24x30 in Oklahoma our first attempt.

[FarmerBill]

I thought I might throw this thread up here. WE are starting our second house project see thread http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=13389.0 
But now that I figured out photobucket I thought I might post some pics of our first attempt at building our own home. It worked out real well, we at first built it as a cheap temporary structure to live in while we built "The big house". We thought about moving a cheap mobile home in, we looked at buying a travel trailer. But after pricing used trailers and getting quotes from a metal building company we decided that building a metal building would be more cost effective in the long run. Plus we wouldn't have to try and sell a travel trailer or in the case of a cheap mobile home "burn it" after we get the "big house" built. Instead, we could just turn it into a workshop.
We bought a 24x30 weld together kit for around $3500, we made the forms and installed the plumbing ourselves, had the concrete poured and finished by the company who we bought the building from for $1600. My wife did not trust my welding skills on the structure so we had some welders weld up the frame for $300. We put the windows,($100 from craigslist) doors(from a discount lumber yard.) in the frame. Then with a few buddies we attached the metal and it was dried in. We figured we had spent around $5000 total. Much cheaper than a mobile home, and bigger than a travel trailer. 
 







   

[FarmerBill]

Part 2,
  It was funny because while we were building, we were still living in our old house about 3 hours away. We would come down on weekends to work on it and stay with an aunt. Our other house was up for sale. One January weekend we decided to come down and work on it. That day it came a freak snow/ice storm, and we were essentially stuck at the house. We had a wood stove for heat and some furniture stored in the building. We put a bed together and snuggled in for the night. That was the day we moved in permanently 



   By spring our other house had sold and we had the interior finished and a front porch on. The house turned out a lot better than we had thought which became a problem. We couldn't figure out what to do because we did not want to turn the little house back into a workshop, but it was too small to be a permanent home for our two growing children. We though about adding on, but it was not in the location we wanted. We had originally staked out a spot on top of the hill for the "big house". Lesson learned, do not spend too much time and effort on the temporary living arrangement.
  Fortunately, some things changed and we had the opportunity to relocate. We had a realtor come out and look at the place and she shot off a ridiculous price for the place. We told her that if she thinks she can sell it for that then go for it. We had a full price cash offer 6 days later.   

This was the finished house right before we sold it.  We figure we had about $15,000 in the house. We had $30,000 in the land, and sold it for $80,000.