Building Our First House on a $125,000 Budget (Cost Analysis - Part I)

[sjdehner]

Building Our First House on a $125,000 Budget (Cost Analysis - Part I): The Work We Did Ourselves

We are now projecting the completion of work on our house, which we began building together in 2007.

Our starting budget was our entire savings at that time: $125,000. People have been curious to know if we have been able to stay on that budget. To answer that question straight-up, we seem to be working at just about 5-10% over budget.

That we should "end" the building process just slightly over our original budget is a personal achievement for us. We knew it was likely that we'd be a little over our budget pretty much from the get-go (this we gathered from others). To be coming in on a dime would be a noteworthy achievement indeed! But we are nonetheless very happy with the way things are wrapping up.

When we were in the planning stages a couple of years ago we searched around for cost estimates and found virtually nothing available. For those of you interested in the numbers perhaps this information will help you estimate costs for your own project(s).

Also, it absolutely makes sense to buy the best materials you can afford. We cannot stress this enough. If there's one thing we've learned from this experience it is that we typically get what we pay for. Cheap is almost always synonymous with JUNK. We buy decent (safer) tools, hire quality people, buy the best and least toxic materials if possible, and we buy it all locally when we can since it injects money into the local economy. We believe that the best materials will last the longest, add artistry to our work and simply look the best.

Buying salvaged materials is one thing, we like that; but buying poor quality - anywhere - will likely come back to bite us...right in the wallet. We found that buying right the first time was a wise investment.

One last thing, and this is something we used to think rather crass, but we always consider it now, and that's resale. We have remodeled an older condo, a run-down house and built brand new from the ground up at this point. And twice we thought we'd never sell but we did (as the saying goes: never say never).

We should also emphasize that we worked our home-based business at a healthy pace, which required us to drive three states (Maine, NH and Massachusetts), while building. We do work hard but we enjoy the challenges.

Building is not exactly easy but it's well worth the effort (and the struggles).

Okay, so here's how we are breaking down the first part of our retrospective:



    *Clearing (*Free*): We cleared our building area by hand, felling trees with a Stihl-Pro 250. This allowed us to carefully sculpt out our building site, retaining specific trees. This approach also provided clean logs that could be bucked, split and stacked for firewood later in the year. We chose a somewhat tree-free area 250' off the road to clear, leaving enough stump for the excavator to bite into when de-stumping.


    * Framing ($15,000): Surprisingly, framing our house was not as an expensive endeavor as we had originally thought it might be. Even with the unexpected addition of the stick-framed portion of our daylight basement, our total is around $15,000. As a note, if anyone is looking for framing instruction, two titles come to mind: House Framing by John D. Wagner is excellent for the new builder; and The Graphic Guide to Frame Construction by Rob Thallon is indispensible for framing details.

    * Windows & Ext. Doors ($13,000): Energy efficient windows and French doors were on our priority list. We opted for the Marvin Integrity series, which are fiberglass with a pine interior. We were able to reduce our costs a bit, while adding to the "Shaker" appeal of our house, by not purchasing extension jams for the windows, instead simply trimming them with 1"x4" clear pine.


    * Drywall ($1500): This was an enormous project that took us off-and-on about a year to complete. With a partially finished basement, two floors and an attic to finish, it was a tremendous amount of work. As much work as hanging, mudding and sanding proved to be, was the sheer effort of hauling the sheets - not just over the snow and into the house - but up and down the stairs to the appropriate floor for installation. And let's not forget to mention the 5 gallon buckets of joint compound, which are not lightweight. For two relatively small people, this was a BIG job. And finishing drywall takes some practice and finesse. After we received a couple of bids for thousands of dollars we decided to try doing the work ourselves. We now understand why the bids were so high! The work was not easy that's for certain; but we learned to cut, hang and finish wallboard (relatively) well. One serious caveat: If you can have this work done prior to moving into your house, we strongly recommend it. We also recommend the Drywall book by Myron Ferguson (the taping and mudding chapters are ideal). It's a great tutorial with helpful photographs.

