A few yrs ago I bought 10 acres, paid it off in record time. so I now am going to build Hopefully without debt. ill be mostly alone in this so it will take a good bit of time. My goal right now is the get it dried in. I am including some of my rough costs because that's something I looked for, for reference. keep in mind where I am at things are cheaper than other parts of the country. As well, it is worth mention I do not have to have any permits to build anything, and I do not have to pass any inspections. but like any smart person, I will have things looked over, especially the electrical once its wired. id hate to burn the place down because I was to stupid to make sure it was correct and safe.

Last yr I had the well Drilled and a pump set. I had the drillers go to second water, once finished the well is 330 ft with nice clear water and I ended up with a 55 GPM flow it is cased to 160 ft past all the clay. This cost me $7500. I still have to buy the pressure tank and switch and run the lines and wire.

The one thing I do not like is concrete work, I bounced back and forth trying to figure out what I wanted to do, piers or foundation, I decided on a foundation with a crawl space only. im not big on basements as they tend to be a collection spot.

  I hired a contractor and he done everything for me, the excavating, footing and foundation walls, drain tile, gravel and backfill..come out about 4' 6" on the foundation. total cost of this was $6582.00, I did not think that was bad at all. and its actually square and level, unlike what I would have done myself 

Excavation



Footings





All I got to do is clean it up and smooth it out a bit and get building. the pockets the contractor put in for the beam he made 4 2"x12" wide, I think 3 wide for the beam would have been fine, 4 overkill, but its done, so four 2"x12" wide it is.



There is a sewer district in the area so ill be hooking up to them, they will put in a small tank and pump. I am just 2 miles out of a small town.
Lumber yard has the plans and my modifications to those and figuring up the costs for me right now, I am hopeful to here from them real soon as  I want to get started, I need this up and under roof asap.

Looking good.  I look forward to watching your build.  Thank you for sharing the costs, that is very helpful to get an idea of what others are spending on their project.  I sure wish we didn't have to get permits - the cost for permits is going to be a significant part of our build.  I am hoping to put in two small ponds on our property but it is going to cost me close to $4,000 just in permits for the ponds!

Looking good! This is the plan we hope to get started on in the next year.
Please keep posting. 

Congrats on getting started. Looks like a nice foundation.

Got the sub floor finished, the heat here has just been murder, but worse the humidity..I got the joists on last Sat and Sun, and started laying the OSB, then rain come in and stopped me and then I had to go back to work. So today I got the day off and finished it up. the 6mil plastic was there because of the rains that blew in. This was around $1800 roughly.

Very much enjoying reading about your progress. Thank's for including your costs. That's really helpful as we're in the planning stage. It's nice to know the real costs of things!

framed up, sheethed and now working on the roof..I just got it 2/3rds sheethed and it come some real frog drowners. do yourself a favor and buy the good Advantec sub flooring, and im glad I did.

  Also its been yrs since I have done any home building and I was unaware of the new ZIP sheathing for the walls and roof of new construction. I found out about it after I had the OSB already started.. ZIP Sheathing has the water proofing already on the outside, nail it on and tape the seams with their tape and your good. I got it for my roof today.

anyhow, a few pictures of what I have accomplished so far. I have not put together what I have spent to get this far yet. 







Brother standing on loft joists, it was so hot and muggy it was murder, I was regretting starting this before fall. but it has now cooled off a bit.

Was putting on the Sheathing and rain blew in 



finished Sheathing and I did get part of my ridge board up today.



how I braced up to get my ridge board in place...I spliced together 2x4s and created pockets up top, and simply climbed up to death defying heights and layed the board in

I do have a problem though, I do not know how I created this problem because I am Anal about measuring and checking and measuring and checking. today I was measuring the width of my walls at the end of the house on the loft end...20' 1-1/4" right, so I go to the edge of the loft where im looking down and measure the width there, 20' 1-3/4", somehow I have a half inch difference...and I am beyond the point of fixing it now...my rafters will have no over hang, im going to have a 10' covered porch the entire length front and back..and those rafters will sit on the top plate of the walls as well...what should I do in your opinion cut rafters to fit the longer measurement? split the difference? the rest of the house ill pull the walls back in.

Snap parallel lines one on each plate and mark that point on each rafter, set them in reference to the line not the wall. You can, in all of that layout, split the difference where it will show the most while maintaining a straight roof.

Thanks Don, that makes 100% sense!!

