More selections

We now have all of the colors, tile, and choices complete from the 4 meetings we had with the interior decorator.

Flooring: we went over on our flooring allowance so we could have wood floors over the entire first floor except for the study.

Kitchen: we are getting corian (suede) on the perimeter, and granite (brown suede) on the island. I think this will look pretty good, and be very functional with the better material on the island workspace. I also reworked the range hood. I picked up a stainless chimney hood, and removed a cabinet above the range. This will have a much btter look in my opinion. Since I am doing the backsplash tile myself, the desgin center was able to create a contractor account for me to pick up the tile. We're going to try 13" tile laid on the diagnal, and the accent tile in the entire hood area, with smmaler squares throughout the field.

Bathroom: we went over on tile allowance just in the master bath alone, but I think it will look prety good. We have a ix of 6" and 12" planned for the floor, and 12" on diagonal as accents in the shower.

Everything else on paint was colors that fit into our allowance, and should look pretty good. We were allowed 4 colors in the house, and nothing in the 3 darkest shades out of about 7 colors. We ended adding an extra color for a fee to do our master bed/bath. For the price it was worth it.

Carpet was all basic grade, with upgraded pad, can always replace with wood or better grade as needed.

We have a friend who sells for Stanley Steemer in the wood flooring division, so we were able to get builder cost, I have yet to see how much that will save us, but that was the only way we were able to most of the first floor.

Exterior

The driveway and sidewalks were poured, everything looks pretty good. One thing we were behind on was meeting the landscape architect. The design and layout of the drive and walks looked fine to us, but getting some professional advice would have been nice before they did the final. We met with him just before the pour, so he was able to at least talk to the guys so they could do a few things that didn't actually require major rework and costs.

I have yet to see a final plan, but we should have had something sooner, as we could have had them pour a back patio, or other landings at the same time.

We'll be alright regardless, just would have been nice to have made some other decisions earlier.

Wiring on my own

The builder allowed me to do some wiring on my own. Low voltage of course. So, I was able to coordinate a time when the electrician had most of his work done.

I ran wiring for ethernet, whole house audio, and a central vac.

For the whole house audio, I ended up with 6 zones. Each room had cat5e and 16/4 wire from the home run location to the control box, then 14/2 wire to each speaker location from there. I probably should have put in double gang boxes for the control units just for planning, but i ended up using single gang. I can always cut out the box if needed later. I also ended up with two locations, like the master bath that had speaker and ability for volume control. For the 2 exterior doors, I just left the wire hanging in the wall on the sides of the doors so I can drill and pull the wire through when we are ready in the future.

For the central vac, I needed 6 locations to make sure the 30' foot hose would reach everywhere. I was pretty easy to run the tubing with the access to virtually anywhere. We have a laundry chute since our laundry is the basement currently, so that provided a perfect path in the surrounding framing to run the tubing.

I also ran a chase 2" tube along the central vac tube from basement to attic for future use to run wiring.

Changes

Once framing was complete there were still several changes that we thought should be made. One thing you should try to do is make it to the house every day if possible, and not just after hours. During the day is nice so you can talk to the workers and supervisor about little things that you notice.

We were able to make a few changes to the kitchen island size/location, and the master bath. The island just didn't seem to be in the right place that we had pictured. We ended up making it smaller, and moving back into the kitchen a little. Since we have such an open layout, it had felt like sitting at the island would be sitting in the great room. We also had them expand the bathroom wall to expose some wasted space. Both of these changes came with a price by the way. Minimal, but something that I think someone should have caught earlier.

One other thing that did not get changed was the foyer/2 story area. We ended up having quite a bit of wasted space just to get an opening in the ceiling as you come in the front door. After seeing how the 2nd floor could have had a nice little play room, I'm not sure we would have done it the same way again. We couldn't justify the cost of reworking the layout, so we'll see how we end up liking it. Can always do that later.

Check the house often, keep reviewing the plan...

