You heard it here first...

zing!

Home construction is a great job creator. Good for anyone who has planned for and dreamed of the perfect home. Please don't forget to buy local and produce jobs within your towns and counties. I prefer to look at my suppliers and manufacturers face to face and know I am getting a quality product from someone who cares.

you guys are soooo funny...

met with the archichet today...basically we changed a ton of stuff but not too much...i am going to try to scan it and put it on here...

we are adding another four feet to the front of the house to make it straight and build a two car garage off of it...the pic of the outside of the house would be the backyard...

the laundy room and the bathroom will swap places...the island will be at a slant and so far there would be a pantry where the corner of the kitchen will be...fridge on one side stove on the other

the master bathroom will also gain 4 feet therefore i will get my tile and glass 2-3 person shower hahhaha...and a tub on the oppisite side..then it will have a little toilet area and two sinks...what i like about this is it will also have a pass thru to the laundy room so i can throw my clothes thru the wall into a hamper in the laundy room

the two fireplaces will be natural gas so we wont continue the fireplace the entire length up to save money and if we go standard 8ft instead of 9ft celings in the shorter areas it will save money

also where the dining room is he wants to change where the windows are so we can have a buffet table for my china for now they sit in boxes...

scanning isnt working maybe i can paint?

ok this is horrible but i tried

the garage will let me come into the laundry room i couldnt fit the garge on here cause i cant draw out farther...he also drew up a garage for tony...basically the house is like 1500 sq feet and the garage on the house is standard two car...then he drew up a garage/shop for tony that is 48x40 ...the question is...do we have him draw this all up for us..cost would be 2250 for the house and 750 for the garage...so for the two it would be 3000 bucks...plus 500-800 for a engineer for the garage only...does this sounds normal for plans?

sorry for the hyjack

thats soooo funny cause it was tonys idea hahahahhahaha

I'm going to echo what was said above...there are a ton of local architects, contractors, and suppliers around here who really need the work...and find the suppliers who get their schit from local feeder suppliers.

You might pay a few points more...but they are better, will appreciate it more, and will work harder to make sure your vision becomes your reality.

<= not a contractor, has no economic interest in any contractors...just a guy who thinks that spending local is always good for us who live here.

Fish on...

Todd

I tried to think ahead before buying my place.....I decided I liked the idea of a pond...

Kids practicing which I like to call....

Kevins retirement plan

OK LTF365 I know you've been anxiously waiting for my input!
You will find a home designer to be cheaper then an architect. You don't have to have architect drawn plans to build a house. Also don't buy plans online or out of a magazine. They have to be adapted to work here so all it does is add to the cost. I bought a '$125 design your own home' software and did my own. Mine is just a box though so it was pretty easy. I gave that to the builder who tweaked it a little then took it to the county where the building department guys helped with the engineering. After a trip to Kinkos we submitted it back to the county with a large check and we were done.

If you're adding 4' to the front I'd put a lot of that space into your utility room. Your plans don't show a water heater or furnace? I went with a heat pump and my evaporator is in the attic. They did some fancy trusses to make a little room upstairs for it. I wish I'd known and I would have had them run the same style trusses all the way to the end so I could store more bodies.

I went with 3' foundation walls and hung the floor joists. Doing this lowers the inside floor of the house to reduce or eliminate steps. I have a 5" step up into the house. I didn't want it level because of rain and snow and such.

If your back porch is on the weather side of your house consider bringing it out further. I did mine 22' x 24' and the patio table is always dry and in the shade. I plan to do an outdoor kitchen in the future so there is a capped off drain and conduit to run water lines out there already.

Speaking of conduit, I ran 2" conduit from two walls in the living room, one in the dining, and one from the back porch to a central location in the attic. Also meeting up there is 3/4" conduit that runs to blank wall plates in the bedrooms and other places around the house. Then there is another 2" that runs from the crawl space to the attic. Not knowing what the future holds if I ever need to run speaker wires, tv, phone, fiber optic, etc it'll be a breeze.

The cost to go with wider interior doors is minimal and a good place for a builder to skimp. Get doors that you can move a washer, dryer and other furnishings through with ease. The same goes for windows, a little bigger isn't that much more. My neighbor did a Hiline home and these were the first things I noticed, skinny windows and doors.

Just before insulation photograph every wall. This makes it easier when you go to add something in the future and know what's in there. Before back fill measure where everything goes in and out of the house and write it down.

Insulating certain interior walls will be a big plus where you want to help with noise. Since your moving your guest bath next to the living room I'd do that one for sure as well as the master bedroom.

If your heat is NG or LPG consider running a hard line to the patio for your grill. I did mine now I never have to deal with running out.

A hot water spigot to the outside where you wash your cars and boat is a must.

I went with a big walk in shower like you were looking at. I love it. It even has a little bench so you can sit down if you get tired of taking a shower! The shower was one of the things on my must have non negotiable list.

Consider running double or triple duplex' in areas that may get full.

If your going to do certain parts of the build yourself be realistic on your abilities and time. Even something as easy as painting, you have to be able and ready when it's time. There will be people waiting on you, trim carpenters, electrical trim etc. Even though I would have loved to do it all or even more myself on mine time was my biggest factor. The job that pays for the house has priority so I only opted to do the day to day clean up and the final cleaning. I also did the conduit and interior insulation mentioned above and out of pocket. Even with only doing that I was busy every weekend.

