Building a new House

I love that sink...

 

Very Nice!

I just found this thread....Im building a home too, well not myself and I dont have a whole lot of say in it, but its a new development. I picked the floorplan, colors, finishes ect....Its my 1st house, I cant wait! Sept/Oct is the move in timeframe. Eventually I want to be the GC and buy a piece of land and make everything mine. But this will be great for the next 5-7 yrs.

 

If you want to GC your next home, make sure you are at the house every day. Document what happens so you know the order of things when you want to do it yourself. It will be a great learning experience. If I build a house again, I will be the GC and I will do a LOT of the work myself.

 

People that don't have a basic understanding of the trades and how their scheduling effects the efficiency and timeline of house construction should just work their regular job , make money and pay a GC

 

So true! People don't understand how one small delay in work or lead time in materials can affect everything else down the line. I typically do all my work but in selling my house in AZ, I performed the demo/prep and whatever I can on the weekends and subed the rest of the work out during the week while I worked my day job. One week of work for a friend would have take three weekends for me to finish and delayed listing my house nearly a month. Instead it goes on the market on Monday.

 

It's all part of the experience

 

False economy

If you take time off your paying job to save what you would spend on a GC , and then do the GC's job far less efficiently , you are losing , not gaining

 

That's why you retire for 2 years like my dad did so he could build/GC his last house.

I would have done the GC for this house if I had enough time, but I just simply can't take that much time off work to do the things I want and GC the house.

 

I never said it was smart, just that it was part of the GC experience! People should go through it, they'll have a new respect for trades people.

 

That's fine if you can afford to not have an income for 2 years

 

!!!

 

It was fine for my Parents because they were close to retirement age. I couldn't even come close to that.

I have a huge respect for trades people. The work they do is pretty impressive. I couldn't do most of that work, day in, day out.

 

I was the GC on my house and I was not able to be onsite 24/7. It was a pain in the ass. At first it was fine because I paid a friend who was a framer and also framed my house to get me dried in so everything flew in the beginning. As soon as his end was done I had to deal with the HVAC, plumbing and electrical. The electrician luckily was a neighbor down the road who has had his business for over 35 years so he sent his best guy.

The plumber was recommended by an acquaintance and I should have fired him the first day he didn't show up. Luckily, I only had to rely on other people until the inside was taped and textured as I did the rest.

If I ever GC another house I will be there constantly.

 

Hi there, well I found this thread as I am too building a small home in my backyard called Granny flat from Granny flat solutions. They have created really nice grannyflatsolutions projects. We are building this so that we can generate some extra income. Your thread has been a great read for me. Thank you.