Debt-Free Build? Share your experience please.

[rick91351]

The 'kids dorm' I really do not see how this could be cheaper.  Sq ft $ is multiplied when you start running additional plumbing, electrical and foundations.  This very well might require also additional permits.  Electrical, plumbing and building.  This also speaks volumes to the kids they are now not part of the clan.

Sort of reminds me of touring these beautiful antebellum homes down south.  One place they told of the custom of the proper high society of plantations down south.  It was not unusual to move kids into such when they were a little post puberty.  This allowed mothers not to have to 'become ill' over sons miss behaving.  (Usual kids will be kid stuff.)  Girls and then there were girl and cigars and liqueur and chew and did I mention girls.  The tour had a good laugh          

[Thoughts-from-Jules]

Did a little research on nooks...found some interesting ideas, of course hardly any of these are our style but the layouts might work.  This was a neat kitchen redo from Fine Homebuilding... http://www.finehomebuilding.com/PDF/Free/021175088.pdf I enjoyed this article.







So there is one idea of the built in nook, but this makes it harder to have room for those big holiday dinners we love having in our family.  

[Thoughts-from-Jules]

I enjoyed this video, I wonder how many of these creative ideas I can implement to lower the sq footage of our home plan?  http://unclutterer.com/2011/06/09/a-family-of-3-in-320-square-feet/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+unclutterer+%28Unclutterer%29

[Thoughts-from-Jules]

Boy this thread sure is interesting, it is good think of all angles and figure out what is the best solution for our family.  I think exploring this idea of debt-free building is a valid one, and I think we'd like to use many of the ideas to find that happy medium.  Likely we will be utilizing some debt in order to finish in a timely manner, I didn't even think about the permits only being good for so long in our area (we are in code area) and I think we could get an extension BUT why chance it?  So I think in order to build in a timely manner we will probably borrow a modest amount and throw all the cash we can at it and give ourselves some pretty strict guidelines for budget and adhere to them to make sure we don't spend more than we were originally planning (well they say figure 20% more than you planned).

I will say I think it is really sad that in our area we are limited how creative we can be with space because of the codes.  I understand why those requirements are there BUT I hate how that limits what a property owner can do to save money and square footage too. 

If I were in a no codes area I would be looking at this much differently for sure!

[Native_NM]

Depending on your location, you don't want to build less of a house than your neighbors.  If you are in an established area, with code and zoning, you almost have to build similar to the existing homes in terms of architecture and value.  You can build smaller within reason.  You may need to move someday. While I don't think a house is ever going to be viewed as the investment it was before, you should try and build to at least maintain value.

The other consideration if financing is the construction loan process has changed dramatically in the last two years.  Self-builds are almost impossible to finance in some locations. 

[Native_NM]

I've got our place designed and estimated pretty tight.  I'm going for the one house payment option.  Granted one big one, but that works for us.  Mine was going to be a weekend place at first.  Now we are thinking a weekend place that we could easily move to a new lot if we decide to.

I met with a local house mover and asked him what he could move, how tall, wide, etc. 

[Alasdair]

Having some idea of how you are going to finance things and what you want is important but, (for us anyway) it is important not to over think things. It is easy to suffer from analysis paralysis - I think if we figured out costs too closely we would never have started! Also plans change and evolve as you build. For us, paying as we go, not thinking too far ahead and just picking away at each step seems to work well.
- That said we have not finished the house and are currently living in a 250sq.ft cabin with a toddler and another baby on the way! It will be very nice to get into something bigger.

[Thoughts-from-Jules]

I completely agree, we joke around about having paralysis of analysis all the time!  I just want to be wise with our money and know the approximate cost before we build.....we always hear how it costs more than people figure.  We've already learned so much from this forum and different ways of thinking about things.  We figure there is no hard in spending time in this phase (it's free) until we feel comfortable enough to move forward.  Also it makes us feel like we are doing something to help our progress being more ready and passing time while we keep saving like crazy!

At some point we just have to dive in and do it for sure!  Hopefully soon.

