Our First Home Building

Table of Content

• DON'T BE AFRAID TO APPROACH YOUR BUILDER TO CHANGE SIMPLE THINGS
• CUSTOM House Portrait, First Home, Housewarming Gift, Christmas Gift, Wedding Gift, Our First Home, Keepsake
• Thoroughly Plan
• Lighting
• Building Your First Home? Here’s How to Make it Easier
• Kitchen
• Tackle Your Closet Spring Cleaning with These 10 Easy Tips to Make Your Closet Feel More Like a Boutique

Before signing the deal and committing to the building process, ensure you have an honest conversation with your contractor. Be precise about your budget and how far you are willing to stretch to ensure you are not over budget. First-time homeowners get enticed by the quotations they receive from sales representatives. However, the house’s final cost is usually higher, and if not well planned out, can be depressing to the homeowner as you try to raise the remaining budget. Learn about the process of custom home building and see our progress.

There are welcoming entrance areas on both Oakwood Avenue and Robina Avenue. Send me exclusive offers, unique gift ideas, and personalized tips for shopping and selling on Etsy. We got a granite composite sink which really dresses things up. They don't cost much more either and we highly recommend it.

DON'T BE AFRAID TO APPROACH YOUR BUILDER TO CHANGE SIMPLE THINGS

Doing this ensures you get rid of any surprises when construction has begun helping you manage and reduce costs. Work closely with your contractor to ensure any changes you want in the house get done at the drawing stage. Being upfront with your contractor saves you money and gives a chance to understand loopholes that may affect the budget.

We found there is a pipe next to my daughters window and if I hang curtains, theres a good chance I could bust a pipe which leads to a giant headache. Here is a picture of one of our attic spaces above the garage. Eventually we could use the space to build out another room in the home. This could be helpful for the contractor if we choose to expand above our garage. The videos are also helpful for when my husband and I hang things or mount the TV. We previously looked straight up the street and could see many homes from our backyard so I am thrilled to see only this gorgeous greenbelt.

CUSTOM House Portrait, First Home, Housewarming Gift, Christmas Gift, Wedding Gift, Our First Home, Keepsake

Try to arrange to see it in different light as you'd be surprised how different it looks. We were told to try to keep the sample spots in locations that would be covered up such as where the kitchen cabinets are going to go. Just when you thought things were really starting to look real with drywall, your mind is once again blown when the painting is done and cabinets start going in. It is amazing to see the plan that you made on paper with the kitchen designers comes together in real life. You start to become pretty impressed with yourself ! We elected to go with espresso for color throughout the house .

2.) The same kind of granite looks completely different from slab to slab and you want to find the one you like the most. You will be seeing these things up close daily for a long time. I personally am not a fan of having the pantry break up the corner but that is just me. I'd rather have the full run of cabinets and counter. As I mentioned in the building forum, I believe you need to switch back your sink and dw so your dw isn't in your work zone like it is now. I would have from left to right, trash drawer, sink cabinet, dishwasher.

Thoroughly Plan

We did stacked stone using Pennsylvania stack style stone. It isn't supposed to look perfect, but there were some parts that looked downright awful that I had them come back to fix. Whoever thought that selling giant rocks would make them rich was a genius. I am in the wrong business...should have considered selling giant slabs of rock for unbelievably high prices! Anyways, choosing granite was surprisingly fun despite a few frustrations and high price tags.

We came out to see several bundles of bricks scattered around the house. When building custom, your builder/general contractor generally has a brick company/mason or two that he or she has had good success with in the past as far as cost and quality. They have you go out and see the different samples of brick they have. Unlike building with a large mass producing builder , your options are limitless.

Lighting

We choose Sunday because we don't feel as if we are in the way of the workers on this day. This has allowed us to notice some things that need to be changed so that we can call it in attention to our builder. Our pre drywall meeting went a little quicker because we had already visited the home often and knew what needed to be changed.

If you do tile, make sure you get the correct grout color. Ask your builder where they feel you should look for flooring. They often have developed relationships in the industry and know where the best prices and selection are.

When homes are built, how are garages factored into the overall cost to build? I've seen via google searches that some builders charge dollars/sq. This go around, we visit our home at least once a week on Sundays.

We spent weeks and weeks driving around every neighborhood we could find to try to find a unique brick that didn't stand out too much at the same time. We saw two houses that had this color and met with our brick people who went out to these houses and matched it for us. Even so, when we saw them in this bundle we called them asking if they were sure it was right. They assured us that it was and that they would just do a small section of the house first so we could see what it looks like before proceeding.