Building difficulty for novices

[blu1wolf]

Hi,

We are looking at building a small home on our newly purchased 7 acres of woods. I am wondering if anyone has any feedback on if something like the firstday cottage would be easier to build than the 1.5 story cottage that is on country plans? We are mostly new to building but have puttered with some much much smaller projects. We are looking for something 1 to 2 people could do with minimal outside help, that is not too expensive to build and goes up fairly quickly as it will be camping on the land once our house sell and closes (hopefully in early summer 2010) with 2 small children. Did I mention this in in upstate NY, so there is no building until frost breaks in march or april?? Thanks for any input!  -

[OlJarhead]

I'm not a novice so to speak, since I used to frame houses and condo's some 17 years ago -- but I'm a novice in the same sense.

So, if that makes any sense to you....

I'm building the 14x24 builders cottage and have found a couple of things that might be of help:

1.  These forums are a boon of information and there are many here who will gladly answer your questions.
2.  It's not so much hard to build a small house as it is to make the right choices and not to be influenced by you natural tendency to do things cheaper....read some of my posts...

My advice is to start small -- maybe even really small -- and build the 10x12 with shed roof maybe.  Then from there advance to a larger more complex building.

But I'm still working on mine so what am I saying!? *snicker*

[MountainDon]

 

From what I've heard of First Day, they are a good company to deal with and builders of their homes have been happy with the product. However, the cost of the completed structure will cost more than something built from a set of plans and a pile of lumber.

Oljarhead's suggestion of starting out with something small is a good one. Building a shed to be used as tool and equipment storage for the home to be built later would allow you to experience the building process. The fly in that ointment is that some jurisdictions will not allow the construction of an outbuilding before the main house.    Some will also require a septic installation beore any construction. Some a well. Some won't give the owner-builder electricity to the property unless certain things are already done.

So, the first thing to to is to determine what rules and regulations you will be laboring under. Every state, county, locality can impose their own version of what is required and what is allowed. Then, if at all possible I'd spend some time on the land over different seasons to get a eel for things. If we had rushed ahead with our original plans our cabin would have been in a different spot. We took a little over a year cleaning up the deadfall and thinking before we made our final decision on location. The final resting spot we chose is much more satisfactory than the first, but it did require moving some earth to flatten it. Our plan also evolved during that time; again we are pleased we took the time to think it all through many times.


G/L, and we are looking forward to seeing your project.

[ScottA]

Good advice above. I'll add that since you mention camping I hope that's in an RV and you'll have power and water available because even working full time It will likely take you a year or more to finish a house with only 1 or 2 novice people working on it. I've been working on my small cabin mostly alone for 20-30 hours a week for 2 years and it's still not finished.

[cmsilvay]

I can speak from experience here. My wife and 2 boys and I built a 14x 28 builders cottage ourselves. We camped in a tent on our property for the summer when we started. It took us about 2 months to get it closed in kids were 9 and 10 when this this adventure started. The kids have the loft. The plan was to build onto it the following summer but we all know what happens to plans. Its a little cramped but we all get along and it has been a bonding expereince. I am not sure how old your kids are but we kept ours involved and even did some math lessons  . Hopefully our weather will improve and we can get started on our bedrooms before winter sets in at least thats the plan.

[glenn kangiser]

First Day is a kit in a way but you still need the building skills.  It is more of having the good  quality materials put together to fit their plans.  Some of our forum members have had a good experience with them.  I like John's plans here  and they are made for first time or novice builders also.  As mentioned above - try a small project to get started.

http://www.countryplans.com/plans.html

[upa]

Build a small garden shed at your current home, if it's planned well enough you could probably transport it to you new location without too much fuss, or just leave it for the next owners. It will be a terrific learning experience. Many of the lessons learned will apply to your new home. I had a total of two sheds under my belt before I started on my current 16x 32 1 1/2 story. I am a novice but it really helped the confidence to do a little hands on before starting the larger project.

[Bobmarlon]

Hi I had construction experience prior in concrete forming and cabinetry but would consider my self a novice in the house building department.  The challenge I found the hardest was getting over the heights and learning how to get my self up to the ridge beam to attach the rafters.   It felt like getting the walls up was a breeze then everything really slowed down.  Also as oljarhead said try not to cheap out on curtain things you will end up regretting it sometimes I wake up at night haunted wishing I had done something different. 

One of the things that really helped me was going online and subscribing to finehomebuilding there are a ton of great articles and lots of information on there. 

[poppy]

blu, MountainDon gives good advice.

I third the motion on "living" with the land before picking a home site.  I lived with my land for almost a year before starting construction and then still ended up moving the site.  There are a bunch of things to consider before construction.

Will you be on or off the grid?  Being off the grid creates more decisions than being on.

Will this be a week end cabin or full time home?

The more info. you give us, the better will be the answers. 

[blu1wolf]

thanks for all the info

it will be a full time home....not off grid - we have a 1 year old and a 4 year old, which is the push for us to move in the first place. Our home was built in 1865 and the girls' lead levels keep creeping up despite lots of proactive work on our behalf. We don't want to move them twice so are hoping to build fairly quickly in the spring or summer with perhaps some temp housing on the land.  The lot is all wooded so clearing and a gravel driveway is going to cost over 12K to get back from the road a few hundred feet. It's pretty flat and uniform, so I think it will be okay not spending a ton of time on the land prior to building. We have had a septic/excavation guy out to walk the land with us and site prep/septic/well  alone is probably going to cost more than the materials for a small home.

We have toyed with forgoing much of the driveway and septic, but in our county any running water in your bldg requires a septic (even if you have greywater system and composting toilet) - and I am not sure I am willing to not have running water.

I think I will start by building a shed for our tools and stuff - hopefully can get the holes dug for the piers in November before the ground freezes too much.....Maybe skids would be better so we can move it if we want later?? I like the builders cottage for our home that can be added onto later when the kids take up more space!

Thanks for all of the advice - I love this site, but I manage to spend a lot of my day here instead of working on what I should be doing!!