[Thoughts-from-Jules]

Great suggestion on trying to build to fit in with surrounding structures.  That was our plan, thankfully we have a good range of size but they are mostly some version of farmhouse or ranch nearby.  some two story, some 1.5 story, and some 1 story. So thankfully there is a range to work with.  We are thinking a nice sized home would look good on 2.5 acres as well, especially when we want to build a small shop and barn eventually as well, we think it looks funny when the shop is way bigger than the house.  We'd like to have things well balanced inside and out.

DH and I have been having some great conversations based on all these great suggestions and input!  I so thankful this forum is here and that everyone is so friendly and willing to share information and points of view!

[Alasdair]

Around here the joke is that if the house is bigger than the workshop the wife obviously wears the pants...

[Thoughts-from-Jules]

Hey now!  My husband wears the pants, I just tell him which ones!

Ok kidding.  I think the shop will end up bigger but I don't want it to dwarf the house unless of course it looks like a barn.....then he could get away with a bigger building because big beautiful barns are always a nice thing to look at!  Actually I think I use the shop just as much as he does, we are both pretty handy and love working on projects together.  So it probably would be ME wanting a bigger shop and not him. lol

[Kat]

We also homeschool and are in the planning stage of things. I don't know if this will be helpful at all, but this is what we're thinking about for the kids. http://www.finehomebuilding.com/how-to/articles/built-in-bed-alcove-in-attic.aspx?ac=ts&ra=fp

Build something like that and curtain it off for a little privacy. We're looking at a 1 1/2 story type and the upstairs would be 'bedrooms' and a bathroom. My thought is that this would leave the upstairs more open, a 'commons' type play area for the kids. Would be easiers for us to change to whatever when the kids grow up and leave. Would also make the house a 1 bedroom (DH won't give up his real room) for tax purposes, at least around here.

[Thoughts-from-Jules]

Kat~

Do you have both boys and girls?  I really like this idea, how creative.  My DH also wants a bedroom on the main floor (master bedroom and everything we need in old age on the main floor) I think those alcoves would be great for grandkids visiting too (later in life), and if it leaves enough space in the middle.  Thanks so much for sharing that idea.  We have 3 boys and a girl so we'd like to give the girl (oldest at 13) some private space but still a small quaint room with bookshelves and closet space of some kind.

What size of footprint are you looking at?  What is your goal (a super small house, are you trying to build debt-free?)  You can PM me if you want to.

[Native_NM]

Build a separate schoolroom.  I'll check the tax code, but at one time you could deduct the space for tax purposes.

[Thoughts-from-Jules]

That is an idea but I think it would be a pain to heat and cool a seperate building, one of the things I like is being able to go about the housework (dishes, laundry changed/delivered, and dustmoping etc) while the kids are working on lessons.  Having a seperate building would force us to focuse 100% on school and not leave till we were done (which would be good in a way), but then there is also the high likelihood a child will leave to get get something or go to the bathroom and then we'd have to track them down in another building.....lol

Homeschooling (even building a seperate building to do it) in Oregon gains you no tax breaks I am aware of.  It is a labor of love we are willing to sacrifice for though and thankful we are allowed to do it without many restrictions and controls.

[Thoughts-from-Jules]

Oh and all this talk of a smaller home has me dejunking this week like crazy!  Sorting through all the school books, finding yardsale items, and outgrown clothes.  It was time for a purge anyway but this way I can really think about how small of a home we could have and think of things we'd be willing to give up in order to save money on square footage.

So thanks for inspiring me to get busy on this house.  We feel like we do fairly well with organization with 6 people in 1344 sq foot but we can always do better.  Especially in the cabinets and linens, we really only need 1-2 sets of sheets per bed (one summer, one flannel).  Time to cut those older worn towels into great rags and smaller hand towels and wash cloths. 

