Selling Clash of clans

Hanging in there

I would guess when a person builds a home and uses a General Contractor, when someone asks, "How is your home coming along?" it wouldn't cause much negative internal feelings. If there were delays maybe they would be upset with the permitting agency, the GC, or whoever else.

When we decided to build own home, again, and someone asks, "How is the house coming along?" I feel further overwhelmed and not adequate to the task at hand.

We have had delays outside our control, sure. We choose a designer that has been going through a tough patch with his marriage. When checking his references I didn't think to ask how the guy's home life was. We have had our own medium level crisis or three since moving into my wife's parents' home. Not that they aren't great people, sharing space is tough no matter how great the occupants are. Back on point.

This week we received redlines from the county. Nothing major, mostly wanting more details spelled out on the plans. The civil and structural engineer and the designer all have a little bit of work and we should be able to submit again.

I have been getting bids that have been coming back higher than we were anticipating. This has added stress because going back and simplifying the house or reducing the square footage will require more time and money in design.

One bid for instance was for the Wall Company to do the basement walls, excavation, slabs, and pads. It was fully a quarter of our budget. I called my contact to see what we could do. He suggested there was a lot of rebar in the walls and the footings were very large. He asked if I had a soils report and I said no. Then he speculated that because I didn't have a soils report the structural engineer may have erred on the side of caution and designed stronger walls, not knowing the conditions in the ground. He felt fairly positive that we would come out ahead if we got a soils report for $1,000 and would likely be able to reduce the rebar and footings. So I ordered the soils report and hopefully the results will allow the structural engineer to make the walls match the conditions in the soil.

While all this is going on, and we have cash in our bank from the sale of our last home, my dear wife wants to start flipping homes. I am not opposed to the idea but resisted because we have a lot going on right now, and some days I feel I am barely holding it together. We bid on our first property online but didn't win. The same property is back up for auction now and ends on Monday I believe. We may still get it yet.

This changes our plans in that if we decide to continue this, we'll have to not put in that cash into our home and have a higher mortgage. In a way we are still paying interest on this cash (our mortgage interest) but we wouldn't need to get a new loan for each property which would save on the fees.

I have never been able to juggle but I feel like to have a lot of balls in the air.

Welcome to the circus!

We are in the system!

We can't get a permit until we submit. Today we have submitted.

Nothing else to talk about

Planning and building a house can be all consuming. In my spare time I find myself checking notes, researching home components, reading ad nauseum. Audra and I have little time to discuss other topics.

What few friends we have get an earful when they ask about our house.
And how many people ask "have you moved in yet" "how is the house coming along" when they should be asking when we plan to submit permits.


Why are we doing this again . . .

Latest plans

Our designer hasn't been working as quickly as we would like, same thing happened last time with a different designer. I suppose you get what you pay for.
Mainfloor.pdf


Basement

Plans first round

We got our first set of preliminary drawings from the designer:


Main Floor Plan.pdf -


Basement Plan


We have already sent them back with minor changes but I believe the exterior walls will be staying the same.

Warning: side effects include insomnia

Nothing like a little stress to keepa the midnight oil burning. I was lying in bed with some decent ideas running through my head. Like: I should ask the excavators if I could bury my hoselines, irrigation stubs, and window wells before they completely backfill the basement. That way I won't have to rent a trencher or dig it. Well with so much running through my head and so many details to recall I had to get up to write it down. It cost me a half hour of sleep but may have saved me hours of trenching if it works out.
On a side note, living with other people for free is not without its costs. This is the second time we are living with my in laws while building. I don't know if the extra 2 kids or me just being older and crankier but it is a lot tougher than I remember. Food preparation, food consumption, kitchen clean up, parenting the little ones, family meal time, bed time, etc ad neaseum. I seriously need more close friends who aren't related to anyone in the house that can offer support and hear me vent frustrations.
Don't get me wrong, my inlaws are great and generous but sharing space with anyone is tough. Most days I want to send my kids away but I stick with it. They may turn out well despite their father.

Water Supply

I have made some major progress. Unfortunately it's all on paper. I have known many who have built a new home. And by built I mean they purchased a new home being built by a builder and had some input into the finishes and certain options. The blessing and curse of building a home yourself, or at least designing and managing the project is that there are no decisions made, no set plans. So every bit of the home comes from you (or your better looking spouse, in my case). I have spent some time looking at how I wanted to run our water supply. On Diamond (our last project) we had two of the Manabloc manifold systems. We loved that they had pretty quick hot water to the fixtures (for the fixtures near the water heater) and there was never a drop in pressure when using multiple fixtures (no spurts or cold water while in the shower when someone used the sink or toilet. So I am disposing of the 120 gallon solar/electric water heater we had and opting for two 7.9 gallon per minute gas tankless water heaters (gas was not an option on Diamond). One will be on outside north wall and one will be in the garage on the south side of the house. These water heaters will feed two manifolds and will provide shorter runs and hopefully quicker water to the fixtures.

Audra flushed a good deal

How do you build a home for less? By finding one deal at a time. Craigslist is a great source for good deals. By knowing our prices we know how good those deals are. We have purchased several American Standard Champion Toilets in the past (we had at least 2 in our last house). Currently Home Depot has these complete toilets on sale for $199 each. Audra found 3 on Craigslist new in box and paid $400 for all 3. Like buy 2 get one free and pay no sales tax!

Overwhelmed

Moving out of our last owner builder project was much more work than I anticipated. However it's done and sold. I had been focused on getting moved out I hadn't really looked forward to the new build. On a whim I pulled out a box of owner builder books that I had purchased before building our last project and I am glad I did. I was thinking I had done it once and it should be easy to do again. Since it was about 5 years since we finished I forgot how much work went into selecting subs, scheduling, sourcing materials etc. We had no list of details by trade or by room yet the designer was working on our plans. This past week I have been spending about an hour or two per night working on house details and reviewing the plans with Audra. I have been focusing on the following:

• Prefab vs. poured window wells - leaning on prefab window wells for cost and appearance
• Plumbing: gas vs. electric water heaters, tank vs. tankless, whether or not to do a manifold system (really liked it in the last house), 
• Central vac - is it really worth it
• Whole house intercom - really tired of yelling

We also have been watching Craigslist and other sites, starting to acquire materials.

Our designer is working on our plans and I am still looking for a GC who will lend me a license for a loan.

First big steps

I never ever thought I would build another home. The first was tough enough but with a flexible and light schedule and only 2 kids at  home we survived. Now with 4 kids and a 50+ hour per week job I am starting to think I am crazy but willing to try it again.

I didn't take any pictures but today we hit a first milestone, we retained a designer, Randy Jones of AZCAD! Even though our house won't close for a week and a half we wanted to get the ball rolling. Later we find out he is about 3 weeks out right now. . .oh well.

I need to get pics up but after owning the lot for a year we put in an 18" irrigation pipe through an easement acquired from a neighbor, cleaned up the piles of junk, graded it, and placed 2 8' x 8' sheds there to store our junk. Next is a 10' x 22' concrete slab for our 8' x 20' container.