Building a house - anyone done it?

Blaze

Blaze

The Jeeper Reaper
Joined
Aug 9, 2005
Location
Wake Forest, NC
OK, so my wife and I had a conversation over the weekend. We like our current house, but don't LOVE it. There are lots of things that bug us. The driveway is short and slightly sloped, nowhere for the kids to play basketball/etc. We have about 12" of road frontage in the front (trianglular shaped yard) so when people come to visit they have to park up the road. We have .23 acres, so there is no room for wiffle ball. Garage is annoyingly small for me and there is nowhere to build a shop on our land, blah blah blah the list goes on.

Normal people would love the house and not complain, but this sort of stuff is finally starting to bug us. I grew up on a lot of land, so being packed in is driving me nuts.

We thought about putting some money into upgrades on the house this year, but they we realized that we would be throwing money into a house that is just acceptable to us.

We have about $50k in equity in the house, so we are thinking of selling it and using the money (plus a couple bucks we have saved up) to buy some land. Then move into an apartment and build our dream house on the land.

My brothers and dad and I plan on doing a lot of the work to save some money. My dad built a couple of houses like this and he saved a shitload of money, so he said he'd help me keep things in order and all.

Anyone have any advice for this? Anyone in the Raleigh area do framing/foundation & concrete/roofing/electrical/plumbing/HVAC/sheetrock mudding/carpeting work?

I'm a designer by trade (albeit mechanical, but I have had some architectual training) so I plan on drawing out the house I want and taking it to an architect to do the blueprints for it.

It is going to be badass, and the shop will be equally awesome.
 
just make sure to keep everything to code. this becomes a head ache later on.
 
You can skip the arch, if you want...if the house isn't too complicated, just hire a (good) draftsman on the side to to the prints. Save $$$. We built 1200sf in 2002, that's what we did...I did 100% of the design and floor plan, paid iirc $500 for the drafting services and all sets of prints.
 
I have software that you can use to design it right down to every detail. It is a few years old but was very easy to use to add my addition, I doubled the size of my house. Shoot me a PM if you want to borrow it.
 
I do flooring. Did it full time before I joined the Marines but now I do it on the side.
 
I know where there is some land super on the cheap over off highway 98,right near the Durham/Wake County line.I think the guy has like 12 acres for sale,my wife and I are looking at 6 acres of it right now.It's really hilly land for this area.There is also a ton of land going out towards N Durham,I see it all the time on the way to my kids school.
Whenever you get ready to build let me know.I don't know if you can still pull your own permits or not but if you can't I have a friend who is a Licensed Electrician.He will let me pull a permit on his license,he can also help design the electrical Service you will need for the house and shop.I was an electrician for a lot of years,residential is pretty easy,it's something I imagine you could do yourself with a little guidance.
I now install Low voltage.I can not say enough about getting a home network can.I can not believe the amount of builders that still pull phones and cable to the C/O.That is ridiculous,I would pull two cat5 and one rg6 to each room and take them to a central can.That way you can punch all the jacks down as internet,and decide later whether you want phone or internet there.If they are in a central can,you can change them at any time by simply unplugging and replugging the cat5.I would also wire for speakers in any room you think you might enjoy music in.Speaker wire is not very expensive and far easier to put in during the building process.I have a theater room,a surround/plasma combo in my living and TV's in every room of my house.The ceiling speakers are the only thing I use every single day.I have a ton of residential speaker wire laying around.Oh and takes lots of pictures,I can not stress how great it is to have pictures of the house in bare frame when trying to add stuff later.
I also know a couple out of work lifetime framers,They would probably work for very little money if it was cash.I also know a guy who hangs and finishes sheetrock,same story he's out of work and could be gotten on the cheap.
If I can help let me know,I am pretty busy during the week but I would be glad to come out on the weekends and offer any expertise I have picked up working in construction since I was 17.
 
Thanks guys! I thought the plans had to be sealed or something for building permit? I work in commercial design, so I know we do, but not sure on residential. If not, I have the software to do my own design (I'm a design engineer) and I can just flip one of the architects in our PA office a few bucks to finish out the papers (I'm primary MEP design, so I am not 100% on complete arch drawings).

