Come along as we build a custom home Thread II--Construction
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Anonymous
OP seems more focused on aesthetic design features, unfortunately (common mistake) OP has already answered these and other questions related to the structure and function of the home earlier in this thread and the first thread. |
Anonymous
I believe OP addressed many of those things in Part 1. |
Anonymous
Hoo boy--you get what you pay for around here. I'm back, to answer a few questions I apparently missed. First, for all of us who aren't materials engineers, or HVAC specialists--you don't have to understand every nuance of these very technical things. This whole process, in fact, has made me appreciative of building codes/standards, which are perpetually updated. Example: even the 'worst' build today, will be a tighter envelope than the best build 25 years ago. Second, the insulation, building envelope and HVAC are all part of a system that has to work together. So as an example--if you build your house super tight, that will definitely factor into the type of HVAC system recommended. Our builder, HVAC company and the insulation folks were in close communication and a lot of the decisions for these things were made in tandem. Third, rather than communicating in terms of "thickness of insulation" "tightness of building envelope" which really doesn't mean anything, we talk about the R value of our insulation, or the 'air exchange rate' for the home. If you've ever done a blower door test, that's what its measuring. Again, newer homes are tighter, and the HVAC tech design systems with 'make up air' (that is, fresh air pulled into homes for ventilation, since new homes dont have as much) that account for this. But yes, we have an ERV (energy recovery ventilator) as part of our HVAC system. And our insulation (blown in cellulose in the walls, foam which is more expensive, only in the roof where we get good bang for the buck by protecting our HVAC duct system). As for the other questions, they kind of don't apply. If you're building a home in the US, in 2024, you have an air barrier both below grade and above grade. This is not optional. Same with kitchen fans that vent exhaust to the exterior. It is HIGHLY unlikely that in a SFH built in 2024 that you would use recirculated air--but we did ask the builder this. Bless your heart, PP. Hope this helps, we aim to please. |
Anonymous
| After drywall was up, then came trim and then painting. For trim, we did a coffered celing in the family room (which should also help with sound reduction in our fairly open floor plan), cove style molding throughout the entry hall, family room, dining room and kitchen. And, baseboards (with outlets cut into the base board itself in the dining and family rooms) throughout. Trim materials ran 17K and labor to install was 16K. |
Anonymous
| Are you left handed? I noticed the d/w is to left of kitchen sink. |
Anonymous
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For painting, we considered getting the services of an interior designer, but, I picked the colors myself in our previous home and have lived a lot of places, which helps develop the eye. In the end, I ended up choosing every last color.
I did have an assist from the painter himself--who saved me from choosing a white that would have been too yellow for trim. He basically expressed exactly what this blog says: https://www.kylieminteriors.ca/the-3-whites-and-off-whites-i-would-never-paint-my-trim-or-cabinets/ Both the painter and the trim work carpenters were engaged by the builder. We didn't try to comparison shop here--reliability was key and its hard to know that without working with someone. Cost for both exterior and interior painting totaled $25,900. About 2,500 of this was paint. The rest was labor. Also, at this point, things happen pretty quickly. Although I had an ideas folder, I hadn't settled on all our paint colors. I wanted to see how the house was coming together before finalizing. I probably made 3-4 trips to the paint store for samples, and painted swatches on the wall so we could see how they looked at various times of day. We settled on a base color which we used throughout the house, and that made it easier to choose colors for individual rooms that worked with the base color. It took about 5 days to make final selections on paint, so by the time our kitchen cabinets were installed, painters were really to go. |
Anonymous
Yes, we are a family of lefties. Of the 4 of the immediate family + 2 extended family who are often with us, 3 are left handed, including the two who are the most active cooks/clean up duty. |
Anonymous
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Now for countertop selections. This house has a lot of them. It was 4.5 bathrooms + countertops in the main laundry room and small countertops in the mudroom.
