Playn

Now if I could ever get you to build another restaurant

Playn

LOL Yea, I'm kind of eyeing that "just empty the coin box" idea myself

Ms PatriYacht

My husband and I were our own contractors a few years back, we saved a ton of money. We had to tear down and old house first. We built on a lake so several of our neighbors had done it and we used many of their contractors. To make it work you need to work well with your spouse and divide up the tasks as team. My husband dealt with the hands on stuff, blueprints, design, checking their work, and even did some of the work himself like insulation, wood floors, and painting. I scouted out the sub contractors, (word of mouth and subdivisions with custom builders were a good source of leads). I handled most of the bidding, scheduling, errands, dealing with the bank, and picking out the materials, and sweeping (lots and lots of sweeping and cleaning up). Being a sales mgr, organized, and a fairly bossy person helped me deal with all the personalities. I actually think if I had to deal with just the builder for a whole year that would be worse. We were there almost every day for about 10 months, (in spite of each working 50 hrs a week at our jobs) we gave up a lot of boating, and social life. However, we wound up with 3,100 sq ft of almost all brick, tons of windows, marble, granite, wood floors, fireplaces, huge jacuzzi, on 100 ft of lakefront. We COULD NEVER have been able to afford our house without doing it ourselves. But like someone posted earlier, everyones priorities are different, we were like the guy in Holland who posted the pictures, very driven. Not everyone is cut out to spend a year of their life wrapped up in one exhausting project. By the way we are still working on it, decks, paver brick walks, landscaping it never ends........................................

GLH

Thanks CB

cuda

I've been in construction business for 19 years, and there is no way I'd take one on. Too much crap to deal with from suppliers not delivering, subs not showing up (never the tile guys ), to idiotic inspectors who don't even know their own codes, but they are sure your's isn't right.

I have seen some of the worst fiascos imaginable with experienced builders in charge.

I'd do like is suggested above and find a house that is already built that suits you and buy it. What you save (if you do) on building it yourself will never buy you back the years it will take out of your life from the stress of building it.

And lastly, remember there are only two things you can be absolutely sure of in construction: It will take longer and cost more.

wannabe

What do you do best?

Your own job.

Do you have the time to spend learning the building trade? No thats what they do best.

Let the GC do the job for you, spend the money on the things you want and be smart. Set the place up for things you may want in the future but can't afford right now. Have them install a 400 amp panel with a sub panel off of it so you can run the electric nout to the workshop that will house the 42 Tiger in 5 years.



And make the workshop big enough so the rest of us can store our boats there too.

Wannabe

tripps

Boy,am i glad I read this post!!! Tripps

THE GOOD STUFF

MY 2 CENTS .TROUTLY & CUDA SAID IT ALL. THERE ARE A LOT OF SUBS THAT WOULD LOVE TO LIVE WITH YOU IN YOUR NEW HOUSE.GENERAL LIBILITY , WORKMANS COMP. BUILDERS RISK . ANY WORK YOU DO YOURSELF IS NOT COVERED BY GEN. LIABILITY. FIND YOU A GENERAL CONTRACTOR THAT IS FAIR NOT TO RICH NOT TO POOR. I LIVE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. I BUILD IN TRY TO FIND SOMEONE THAT LIVES IN THE PLACE YOU WANT TO BUILD. A BUILDER IS ONLY AS GOOD AS THE SUB CONTRACTORS THEY HAVE UNDER THEM . GET REFERENCES & LOTS OF THEM. FIND YOU A BUILDER THAT YOU TRUST & THAT WILL WORK FOR A FLAT FEE. KINDA LIKE MAGICFLOAT & FORMULA BOATS. ITS YOUR HOUSE THEY DO NOT & SHOULD NOT CARE IF YOU MAKE CHANGES ITS NOT COSTING THEM ANYTHING . BUILDING HOUSES FOR 20 YEARS IN AR.WE MAKE FRIENDS WITH EVERY ONE WE BUILD FOR. IF YOU HAVE THE TIME YOU CAN BUILD YOUR OWN HOUSE BUT MAKE SURE YOUR HAVE THE INSURANCE TO BACK YOU UP. BUT IN THE LONG RUN YOUR PROBABLY NOT GOING TO SAVE MUCH MONEY IF YOU ARE BUSY AT YOUR JOB . MOST OF THE TIME PEOPLE LOSE MORE MONEY THAN THEY SAVED IF THEY WOULD HAVE DONE THERE OWN JOB.I WILL BE HAPPY TO TRY AND ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS YOU HAVE . DIFFERENT AREAS HAVE MANY REGULATIONS. I BUILD HOUSES MUCH BETTER THAN I TYPE...............REX

liquid asset

I build custom homes in the North TX area, and am a freind of BIKINILOVERS, his house turned out and seemed to go well during the construction process, and he did save a lot of money. What usally happens is you wind up with low quality workman ship that you paid to much for. The subs will usally charge you a lot more than if a builder that sends them work on a regular basis, and they know there check will be there on monday. We do cost plus or set sq. ft. price depending on what the buyer chooses, I can usally save a buyer about 5% on a cost plus job if they don't get to out of hand on things and try to pick things from companies other than my regular suppliers ( tile, light fixtures, cabinets, plumbing fixtures ext.) I would recomend going with a small custom builder that will be on the job hisself, probably someone who builds less than 30 houses a year, I'm also building my personal house right now, I'll post some pics soon


Jason Belcher
Accent General Contractors LLC.
www.agchomes.com

97BossHammer

Man I appreciate all the help. My wife is dead set on the idea of us doing it ourselves....but I know that we couldn't handle it. I know for a fact that we just don't have the time to do it all ourselves. The fact that I don't know enough about it all tells me right then and there that I shouldn't take on that task. Now I can do some stuff on my own so maybe I can save some money that way. I'd love to just buy a house that we like but here's the deal, most are on small lots. We've picked out a good 1 1/2 acre lot that we reall like and maybe we should just pick out some plans and get with a builder to see exactly how much we're looking at. I know some builders here and I think I can get them to cut me some slack here and there. I have a friend that is building as we speak.....his slab is not even poured and he's already overwhelmed with stuff so that was pretty much a hint to me right there. I'm gonna print all this info out so when I talk to a builder I'll know what to ask. If you guys have any tips and stuff for me on this please post them because it's really really helping me out a great deal.