I am learning to take a hard look at everything around me to see what use it holds ( do this every year or so and things keep getting better).  I had a great time looking through all these homes and found a few I think might actually work for us in one form or another depending on how hard core we get.  http://www.rosschapin.com/index.html

[Thoughts-from-Jules]

Well I did it, I had a realization how much my DH has to work to pay for our house payment and I realized I was hoping for two contradicting things.....for more time with him and for a larger dream home....the two don't really go together so well!  So after thinking of that it was like I had this flood of creativity and I managed to scale down our "dream home" plan from 2155 sq ft to 1491 sq foot with options to expand a little later down the road if we can afford it or want to.  I am feeling quite good about this because in looking at the plans I can see so many areas that I GAINED something.....window seats, places for built-ins to maximize interest and function, by going with a L shaped dinette with lots of windows I gained so much storage in the benches and some unique ideas for table that expands etc.  The home could easily later expand to around 1,700 sq foot if we wanted more room down the road.

So that means that all the insulation we bought a couple weeks ago will now cover 3/4 of what we need instead of half. 

Here is our rough plan at this point.  Buy land and finance as much as we can, save our cash for the build (payments will be pretty low around $150 or less).  Once we spend a few months inproving the land and getting things ready we will build with cash (this should cost approx $22K to 30K depending on how much site work is included in the figure and how many materials we can snag at a discount).  So we can see saving up that much in the next 9 months (including what we already have in our savings).  Then by next fall we hopefully will be dried in and things will slow down because we'd have to build as we had cash then.  Which for a while I imagine $500 worth of electrical and plumbing might be all we could get done in a month anyway.  There is this unwritten rule that you will either have the money to do something and no time, or the time and no money. Isn't that how it works!?

Anyway we aren't sure where we'd go from there, we will try to get as far as we can buying stuff one month at a time as we can afford it but if we get to where we have the time to be doing a lot of work and not enough money to be productive with that time, we might consider a loan to get the next stages done.  We would like to get out the other side with a $50,000 loan or less!  I am actually excited about this idea and for once DH and I are on the SAME exact page about it.  We are setting out to do the built as debt-free as we can.  We are hoping that by setting out to do it debt free we will essentially be letting the Lord have his room to bless us in unexpected ways through the process too.  We might be surprised where help and supplies end up coming from once word gets out we are building a house with cash and doing the work ourselves.

So far we've had offers to help from electricians (they offered to get us the supplies at cost which is cool, they just finished their own owner builder project), my Dad owns a rock querry and construction company for the site work, a John Deere dealer offered trades for equipment rentals, so we feel like we have a start anyway for some important connections that will come in handy both for advice and goods/services.  I am really thankful DH has great connections in the construction industry.   

Once I get my new plans a little more legible and scanned clearly I will try to share them.

[spc]

This isn't technically owner-builder, but debt-free was the concept.  My husband and I are in our twenties; he just finished school and I have been working.  Managed to finish school debt-free with a little money in the bank (tons of overtime on my part and full time work in addition to grad school on his part) and bought a cottage on rented land for $8k.  Land rent is minimal.  So it's basically one room with a tiny sleeping loft (12'x20') and porch and walk out basement (8'x20').  It wasn't winterized in any way, so we are insulating, venting the roof, installing wood stove, etc.  We had expected to rent an apartment for a while longer but this was just too good pass up!

We are probably $3000k into it, with my husband doing all the work and another $3000k to go before winter.  This place is so very basic and much has had to be fixed/rebuilt.   The plan is to enclose the porch and insulate the basement to end up with just under 500 ft2.  Have to say, if you really care about making the project debt-free, you will be surprised what you can live without in the meantime.  My mother referred to our cottage as a "shack" but I'm pretty pleased to have a place with no mortgage even if it is currently one room with a loft...

If you can work with small inconveniences, it is so very worth it!!  I've been cooking on a grill and toaster oven for the last 3 months!

-Katja

[suburbancowboy]

Good for you guys.  I wish that I would have taken that route early on in life.  I am now in my late 40's and chained to the bank.

[rick91351]

Katja

Very cool.  You will win with that attitude.  Mom will some day see you living in a very nice home...  THAT IS PAID FOR!!  Everything inside PAID FOR!!  Why because your attitude has made you rich.  Once again cool!!!!!!

suburbancowboy you can cut and break those chains.  We were, we are not now.  There are a few good places to go to learn how.  Some will try and trick you into deeper debt.  Thanks Dave Ramsey for showing us how easy it is to get out of debt.... and stay out.

http://www.daveramsey.com/

He does a live event usually every year or so in SLC.  You can break those chains!