Long overdue on updates

So, it's been a while since my last update, and a lot has happened. Things are still moving very fast. Drywall is currently up. Check out the latest...http://picasaweb.google.com/ahartong/Build#

I'm going to do a few separate posts to try to catch up on where things are, and how we got there.

Things are moving fast now

It's been two weeks and 2 days since the dig. Things are moving quickly. Here are the pics of the process thus far, and I'll continue to update this throughout the process.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ahartong/Build#

We heard back on the prairie grids for the windows. $167/window! We coughed up $1338 for the 8 windows in the front.

One thing that I noticed now that they have the framing up for the first floor, we've got an odd situation in the lower transitional level. The created some "cubby" space in the wall of the great room to fit the fireplace, and some shelves, but that means the floor extended into the transition level. Not a big deal, but that cuts into the one side of that room. I'll basically end up making cubbies or a wall of shelves based around it.

It's just one of those things that you really need to look at in the drawings in detail to see, otherwise you don't notice it till it's done. Try to look over all drawings given to you in detail, or have someone with a trained eye try to pick out the things that you woulnd't notice.

I think right now for the kitchen, partially for pricing reasons, and for a different look, we're going to do Corian for the counters, and granite for the island. Granite is way oveused these days, and something I do want, but thise will give us a different look, and we'll still kind of get what we want. Stay tuned.

Continuing to make our selections

We got most of our plumbing out of the way. (Fergusons) I think we went about 400 over budget here, we stayed within the limits for the most part. We didn't like any of the fauctes we were given, so those we all upgrades. Same with tubs and showers. We also went with a different pedestal sink in the powder room. For the kitchen, I wanted the double bowl undermount Franke sink, so that was an upgrade too.

The design person we met with was really good at helping us finalize the exterior colors of the house. (Michael David) I'm looking forward to working with her on the interior as well. She has lots of good ideas around design, not just color coordination.

There are so many choices to make here. Our first visti was just for exterior, and we still ended up having to decide: stucco color, window color, shutter color, trim color, stone color, grout color, gutter color, entry door color, garage door color, exterior door colors, and shingles. Whew!

We're looking into getting grids in the windows, that was one suggestion that was made during our visit.

We need to start picking what we like for interior colors. We only get 3 colors to use throughout the house, and we can't go with any dark shades. I think at this point, we'll just pick what we like, see what costs are to upgrade, and then we'll probably end up doing a few rooms on our own.

Still more things to consider

We've considered several other items to add recently.

Central Vac - I found one on craigslist, no hose or attachments, but came with quite a bit of piping, and all of the fittings and outlets, which can add up fast. The unit was new.

Skylights - we don't have any windows in our master bath, so I thought it would be nice to add some light. Velux is the brand to go with. We are considering either a skylight, or sun tunnel(s). The sun tunnels are a pretty good idea, work very well, and require minimal space depending on the roof space available.

More plumbing. We'll have the laundry plumbed for the basement, and the bonus room.

Lighting. Haven't had to decide on anything yet, but trying to determine lighting that will be needed throughout the house.

Fireplace. We have a ventless gas right now. Looking into pellet fireplaces. They make them just like the fireplace we would get(not an insert), only needs to be vented.

The Closing

We just closed on the loan last last week. It felt good to finally get that portion out of the way, since we only had our loan rate locked in for 60 days. A few things had to come together quickly to get the closing complete.

We owed the builder a down payment of 25K, which for some reason was to be paid to them before the closing could take place. I was under the impression that was something the title company would take care of, but the loan company insisted that happen before. So, that was a surprise, just don't make assumptions, ask questions.

We also had to have risk insurance. There were terms in our builders contract for "insurance" that required this, but there were also some "insurance" items that were part of our closing costs. I assumed this was covered. Nope. Had to get a new homeowners policy that listed the loan company and the builder as payees. This can be added in to the closing costs.

Just ask lots of questions. I was mad at the fact no one had pointed that out. I don't know what I don't know. This whole thing is a learning process.