I have no problem doing electrical. My grandfather is a retired electrican and I spent my summers growing up as his apprentice. I'm sure he'll come down to help me wire. That would be great if you could help me out on the permits! I'm anal about electrical, I'm tired of my break panel in my current house being labeled totally wrong and the shoemaker work that was done. Grrr.

I like the idea of networking the house. I actually have a ton of network gear from work in my storage space. I can set up a server setup in the house! SWEET! We'll be talking. :)

Definitely interested in the framers you know. I'm betting that is one of the major costs, with the exception of concrete.

We plan on doing the subflooring, sheetrock (not mudding), siding and trim, and all the paint. I want to have a sub doing the foundation and framing (along with roof and sheathing), plus another one to do plumbing and possibly electrical depending on how much they would charge for the work, and then someone to mud and have another do flooring.

I'm tired of popcorn sprayed ceilings, tired of fucked up sheetrock from peeling off wallpaper, tired of brass doorknobs and ceiling fans, tired of a tight garage, tired of my boys having tiny rooms, and tired of my wiffle ball-less yard.
 
Man it sounds like you have a plan.Here's another tip I just thought of.We were on vacation near Danville one time and We found this hole in the wall,dirt floor flea market.There is a guy there that buys overstock Lowe's and Home Depot stuff a trailer full at a time.We had always wanted to do the "Iron Lily" set of light fixtures from Lowe's but Just the Chandelier for over the table was $399.Anyways that guy had every single light fixture Lowe's sold and most of them were $10-$20.We got enough fixtures to redo our entire house for less than $175.We even got the big chandelier.
 
That's great advice! I also found you can buy dirt cheap overstock on eBay. I went to buy brushed nickel hinges from Home Depot and they were like $4 each. I went on ebay and bought like 100 of them, exact same ones, for $20 shipped.
 
You don't have to seal residential drawings and you can be your own general contractor... but your subs will have to have business licenses for their trades. I worked for an architect doing almost exclusively residential additions and renovations for several years (I'm working elsewhere, doing different types of projects now), so if you have any questions about Raleigh or Wake. Co., specifically, I'd be happy to share anything else I remember from 2 years ago. ;)

Honestly, having a GC to help with coordinating trades and ordering materials is something worth considering... their subs are going to show up when they're scheduled to be there, whereas if your job is a 'side' job, sometimes the scheduling gets conflicted and if someone relies on a GC for most of their work, who do you think will get first dibs? Just something to consider... depending on your own work schedule and family/lifestyle, it might be worth it to get your drawings priced by a couple of GCs, just to see.

As far as drawings themselves, whatever computer program you have or can get should be fine. Check with whatever County or municipality for their requirements for permits. Show them to an architect or builder friend or two, if you want, to make sure they look okay & make sense. Just take them somewhere to have copies made... black on white is fine and Duncan-Parnell (or even maybe Accent) does prints/copies pretty cheap. If you have your heart set on blueprints, my former employer probably still has the machine. ;)
 
Ammonia prints FTL. :lol:

I have a large scale plotter at work, I can just print big B&W copies here.

I'll try and get something on paper and see what they think. I've got AutoCAD and Revit I can draw in, I'll probably do Revit just because it's all purdy this way. :lol:
 
Hey Blaze im getting out of the air force finally in less than a year when I get back from this deployment and me and the wifey are also going to rent a apartment while i go to school (For forestry) and build a house(while we already have alot saved up) so im also going to be going down this route fairly soon.Our problem as of now is do we move back home around asheboro/moore county (where she is from) or build up in wilkes county where my dads home place is with over 200 acres(free land)!Cant wait to see what you come up with man!
 
Hey Blaze

I am a GC (have my FL licence, working on my NC licence) and have built lots of homes in FL most over 10,000 sq ft. And have an electrical contractors licence as well, with lots of experince in home automation and theater design/set up.

If there is anything I might he able to help you with please feel free to email or call. I will PM you my info.

Jason
TrailBreaker
 
Blaze said:
Ammonia prints FTL. :lol:
I have a large scale plotter at work, I can just print big B&W copies here.
I'll try and get something on paper and see what they think. I've got AutoCAD and Revit I can draw in, I'll probably do Revit just because it's all purdy this way. :lol:
Click to expand...

LOL at the ammonia... gawd, I hated making those prints.

