Building is a nightmare. At least that’s what I hear. Whenever someone learns we are building a custom home, the response is pretty predictable. Generally it’s something like: I hope you don’t get divorced! I’ve heard that’s more stressful than a death in the family. You’re supposed to be done in June? You mean September, [...]
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Last May — after some deliberation about being owner-builders — we decided to hire a construction supervisor or a general contractor, to manage the bulk of the build. We received a great response and, understandably, have since been asked repeatedly about the outcome.
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Rumor has it that our permit will be issued Monday morning. Word on the street is that the builder will be on the lot with the backhoe within minutes of the issue, if the weather holds out. I’ll try not to get too worked up about it, but if it doesn’t happen, I’ll grab my [...]
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We finally got all the bits and pieces of the new home design ready for download. Check them out! I told you that Sam is a genius!
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We were just informed that the new, re-engineered, super-improved blueprints are done and ready to pick up. We’re finally back to where we were last June before the great awakening. It’s exciting. It’s a relief. But every time someone asks, “How is the house going?” (which occurs approximately every 27 minutes around the clock) and [...]
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Our second home was what they call “semi-custom.” In a nutshell that means that you go to a mass builder, choose a lot from their open inventory, choose a plan from among the handful of choices in their book, and then you “customize.” In the semi-custom world that generally means choosing the colors for the [...]
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Until we moved to Florida in 1991, we’d never heard of an Home Owners Association. Where I come from, you own your own land and use it as you see fit — as long as you comply with city code created by duly elected councils. And for the most part people are respectable neighbors. We [...]
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After writing about some really cool features for your custom home a few weeks ago, I was reminded that knowing what to avoid is a big part of getting the home you really want. And the truth is, sometimes home designers/builders don’t seem to actually live in homes. Too often they create features that aren’t [...]
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Moving stinks. Seriously. It never ends. As soon as you think you’re done, you find entire rooms you never knew existed that are full to the brim with furniture and things that you can’t categorized. Not to mention things you can’t pack. How do you pack a telescope? Or a geranium?
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A few years ago, we got a mailer from a company called DirectBuy. It sounded a bit like a Costco or Sam’s Club for home builders, designers, or remodelers. I’ve been a happy customer of Costco for years and thought I’d give it a try. First, I googled for info about the company. What I [...]
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A couple of weeks ago, entirely out of the blue, we got a phone call from a family who lives exactly .3 miles from our empty lot. (Our current rental is 6.3 miles away and our old house was 17.9.) They are moving to New York for one year and wanted to know if we [...]
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Our new dream house did not come in at a dream cost. And so, as I told you last month, we decided to redesign the house. That’s no big deal. We’ve done it so many times already. And we did it endlessly on the first custom home, too. It’s the time factor that’s killing me. [...]
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This afternoon I took the wet-stamped blueprints, the signed and certified engineering drawings, the energy code compliance report, and the 200-some-odd other required doodads to the Lindon City Offices. Along with a check for $100. The house plans have been officially submitted.
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The city of Lindon requires—among a billion other things—a model energy code compliance report to prove, I suppose, that your model energy code is complaint with whatever Lindon officials have deemed necessary to comply with in regards to the energy code. So, obviously, I have no idea what the heck this is or why we [...]
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On Monday we met with the first builder to come up with a bid for us. To say the least, it was disappointing. The total came in at $804,266. And that’s after we bought the lot for $248,000. Seriously. We’ve built a million dollar home. And this is not it! This house is the downsize [...]
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It’s that time of year again. Time to comply with city code and clear our lot of the wild grass before it engulfs our soon-to-be neighbor’s home. While we’re at it, we’ve decided to take out the two junk trees that are growing on our lot. Neither is in good shape and both pose a [...]
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When we designed our first custom home in 2002, we didn’t pay much attention to size. Since we had five acres of land to play with, we had few constraints. The biggest problem we had was getting height approval by the city. We focused, instead, on function. We made rooms for the all the people [...]
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After trying the credit report that gives no scores, I’ve turned to the commercial world of credit report offerings. I’ve narrowed the myriad free credit score offerings to three. Each one offers a slightly different twist and they all have fine print you must read carefully, or you’ll be on the hook for ongoing payouts.
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One of the most stressful parts of home building can be the financing. When you buy an existing home or a home through a large-scale builder, there are few unknowns. In those cases, financing can be just a matter of researching interest rates, filling out an application, gathering a few documents, and waiting for the [...]
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After considering our construction options, we came to the conclusion that acting as our own contractors isn’t in the schedule. We’ve ruled out using an owner-builder system as they are generally structured. We have been given several references and will be sending out the following letter to them. If you are a general contractor or [...]
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