The other piece was the closing costs. We knew what these were going to be some time before closing, but 7K was hard to swallow.

In the end everything worked out just fine, it was just a little frustrating.

Still making changes

We're just about ready to close, and our dig date is only weeks away. But, we are still making changes to plans. We have now moved a bathroom that was in the transition area down to the basement. We'll have more room for a "media room" by doing that. The basement is only a few steps down. We're alos looking into what kinds of film are available to cut glare on the great room windows. With the triple pane, and file on the 2 upper rows, we should be fine. There are always other things we can do for shading. We also decided on the concrete driveway. I added a washtub, and water lines in the garage. Can't have a drain due to code issues.

The kitchen design is done. There was a small disappointment there when we found out what we could actually get with our allowance. Agian, we should have found out what our allowance was on that in the beginning. I just made a few assumptions based on my last kitchen remodel. Depending on the types of cabinet drawers, door style, and wood species, you can go crazy on price, and with choices. We ended up $2002 over our allowance. And that was down from $4300. The choices were crazy, so we ended up picking what we knew we wanted, regardless of being in our package or not, then goign from there.

We liked the previous Cardell cabinets we had previously, so that is what we wanted again. But, of course the door style we wanted was a step up. We didn't care so much about the bathrooms (or at least the kids bathroom) than we did the kitchen. So, we ended up with the Shaker II, Maple, Mocha cabinets with dove tail drawers. We know how they held up before, so should be fine again.

We also have the "U" kitchen. So, working in the island with some seating was a challenge due to space. But, I feel good about the work area we will have in the kitchen from the island, and have seating for two with a raised bar. Due to our open floor plan, I thought that might spearate the ktichen a bit. Having the big drawers in the island facing the range was something I wanted to (also had this before). They are nice for storing the cooking utensils, and pots/pans.

The one corner of the kitchen was to be a double oven cabinet, but since I went with the range, didn't need, and I thought that was a waste of space. So, we now have a walk-in pantry where we can use that whole space.

For appliances, I went with the Frigidaire Pro series. The main reason was because I wanted a dual fuel range that was in a decent price range, and didn't have the controls sticking up in the back. And Frig. is the only maker of one that I like and can afford. The new Maytag or LG refrig. would be nice with the french doors, bottom freezer, and cabinet depth, but I can't justify the price. We'll be fine with side-by-side, can always replace it. Stainless range hoods are very pricey, so do some shopping around ahead of time if that is what you want. The builder would do a custom wood range hood over the range, but I opted out of that, took the $500 credit. It does have a nice look, but I'm not sure that is what I wanted.

The only thing left is the countertop material to use, flooring, and how I'm going to do the under and above cabinet lighting. Again, I put this in before and we liked it.

Things to consider

There were probably several ideas you have accumulated up to this point on items that you want to have done for you during the build process, here are few things to consider:

-40-50 year shingles
-Thicker decking on the roof
-Increase amount of insulation, consider foam. Most states have some minimum for walls and ceilings. Depending on where you live you might want to increase it.
- Is your home energy star rated? If not, look into what needs to be done to attain that.
- Engineered joists
- Low- E, and triple pane glass (where applicable) windows
- Tankless water heater
- Increase height of basement walls (poured or block)
- PVC footer drain
- Solid core interior doors
- Fiberglass entry door (or something with better insulation value)
- Insulated garage doors
- Kitchen countertop material (many choices these days)
- Wood flooring - natural or synthetic
- interior wood trim - thickness and height consideration depending on if you want to paint or stain
- wrought iron ballusters
- concrete vs asphalt driveway
- gas cooktop
- exterior water outlets
- exterior electrical outlets
- high efficiency hvac
- bathroom rough-ins for future use
- garage,basement,utility water access and drains
- rubberwall coating on basement walls

The list goes on and on, but helps you see some of the things you may not have considered. It's much easier to see what can be upgraded once you see the contract, but it's also nice to have thought of them beforehand.