See, I think you're way further ahead of the game than you lead on. :beer: If you can draw it in Revit, you can figure most of it out... in residential it is all about making sure the notes are clear so that anyone else can understand the drawings. Hey and with mechanical being the trade that usually gets the shaft (pun intended) when it comes to coordination, you'll be all set. ;)
 
LOL @ doing your house in Revit.

Although, modeling it certainly has its benefits... you can figure most everything out in the model first. Particularly handy if you've never done this before.
 
trailhugger said:
LOL at the ammonia... gawd, I hated making those prints.

See, I think you're way further ahead of the game than you lead on. :beer: If you can draw it in Revit, you can figure most of it out... in residential it is all about making sure the notes are clear so that anyone else can understand the drawings. Hey and with mechanical being the trade that usually gets the shaft (pun intended) when it comes to coordination, you'll be all set. ;)
Click to expand...

I used to work work for a company that built custom air handlers. We only had an ammonia machine for the big D-size prints and had to fold them down to fit into a binder. The worst was when you went to lunch while doing it and forgot to wash your hands. Ammonia-flavored cheeseburgers really suck.

You are right about mechanical too. I am so jealous of the electrical guys, they just draw some outlets and switches, a couple panels, then just say "this goes to this panel" and the electrician takes care of the routing. My ductwork has to be almost dead-nuts on or the sheetmetal guy is pissed. :lol:
 
A few thoughts. Things vary by county. Here in Meck, you need to have engineered (Sealed) drawings for anything over 2500 sf. If I were you, I would look into that first. It would be cheapest to find an engineer first if need be. Ask him who should draw your house. If you draw it, he is gonna charge you a fortune. Just how it works.

Second, here in Meck the electrical needs to be done by a licensed electrician. you can't do it yourself. I'm pretty sure you'll run into the same thing.

Lastly, perhaps talk with some GC's in the area and get a few estimates from them. I can guarantee that their prices will be higher than what you are thinking, but theirs will be a lot closer to accurate. I was in housing for several years before this mess hit. You might consider trying to find something built and save a ton of money right now. Flip it when the market comes back. Doesn't sound like you wanna go that route, but it never hurts to look.
 
Word of advice about Durham (Hwy 98 property / North Durham properties mentioned above), do your research before buying any property. There's reasons why land is so cheap up here. Besides the current Watershed Stringincies already in place, There's some new rules coming into play that not hardly anyone knows about by NCDENR Division of Water Quality (google Falls Lake rules) supposively taking place the first of the year and a second phase of rules in 10 more years that out trump the first phase of rules regarding any land draining into Falls Lake. It's absolutely outragious. So much I'm considering selling and moving. Durham residents are the ones who will take the brunt of paying to clean up Raleigh's drinking water with absolutely no benefit. It's the most stringint rules ever to apply in NC. Or elsewhere in the US as far as I know. The rules are so stringint that 10 years from now I will be limited to having dogs or even a garden.
I advise to stay out of Falls Lake Watershed. Period!
 
Well, I don't plan on moving into Durham. No offense to anyone who lives there, but I moved to Raleigh for the Wake County schools and I'd like to stay here. I lived in Durham for many years growing up, I want to stay in Raleigh.

A friend of mine found me a really sweet piece of property close to where we live. Provided there is no toxic waste or dead bodies, I think it might be the ideal place for us.
 
The piece of advice I will give, take it or leave it. Find, Solve, fix all of your drainage problems and the problems you don't know about before/during your build. It's a PITA to come back through and fix it.
 
I found the perfect lot up the road. 2 acres right behind a nice neighborhood, no covenants or restrictions, neighbors are all older and have nice kept houses, and the land is fairly flat and has some treed area. I'm going to make some calls tomorrow to check on some things.
 
Wake County I-maps would be a great start there. And a good piece of advice I got once that I believe is golden is to hang out at 5:00-6:00 during the week to see what life there is all about.
 
From all I have seen of friends and family that have built, you better have a REAL strong marraige and financial limitations that you both accept upfront.
 
I did that last night, although it was raining it was dead still and silent. The property is tucked between two nice neighboorhoods and everyone has well maintained houses.

And I know about what you mean, Franklin. We have a very strong marriage and understand what our limits are. My dad warned of us both of those from the last house they built.
 
Back
Top