $300,000-$310,000 for construction costs- and that will pay for everything else besides landscaping. We are building a 1,800 square foot one level home with a 350 square foot bonus room above the girls bedrooms. We are not building a garage (we will build a garage with a mother-in-law apartment down the line).
Had we not had all of the utility and driveway stuff done, that would have cost us an additional $15,000+ out of pocket BEFORE we even began to build. Not to mention 6+ months of time for permits/work. Our land closed in just over 45 days.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Inspiration: Exterior
We are in the midst of working on designs with our architect so I thought I would show, post by post, inspiration photos for different areas.
Here are the photos for exterior inspiration:
Here is our main exterior inspiration photo. On this one, we love the look of this front. High pitched roof and shed dormer and covered porch. Because of our layout, our front will also include a gable and the shed dormer will be off-center.
We have seen some basic elevations from the designer and I am so excited!
Here are the photos for exterior inspiration:
Here is our main exterior inspiration photo. On this one, we love the look of this front. High pitched roof and shed dormer and covered porch. Because of our layout, our front will also include a gable and the shed dormer will be off-center.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Land pics!
Closing has been pushed back twice because we are waiting for septic approval from the city. But our seller is a patient person and so are we so it works out :)
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
A builder!
We have a builder!
I cannot really express how happy this makes me. I will run down the interview process we have gone through over the last couple weeks and how we came to this decision.
1. The first company we interviewed was an owner-builder consultant. We had this option on the table because we have the time and a little experience from the house we remodeled. The meeting went great and the company seemed to have a great system. Basically they help you get the subs and they have 23 site visits to make sure you are on track but you are in charge of the build for the most part. We could not quite shake the feeling of nervousness simply because we had not built before and what if needed more hand-holding than the program allowed. But we kept it on the table since we would see significant savings going this route.
2. Next up was a father-son team in business for 30 years and they specialize in "affordable homes". The meeting was actually really frustrating. We thought we came prepared (an ipad full of ideas, a rough floor plan, all the info on our lot) but the meeting seemed to drag right from the beginning. It was almost as though we were supposed to lead it but we had no idea what to say. They were nice enough but we just left feel meh about it. There was also no follow up on their part.
3. Next was a local, higher end builder/architect. He was very friendly and very professional. The meeting flowed very easily and he had great next steps for us to follow and seemed excited about the prospect. But we could not seem to really get on the same page with him. The last house he build was a million plus water front mansion with solar panels and custom, recycled glass backsplashes. He was talking about windows that were $900 a piece and hardwoods made of special trees... just not what we can afford. He quoted us a price per square foot price that was miles above our budget and then tried to backpedal saying we could have my husband do some work and build essentially a shell and do the rest later. Last thing I want to do is build half a house just to pay someone with fancy credentials. He is a amazing and has a great reputation in the community and I am sure he will quickly move on to someone with a less restrictive budget.
4. Before this meeting, we were feeling like we were going to have to go with the first company, the owner-builder consultant. But then we met with this local company. Also a family owner company, in business since 1951. The current owner has been a builder for 30 years and he was so wonderfully friendly. He was excited about our project right from the start and showed us other homes he had done in our price range. The company has this really cool owner builder program where they build the walls of your shell in their factory and then assemble them on the lot. It really helps save time and money. You can have him go all the way through drywall and then we can sub out the rest. Which works well since my brother in law is a pro painter and my husband has a good friend who does plumbing. He immediately set up the next appointment, which was to walk the lot with us and we quickly agreed. I really feel that he will be the one to get us from empty lot to brand new home!
I cannot really express how happy this makes me. I will run down the interview process we have gone through over the last couple weeks and how we came to this decision.
1. The first company we interviewed was an owner-builder consultant. We had this option on the table because we have the time and a little experience from the house we remodeled. The meeting went great and the company seemed to have a great system. Basically they help you get the subs and they have 23 site visits to make sure you are on track but you are in charge of the build for the most part. We could not quite shake the feeling of nervousness simply because we had not built before and what if needed more hand-holding than the program allowed. But we kept it on the table since we would see significant savings going this route.
2. Next up was a father-son team in business for 30 years and they specialize in "affordable homes". The meeting was actually really frustrating. We thought we came prepared (an ipad full of ideas, a rough floor plan, all the info on our lot) but the meeting seemed to drag right from the beginning. It was almost as though we were supposed to lead it but we had no idea what to say. They were nice enough but we just left feel meh about it. There was also no follow up on their part.
3. Next was a local, higher end builder/architect. He was very friendly and very professional. The meeting flowed very easily and he had great next steps for us to follow and seemed excited about the prospect. But we could not seem to really get on the same page with him. The last house he build was a million plus water front mansion with solar panels and custom, recycled glass backsplashes. He was talking about windows that were $900 a piece and hardwoods made of special trees... just not what we can afford. He quoted us a price per square foot price that was miles above our budget and then tried to backpedal saying we could have my husband do some work and build essentially a shell and do the rest later. Last thing I want to do is build half a house just to pay someone with fancy credentials. He is a amazing and has a great reputation in the community and I am sure he will quickly move on to someone with a less restrictive budget.
4. Before this meeting, we were feeling like we were going to have to go with the first company, the owner-builder consultant. But then we met with this local company. Also a family owner company, in business since 1951. The current owner has been a builder for 30 years and he was so wonderfully friendly. He was excited about our project right from the start and showed us other homes he had done in our price range. The company has this really cool owner builder program where they build the walls of your shell in their factory and then assemble them on the lot. It really helps save time and money. You can have him go all the way through drywall and then we can sub out the rest. Which works well since my brother in law is a pro painter and my husband has a good friend who does plumbing. He immediately set up the next appointment, which was to walk the lot with us and we quickly agreed. I really feel that he will be the one to get us from empty lot to brand new home!
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