Rafters started. when I got to this point it started raining, my brother was helping so I told him lets go before we slip and fall..next morning still raining, I told him to wait till it cleared off, once it stopped raining and the sun popped out I went out and and as I drove up there was an ambulance, county law and a few others..my brother had decided that a wet ladder was fine and fell..6 broken ribs, partially collapsed lung and lacerations to the liver...people, when it is wet, stop! its not worth it...and oh yeah, he was about 8 ft up, that's all it took. the build stopped..but has resumed since, he is ok.
  waiting to get everything nailed on then ill come up with a rough cost of everything to date.




Rafters all on



Cross bracing in and one end raked.



Shed Dormer started..but not completed yet.





And the other end in the loft, also unfinished...im about a days work from sheething the roof.

Sorry about your brother and glad it wasn't worse. It's a bad feeling to walk onto a jobsite and realize you've walked into an accident scene.

Don't forget you do need rafter ties in the lower third of the rafter height wherever floor joists aren't performing that function. There is a nailing schedule for them at the very end of the rafter and ceiling joist span tables in the codebook.

Sorry, I have a beam across, and another going in as well to tie the walls together where it's open to the ceiling. I just did not catch it in any of the pics. I'm actually going to building a couple box beams. 2x10x20 sandwiched and then wrapped to look like a solid beams.  looks good, works well and cheaper than solid beams that I have found.

Yup, that's the area I was concerned with, sounds like you're doing fine. If everything else is equal, a built up beam is usually about 15% stronger than a solid sawn beam because the defects are better scattered when you nail together a couple of random boards compared to that one big knot that goes clear through a solid timber.

Got a bit more done.. Here are a couple of the shed dormer framing...when I started the dormer I had no clue how to frame it other than I wanted to come right off the ridge board...but once I got started you quickly realize you must think of everything...how your going to have nailers for the sheathing/siding, the roofing and the interior. it took as much time to build the dormer as it did to put up all the rafters for the rest of the roof...but will be so much worth it in the end. for those wondering on cost...right now where I am at, plus I have the timbers for front and rear porches, headers for the rafters to lay on, and all the rafters waiting to be put on. I have a bunch of material laying on the ground still (Both front and back porches will be full length 32' an and 10' deep) I do not have the wood for the decks yet..im after a completed roof and dried in before cold weather. I have spent $17K to this point, foundation included.







Roof Sheathed on the front side, very hard getting it up there and not falling off. Toe boards are a must, and nail them good.



Here I have the front sheathed and a row on the back started...you can now see the start of my beams, ill box these in later to look much better. The board on top of the beams was there to help get the first row of sheathing up, id push it up a ladder on the outside and my helper would be inside to get it lined up straight and nailed. of course after my brothers fall, I am constantly going on about not falling, got a harness to wear when possible.

On getting sheets up, if someone could poke me up the corner of a sheet of 5/8 I used to be able to get it swung up onto the roof... those days are gone! Two of us more mature guys wrestled and cursed last week, I might get one of those young'uns next week.

One to put on the rainy day punch list is to go back and add more nails to all the ties, never hurts to stitch them from both sides.

One engineer friend would say of a cut up roof, "Sometimes you just have to start building it and it tells you what to do next". Then sometimes that leads to alot of sawzall work 

This is "GREAT" ! Keep the photos coming ! This will be a big help for me.
Thanks ! Randy

Love,love,love seeing your posts!
I can't wait for my own dream to become a reality.
Thank you for sharing!

OK, try to start where I left off.

Got the Zip Sheathing on the roof. here is from loft looking down inside.



Dormer.



Gables sheathed



Got the Tyvec wrap on and fly rafters on one end, still have the other end to do. just have not had an extra hand to help me get them in place to nail on yet. Also I need extra hands to help hold my windows in the dormer, so those are on hold as well.





  The Fly Rafters, Barge rafters, whatever you want to call them, I tend to call them Dead Mans, I have not cut the bottoms yet as I have not got around to the porch roofs, once I frame the porch roofs I will figure out how I want to tie them in. Also when I nail up the others I will finish taping the roof seams.

I have gotten a little bit farther along.

now ready for metal roofing.

Looking  good!     

Looks real nice Jeff....always a good feeling to have her buttoned up once those fall colors start showing! Had a question about your center footing not tying in to the perimeter? Wondering if there's a strategy there. Also, the porch beams look pretty light....what's your snow load?

Looking good! Could you help me understand how you did your ridge board? At first I thought you were installing a ridge beam but I don't think that's the case. Do the plans come with different roof support options?