    * Flooring/Tiling ($4250): Since we ceiled with pine we wanted to see some contrast when we laid our flooring. While wide pine boards are used throughout New England, and we were tempted to do as well, we did not want to overuse the pine, so we laid a 3 ½"x ¾" hardwood birch. And we tiled our mudroom and two baths.
   
    * Ceiling ($2500): As noted, we used 1x6 #3 grade edge-and-center bead pine. The effect is beautiful, although the boards can be difficult to finesse into place at times. Aside from the appearance, which we like, the narrow boards were a more feasible ceiling option for two people to work with than, say, hanging sheets of dry wall (especially true since we do not own a lift tool). We also painted the ceilings of the main living areas white while leaving the second floor (and kitchen) in a natural, rustic state.


    * Stairs ($1500): Our stairway is nearly 48" wide, which allows a great convective flow of heat from floor to floor. Tutored by a Gary Stiegler article, we built a box newel post and cut our own balusters from 5/4" stock, which saved us a bundle. We purchased pre-finished birch treads to match our flooring and cut and painted our own pine risers. The oak railing is pre-fabricated. If we were to build it over again, we'd make our own treads as well as router a hand-railing. For now, however, the total cost for this project has been $1500.


    * Cabinets ($1500): Our kitchen is made from solid pine and maple. We installed 1½" unfinished maple counter tops along with a pre-finished 4" Boos chopping block for knife work. Both bathroom vanities (and closets) are under construction so we will have some additional cost there (perhaps a few hundred dollars); still the cost of all the cabinet work throughout the entire house will come in around $1500 when all's said and done.


   * Painting ($600): For this amount we're talking strictly interior primer and paint. But we used zero-VOC products (Harmony) from Sherwin-Williams, which we think were worth the extra cost. With an air-tight house, even with the HRV doing its job, it was nice to be able to avoid a VOC build-up. The paint is not perfect (it stills smells) but it's far better than the traditional alternative, and it looks great. In the future, we'd go for a VOC-free and vinyl-free variety of paint like Safecoat.

    * Interior Doors & Trim ($4000): We installed solid-core 5-panel (Shaker), pre-hung doors throughout the house (eleven altogether). For trim, we've been using locally milled #2 grade pine, hand-selecting for knot-free material. In some cases we have chosen pre-primed boards but we find that these products emit an unpleasant odor (VOC's?) that seems to linger until painted.

    * Decks & Stairways ($3000): Selecting locally manufactured composite decking proved to be the biggest expense when building our decks and entryway stairs. The substructure is made with white-stained, pressure-treated material with railings constructed of Western Red Cedar (and some pressure-treated wood).

    * Appliances & Fixtures ($4500): Here we are talking about a fridge, free-standing range, a 5' corian vanity-top for the main bath & a 48" vanity-top for the water-closet, two toilets, a fiberglass claw foot bathtub with shower hardware, a dishwasher, clothes washer and dryer, and an electric on-demand water heater (Steibel-Eltron). All the appliances are Energy Star rated and are common brand names, like Maytag and GE.

This article is excerpted in part from the Fine Homebuilding website: http://finehomebuilding.taunton.com/item/5218/building-our-first-house-for-around-125000-tallying-up-the-costs-part-i-the-work-we-did-ourselves

[lostgirlfound]

Hi, I know it has been a while since this has been posted but I have a question as we are going to building our house similar to this in the next year. I would like to know how you managed to get those beautiful kitchen cabinets made for just $1500?

[sjdehner]

Hi!

We built our cabinets from locally harvested (Maine) higher grade solid pine. At the time thewood was not very expensive. The laminated maple top came from www.lumberliquidators.com at a shockingly good price. We bought an 8' & 12' slab for the kitchen as well as a BOOS block cutting board from our local hardware store.

In the future we might try a thicker hand-built counter top.

The hardware all came from Lee Valley online.

We found that staying away from prefab materials is a sure way to save money and get a unique end result.

Good luck with your project (if it's not already done!)

Take care.

[Jeff922]

You guys did and amazing job!  WOW! 

[cbc58]

seeing what you are doing with your place... it could qualify for a fine homebuilding article also. 

[MountainDon]

... it could qualify for a fine homebuilding article also. 

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