There will be a lot of ups and downs through the whole process but once you're done you'll want to do it again. I'll stfu now.

Edited to add more babbling!
It's cheaper to build in the summer than in the winter so no need to rush. Also, if you're the festive type, you may want to add Christmas light outlets in the upper outside corners. OK now I'll stfu.

Cheryl,

You're getting a lot of good suggestions. Again, a designer is much less expensive than an architect. And if pantries cannot be too big or too many, well that applies to garages in spades. Because my garage is larger - by a lot - than any other I've ever had, I thought it was just right. I would make it even bigger if I had it to do over again. Garage space is very cheap, compared to the house, so don't skimp on garage or shop.

And before you do electrical, talk to stereo, TV, and computer dweebs about any and all future possibilities, because it's hard to add more wire after the sheetrock goes on. I thought I covered every eventuality, but I didn't.

Sg

+100

love the pond Timber

thank you very much donno i read it all to tony you have some great suggestions..i have no idea what "Consider running double or triple duplex' in areas that may get full." means but im sure someone will tell me...is this electricial stuff? i guess we will have to look into talking to a designer..i would love putting all this off till at least after xmas..this is a lot for me to handle for my busy work season..at least i got off a little early tonight that was nice

im sure im going to read all this over and over again so i prob should print it..hahaha

again i love the ideas thanks mucho guys ...now that i think about it...if the pantry is in the corner then wont the screw up the flow of my kitchen? maybe i can put a large pantry just at the end? it seams like it would be a strange place for a pantry..does it take on the form of a wall or cabinets? hmmmm..

i noticed the water heater thing but tony was looking at instant heat...

the question i thought of today was that we told the guy that we would like heat for the if you notice it is a double fireplace...we figured we would go gas...cause of no chopping wood and that giving us more fishing time..pellets i dont really care for but here is my thought....gas is great inside but you you sit by a gas fireplace outside?? does anyone know if you can do gas inside and wood outside?

Duplex is an electricians slang for a standard outlet that has 2 plug ins. You can double or triple these so you don't have the Clark Griswald set up.

For thirty years we built fires in a wood fireplace insert. Gas wasn't available on our street, and the wood insert saved our butts over and over again, as we lived in an area where power was often out for days at a time. We heated the entire house, boiled water, and cooked on the insert during outages. Firewood got more difficult and more expensive to acquire. It was messy and cleaning the insert was a pain in the ash.

Now, we have a freestanding gas stove. Building a fire is as easy as flippin' on a light. There's no blower fan, but the stove radiates heat just like a wood stove. It works even when the power is out. We've heated water for drinks on it, but I don't think you could cook a meal very easily. If I were in the market for another home today, I'd want one with a free standing gas stove.

For outside use, firepits rule! Your lil piece of paradise should have one. Then, you wouldn't need a fireplace on the porch. $$$ saved.

I would consider building a small living space in the gar and put that up first. Then you are on the property to keep an eye on things and can take your time. You won't need much room to get by for a while, and when the house is ready to move into, you can decide whether or not you want to keep the gar living quarters. Just a thought. My cousin went that way and it worked out well for them. When the house was done, they just knocked out the preframed walls of the living quarters in the garage, and hung garage doors.

awesome thanks guys...

dunno...i figured it was a electrical thing...my first husband was a electrician...i never listened to anything he said but some words i kinda remember...hahahah

i will def take a ton of pics...we also have to demo the house we live in and the garage in back...and hopefully have a ton of garage sales hahahah...gotta pay for this somehow...hahaha...we are hoping to get a big dumpster in the front...before we demo the house i belive we are going to open it up to anyone that wants to get stuff from it...there is a ton of good stuff even for a old mobile...tony says there is a ton of really nice wood under some of this but i plan to not keep anything and i think im going to fight with tony about what we are keeping...i know some of this stuff is good but i dream of the day i tear this place down

hopefully the goal would be to get the garage built asap so we can stay in it...my sister now lives accross the street so we may possibly be able to take showers over there...storing our stuff is going to suck hahahha...c

Here is pictures of my domicile. Originally built in 1907. I renovated it for 2.5 years, added a bedroom over the existing kitchen, installed thousands of tiles, walk-in shower, all new MEP. It has quite a bit of really interesting architecture and trim-work. We updated every square inch of it. I just painted the outside this past fall, and only this week finished re-painting the shutters. I will put them up when I put up x-mas lights this weekend.

I have not done a good job taking pictures but here is what I have on Photobucket.

Taking the kids sledding last Feb.


Kitchen right as we were moving in.


Master has neat ceiling shapes. 3 walk-in closets, 2 for her 1 for me. Hers has laundry chute to laundry room.



Dining room ceiling as I was finishing it. There is actually beams in a part of that, to reinforce the floors under the custom showers. Got to have strong floors under all that tile.



Some tile work as I was finishing it up.

"3 walk-in closets, 2 for her 1 for me."

There's no way my wife would let me have that much space.