Building a new house

[BimmerTom]

Anyone here act as their own general contractor? My wife and I are building our new house and we are acting as the general. Pretty exciting stuff, but it's a lot of logistical work. My wife is a stay-at-home mom and is very organized, so it's working out so far.

It's been pretty easy, but we're still early in the project. Here is my blog on the whole build:

http://bimmertom.livejournal.com

Just a quick pic of the success so far...



Tom

[Aptyp]

awesome

[whiltebeitel]

that's badass. Years from now, when you bring friends over, you can sit in your chair and proudly proclaim "I built this place" and watch thier faces as that reality slowy sinks in. :)

[Jon325i]

Nice! So what about the 3-bay garage with 15-foot ceilings and reinforced floor area to mount the two post lift? ;-)

Jon

[RobertK]

Nice, one day I hope to build my own house.

Don't forget the 2 car garage with the lift.

[BimmerTom]

Thanks Guys...

3 car garage, 32x22. 10ft ceilings. House is around 2,000sq ft, plus a bonus room over the garage for another 400sq ft.

This is the garage before it was filled in with dirt:



3rd stall on the left, 9x7 door, with the 2 stalls on the right with an 18x7 door.

Yes, we did have to fill that all in. The joys of having a walkout basement. We brought in a total of 1180 yards of fill sand. For those who don't know how much a cubic yard, it will fill the back of a standard pickup truck. A large tag-behind dump truck holds 25 yards full. Yes, it was a lot of dirt. :)

The view behind the house is spectacular, there are deer and turkey hanging out there. Very quiet lot on a 25mph subdivision road.

Tom

[Rigmaster]

We're in the final stages of building our house. We took over as GC after the house was "dried in".


Here's a linky to what happened on Day 1:

http://www.muveemix.com/player.php/62708-1

(that was back in Nov........)


I've got plenty of other pics showing how things have progressed- I guess I need to make another muvee with them........


It's taken longer than we expected, but that's mostly due to the fact that we have the luxury of living in a house right now that's paid for- so we can afford to take our time in arranging for subs, etc.



Bret


Edit: to the OP, are those pre-fab walls for the basement?? We used Superior walls for ours, and I think they worked out great. BTW, the wife said I am not going to be working on cars in our new garage, I've got a 30x40 steel shop building about 100 yards out behind the new house- with reinforced concrete floor just waiting for the 2 post lift to be installed on one side of the shop..... ;)

[TwoJ's]

Nice. I bet your wife will be very particular and indecisive about the flooring/carpeting, wall dressings, paint, furniture etc. I've seen it first hand.

[atomic]

Anyone here act as their own general contractor? My wife and I are building our new house and we are acting as the general. Pretty exciting stuff, but it's a lot of logistical work. My wife is a stay-at-home mom and is very organized, so it's working out so far.

It's been pretty easy, but we're still early in the project. Here is my blog on the whole build:

http://bimmertom.livejournal.com

Just a quick pic of the success so far...



Tom

Congratulations... It is a ton of leg work keeping the subs on track and schedule, but in the end it is all so worth it. If you can, do not take the cheaper products route if your pocket warrants it. After all you are saving 25-50% by not having a general contractor do the work for you. That savings alone should allow for nice upgrades where needed/wanted and in the end add some nice value to your home when the final appraisal is done.

Good luck...


:D

[Rigmaster]

Congratulations... It is a ton of leg work keeping the subs on track and schedule, but in the end it is all so worth it. If you can, do not take the cheaper products route if your pocket warrants it. After all you are saving 25-50% by not having a general contractor do the work for you. That savings alone should allow for nice upgrades where needed/wanted.

Good luck...


:D

25-50%????


I'd say more like 10-20%- depending on a few variables. Still well worth it IMHO.

[atomic]

25-50%????


I'd say more like 10-20%- depending on a few variables. Still well worth it IMHO.

GC do make that kind of percentage in a lot of cases. Maybe not in todays market but it has been done. Trust me...


:up:

[BimmerTom]

Edit: to the OP, are those pre-fab walls for the basement?? We used Superior walls for ours, and I think they worked out great. BTW, the wife said I am not going to be working on cars in our new garage, I've got a 30x40 steel shop building about 100 yards out behind the new house- with reinforced concrete floor just waiting for the 2 post lift to be installed on one side of the shop..... ;)

No, those are standard poured walls. I've been very impressed with them, they are very smooth and spot on for measurements.



This is the backside of the house, looking at the walkout basement. We set the house a little higher and expected to bring in a little fill. Just helped out with keeping water out of the basement.

Thanks for all the support. It feels good I'm not alone in this. There have been a few times I wasn't sure if we were doing the right thing.

Tom

[BimmerTom]

We're looking at saving about 10-20% in GC fees. And, that is after some of the upgrades that we've included. Much better doors and windows (Pella insulated wood windows), better doors, etc.

Plus, I am running a dedicated 60amp sub panel to the garage for future expansion. :) Not spectacular when you look at some garages, but better than average.

Tom

[BimmerTom]

Here's a few updates:

Framing is moving along quite nicely:

First floor framed:



And now, the second floor (from the front)



Here's a top-down shot of the garage. My daughter and I are in the 3rd stall. We'll have a bonus room over the first 2 stalls.



And, here is our backyard view:



We have deer and turkey hanging around out back all the time.

You can also see where I've been drifting around the back yard in 4WD with my truck when it's muddy. LOL

I'll have a better update next week once the trusses are up!

Tom

[2Big4a3Series]

I wish you well and it sounds like a fun project but allow me to be the voice of reason for a moment. Going by the experience of some of my friends and old acquaintences, constructing a building without a GC or on-site manager is a bad idea.

It may seem easy at this stage because the main structure of the building is a relatively simple cut and dry process. It tends to get complicated when certain trades have to overlap each other's work. For example, the plumbers, electricians and HVAC crew might have different ideas as to who is responsible for a particular part of the job because they all share certain skill sets. The GC is good in situations like this because he is experienced preventing and/or resolving conflicts or misunderstandings that weren't settled on the original contracts. In a perfect world everyone will know exactly what to expect and what to do but unfortunately nobody can think of everything that can possibly go wrong without many years of experience.

I don't want to discourage you or scare you with some of my horror stories but most times when a home owner acts as their own GC and they are not experienced in construction, they end up spending more money than they expected, the project takes much longer than it should, and you could end up on bad terms with the contractors.

Having said all of that I hope I am wrong about everything that I am saying as it relates to your situation but everyone that I have ever known to build their house this way regrets it.