We went significantly over budget--our estimate was 16K, and the final cost was 25K. Here are a few things we learned: the main budget buster was our kitchen. I posted an updated plan for our kitchen: https://imgur.com/a/uWrwzzX The center island is about 8.5' x 4', so that is a full slab of stone. We also had to buy 3 full slabs of stone for the perimeter of the kitchen. We chose quartzite for both, which is pricey. Kitchen alone (materials + labor) was 14,215. I repriced it with a nice granite instead, and it shaved about 4k off. But, by this time I'd really committed to the quartzite, which we loved. Most of the edges are a standard eased edge, with an ogee edge only at the buffet. Eased edges saves *some* money vs other, fancier edges. We also spent money on the primary bath, which has two separate vanities, again we chose a quartzite, with a mitered edge that shows off the countertop, sort of like this image, so that the countertop appears 'thicker'. https://imgur.com/a/c050QU3 That was 4k. So, then the total for every single other bathroom (guest bath with double sink vanity, kids bath with double sink vanity, powder room, laundry room with a countertop for folding laundry + sink and mudroom) combined was just under 6K. The cost saver here was that each of these rooms was small enough that we were able to select remnants from the fabricators warehouse, and not have to buy full slabs. They had some beautiful remnants, just not enough for the full kitchen. Its helpful that by this time, we have most of our construction budget set. I don't think I would have boldly gone 8K over on countertops alone if we had to lock this in earlier in the process. Since we had some cost savings elsewhere, we were ok to spend more on countertops. We got our kitchen and primary bathroom slabs from Gramaco (they only sell full slabs) https://www.gramaco.com/ , and our fabricator (who also has the warehouse full of remnants) was Christian Aiello of Stone and Tile Guys, https://stoneandtileguys.com/ This was a lot of fun. Kind of like a very expensive candy shop. |
Anonymous
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A note on time commitment: Early on in the process, there was a ton of time spent waiting. Waiting for permits, waiting for the lot to be cleared, etc. And at that earlier stage a lot had to be done sequentially. Now that the structure and drywall, as well as the home's systems are in place (plumbing, electrical)--there is a lot happening simultaneously. There can be 2 or 3 separate crews or contractors working at the same time.
We've increased communication with our builder, from a single, 30-45 minute weekly meeting + 1-2 emails. Now, we might have a combined dozen emails, text messages or short phone calls in a given week. These are to sign contracts with subcontracts (eg, the countertops), or if we see something when we visit the home that needs to be addressed, or other updates. And, we're averaging 2 visits/week to the house. |
Anonymous
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OP - how far along are you in the project now?
Mine is done, shovel in the ground to finish took about 9 months, but it was basically 12 months when including waiting on permits. |
Anonymous
We're really close. Should be complete in about 6 weeks, so very early June. From the time we cleared land, we'll be right at about 12 months. We could have pushed the builder to be done sooner, but didn't want to move before end of the school year. Congrats, PP, on your build. I hope you're enjoying it. I'm interested in what was similar/different from my updates and your experience? |
Anonymous
You're right on the money when it came to communications with the builder being more frequent after the framing went up. Probably once we went through the electrical walkthrough is when things started picking up b/c things moved fast. It felt like every week we were being given a deadline on things. I'll say our budget was a lot less lol or we didn't spend as much. I think for tile you mentioned 21K, we probably spent IDK...6-7K. We did go slightly overbudget on countertops, and we went with the Wolf range and convection steam oven combo, so we went over on that. Overall, the process was very stressful. I don't think we'll ever do this again, or if we do, at least we'll know the process better. We love our home though lol. |
Anonymous
NP. I didn’t know this was a thing! I’m right handed but have our d/w to the left of the sink. We placed it there because the range is to the right of the sink and an open d/w would have been in the way if someone needed to use the sink from the range. |
Anonymous
| How is cost plus going for you? Are you staying on budget? Is it giving you enough control over where to add/subtract to suit your needs? |
Anonymous
I'm still a big fan of cost-plus, with a few caveats: I have a nearly endless appetite for details, and have approached this as a project manager. I stay on top of the Builder's accountant to send me every single receipt, which I log into an excel spreadsheet (nothing fancy). I'm also using Trello to keep myself organized and assign myself (and partner) tasks/follow up items with the builder. Some of this isn't unique to going cost-plus, per se, but since cost plus shifts the financial risk to the homebuyer rather than the homebuilder, it feels necessary and sensible. To anyone considering this path, you can save a lot of stress and headaches by going the flat fee route--you give up some control though. We've saved money by not using an interior designer, and instead relying on our 'life experience' + contractors with good design expertise (architect is the big one, but tile and plumbing fixtures are also examples). And by staying very hands-on in selections--biggest example is the lighting, which I bought piece by piece myself, and came in 3K under the original budget estimate. Biggest places we went over (construction only, I'll update the site prep thread I started with a debriefing at the very end)-- were HVAC systems (by 17K), countertops (8.5K), kitchen cabinets (5k). But we did it knowingly. With HVAC for example, we went with a 5 stage vs a 2 stage system, as detailed earlier. Biggest places we saved money-- 12K for lumber (prices came down post COVID), and 18K under on the foundation (Builder planned for worst case). We may still have some savings in the form of an additional storm drain we may not need. For construction only we'd estimated 1.053M and I think we'll be at 1.130 or so. So about 78K over our budget. However, we saved on some of our site prep, so I think our total cost, all in should still be 1.45M |