Where do you begin?

[ChatBot]

  Where do you begin if you are just starting to "get the itch" to build your own place?

  Research?

  Any tips appreciated.....reading some of these threads makes me think we could do it....

[glenn kangiser]

Anybody can if they want to bad enough.   What did you have in mind - any certain type plan or size in mind?

Building skills or need to learn?  Resources - land - friends with skills - Put them all together and you could do it.

Tell us more about what you need help with.

[Amanda_931]

In no particular order:

Read a handful of plan magazines--whether or not the looks of the house appeals to you, figure out how you would use the space, if you like the traffic routes through the house, enough room to work in the kitchen? (I like the Sunset vacation homes book--available lots of places, because not all of the plans are ridiculously huge)  You probably will not be delighted  with any one of them, but you will learn a lot.

Go look at a bunch of houses under construction.  Probably a good idea to look at travel trailers as well--don't forget to imagine your stuff in them, though.

Talk to people who have built their own, go help for a day or so would be even bettter.

Volunteer with Habitat for Humanity.

Think about where you want to be.  Think jobs, transportation, land cost, codes regulation, do you want to be isolated or in a community, how much time can you afford to spend building (almost always more than you thought!!!!), can you live in, say, a travel trailer while this is going on, how much do you want to let someone else do--foundation, wiring, plumbing and roofs are pretty typical, neighbors got an Amish or Mennonite built shell house.

Make some serious purchases--some of the books that John recommends are excellent.  Even the Christopher Alexander Pattern Language which really does strike one as outrageously expensive.  A lot of people love it, have built with it and are very happy with the results, which may even mean it's a bargain.

Look at other books in the bookstores.

If you get caught by the cob or straw-bale bugs, workshops (or volunteering with somebody's project) can be very helpful, and motivating, and so on.  They sound frightfully expensive, but....  And there is this forum, and other lists.

[vojacek]

just a tip that most who r in the trade probably already know. after compiling a materials list, we faxed it to all the local lumber yards and let them out bid eachother. our original list was $12,700 not delievered, after 4 days it was $9300 with delievery and tax. 8.25% in texas. i don't know if this works in all areas, probably depends on local economy. if you set up escrow alot of places will lock in current prices, which is cool considering how much lumber has gone up just in the past year.

[Jimmy C.]

 [size=18]Where do you begin if you are just starting to "get the itch" to build [/size]

[size=32]I wish mine was only an itch...
I developed a full blown RASH![/size]