Let's make a deal

Decide what amount your are comfortable with paying for the lot and home, and discuss with the builder if it even makes sense to continue down this path. Get the proposed price for the home that was planned for you.

Sit on it a little bit. Let them call you next. You could be shopping for other builders, coparing prices, other lots, etc. Tell them you need to be at $x, not the price you have in front of you.

Ask what their profit margin will be on this build. I think some builders (production builers - lower quality) might be around a few percent. High end custom builders I'm guessing can be upwards of 15%. Hopefully they share this with you, and you can decide if it is fair.

Now that you have a price, you can begin to get creative with the layout, and start to think about allowances you might need, and credits you'll want to take.

Getting your first set of plans

By now the builder should have a pretty good feel for the type of home you want, and the layout. Before he tosses out that first set of plans to you, try to be specific on some of the things you know you want/don't want.

You have probably already discussed your price range too, so he'll design something that he knows will fit into that range.

The more you can give him now to get into those plans will help in getting that initial price of the home. It's hard to say all of those thing until you see that first drawing, but it helps to get it all out now. Start mentioning those thing you wanted to finish yourself.

Again, keep track of all the things said.

After you receive those plans, critique every little thing. i.e lights on the sides of the garage door, stone coping, sidelights on front door. Some stuff is just a habit that they have of putting into the drawing that in the end you might not get.

What comes standard with the build/purchase?

Get the list of what comes in the base package of building the home. Start to get a feel for the allowances that are stated, and what that actually gets you. i.e 3500 for appliances may be something you know you won't like, so see what it would be to jump to next level, or at lest plan on adding some misc. spending allowances as you know that will be one thing you will go over on.

For big ticket items that are listed, but don't have a $ allowance stated, ask what that allowance is. It helps to know the amounts so you can get a feel for the certain line of goods you will be getting, and if it will cover what you might want to do. i.e kitchen cabinets, what is the amount you are allowed to spend on cabinets?

Begin to question all of the item listed for interior, exterior, insulation, etc. You should get a good feel that the products they use at their lowest level are at least of some level of quality youare comfortable with.

Start to create the list of things that are not listed, or you know are not included, and get some rough estimates for what it would be to add those into the proposal once you get to that point. The more you know what $ amounts they have allotted for each item gives you a little more power to start figuring out what you can get/do on your own for possibly cheaper, and then you can can reduce the cost of the home.

You probably already have a feel for the price of the home and if it is close to your price range, so the above will let you figure out what you can work with to get the price where you want it, and get you the things that do not come standard.

After picking your lot, and choosing the builder

Try to write everything down that is said during initial conversations with the builder. There are a lot of questions you ask that they may or may not answer the way you want, but make sure you capture those conversations.

Take pictures and notes of all of the houses that you walk through when looking at craftsmenship, and home designs, it will help when trying to remember how things were done, how big rooms were, and what you liked. Maybe even take some measurements.

Talk to people in the neighborhood about the builder to make sure they liked them and their process, and why they chose them over other builders. How much did they go over on their allowances, what issues did they run into? Anything they will offer up, take it.

Picking your lot

Make sure to get the deed restrictions for the subdivision as soon as you choose the lot or when you are considering a lot, just to make sure there aren't any crazy restrictions on things that you want (or don't want) as part of your build.

Get a site plan of the lot as soon as possible so you can see the lay of the land, where easements might be, any minimum sideyard requirements, run off, sewer, elevation, or other things that may stand out when you look at the lot from this view.

Figure out what the price of the lot is to make sure it is even something you want to consider. This will affect the total cost of your home in the end.

What do you want as far as land goes? Acreage? Water/Stream? Walkout basement? Wooded? What direction will your hose face?

Building a home should be fun...right?

I guess we will find out what we have in store for us during the building of our custom home. We are about 60 days into the process, and have finally decided continue down this path. Stay tuned for future updates on our progress.