Well the journey has begun- lots of pics

[EddieWalker]

Beatiful looking place, Congratulations!!!!!

One thing that I found with my place is that my original plans and ideas have all changed after a few years. Where I wanted to do one thing, I found a better place. Take your time and stay flexible with your plans. Sometimes what seems like the only place to build will actually turn out to be the wrong place. I know that if I had built my home where I first planned on, I would have made a mistake.

Another thing to be cautious about is buying stuff for a house before you actually start building it usually leads to allot of waste. The material gets ruined, you spend more time and effort protecting it then it would have cost you brand new and/or you have a change in plans and don't need it.

Buy what you need, when you need it and you will be money ahead. Spend your time looking at homes and learing what you want, then start on a plan for you home based on the location it will sit and what you can afford.

As a contractor, I deal with people all the time in the planning stage of a home or remodel, and what happens allot of the time is they try to recreate a place that they either already own, or that they know of. Time after time, it doesn't work with the new location or what they really want. Getting past that wall is the hard part, but once we get there, they realize what they were doing.

You can waste or spend allot of money on a house real easy, but the main building itself is usually pretty basic. The big expenses usually come in with finish or those must have issues that after you live there, realize that you really didn't need. $200 door knobs, wood grained interior doors, stainless appliances, and light fixtures all add up real fast. I've had jobs that were over budget by thousands of dollars because of these things. They bought allot of them before the walls were done being framed, and felt they had to use them in the finished home. Of course, once the walls were painted and it was time to install them, they realized that they didn't even like them anymore.

Good luck, it looks like you are already enjoying the place and I'm looking forward to your updates and progress on turning the land into your home.

Eddie

 

[Flatheadyoungin]

Great advice.....

We're not in to all the latest gadgets, etc......standard light switches and receptacles will do us just fine. I figure I can buy insulation, shingles any OSB, etc......all of that can be used in any design. We aren't in a hurry, at all, so we have time to carefully plan, select a site (let the seasons change to help determine this), design a plan, and gather materials..... to me, a faucet is a faucet.....as long as it's quality, i don't care if it's a certain style, etc.....and my wife, bless her, isn't that picky....

indoor storage isn't a problem.....if i had to tarp it down, then there's no way i would chance thousands of dollars of lumber out in the weather for years..

make sure you keep a close eye one me and keep us on the straight and narrow! as i get to a different stage, i will start a more specific thread for it....

your threads have inspired me for many things, i value your opinion.....

Beatiful looking place, Congratulations!!!!!

One thing that I found with my place is that my original plans and ideas have all changed after a few years. Where I wanted to do one thing, I found a better place. Take your time and stay flexible with your plans. Sometimes what seems like the only place to build will actually turn out to be the wrong place. I know that if I had built my home where I first planned on, I would have made a mistake.

Another thing to be cautious about is buying stuff for a house before you actually start building it usually leads to allot of waste. The material gets ruined, you spend more time and effort protecting it then it would have cost you brand new and/or you have a change in plans and don't need it.

Buy what you need, when you need it and you will be money ahead. Spend your time looking at homes and learing what you want, then start on a plan for you home based on the location it will sit and what you can afford.

As a contractor, I deal with people all the time in the planning stage of a home or remodel, and what happens allot of the time is they try to recreate a place that they either already own, or that they know of. Time after time, it doesn't work with the new location or what they really want. Getting past that wall is the hard part, but once we get there, they realize what they were doing.

You can waste or spend allot of money on a house real easy, but the main building itself is usually pretty basic. The big expenses usually come in with finish or those must have issues that after you live there, realize that you really didn't need. $200 door knobs, wood grained interior doors, stainless appliances, and light fixtures all add up real fast. I've had jobs that were over budget by thousands of dollars because of these things. They bought allot of them before the walls were done being framed, and felt they had to use them in the finished home. Of course, once the walls were painted and it was time to install them, they realized that they didn't even like them anymore.

Good luck, it looks like you are already enjoying the place and I'm looking forward to your updates and progress on turning the land into your home.

Eddie

 

[3RRL]

That thumbnail works great.
I was able to open it and go back to read the rest of the post on your thread.
The picture is beautiful too ... thank you!

 

[schmism]

so give us some history of why that plot of land is what it is.

how did you come to own it... who owned it before... what was it used for... whats around you....

I second the take your time planning things on the property. We had a year to figure out were to set the trailer on our property. were to set the septic, were the new house was going, what area would work well for a graden, were to put the chickens....

it took that long on the trailer because we litterly looked at what our property had to offer over the entire year. were was the shade, were were the trees that blocked the north wind, were does it stay wet in the spring, etc

we had considerations like we only had a few good locations for a drain feild, and when you looked at placeing the septic tank, were could we put it so it would serve the trailer while it was hear, and use the same tank for the house when we "switched". that really limited our locations.

 

[RobJ]

Great pictures and a nice looking place. Why was the wait so long? Probate or something? Is your current house close to this place. You mention building a "camp" so maybe not that close. To me anything an hour or less to get to, I'd start on the main house and not bother with a camp.

We did this a few years back, It's about 2 hours 10 minutes away. I call it a "deer camp", my wife calls it a place she likes to stay! Point is if I was building a camp type place make it something real nice that may end up as a guest cottage later. Plus the house might take longer to get finished. If the camp is a little rough, people might not want to rush to it. We try and take up friends and neighbors as much as possible. We have central air, hot water, Dish Network, FLOWER BEDS for the wife(including a sprinkler system to keep them alive!!) all the comforts. Since it's 1500sqft it is the main house, but the point is it has good beds, and all the comforts. My teens even like to bring their friends up there!! That's really cool!!

Good Luck and keep the pics comming!! Take a bunh of pictures because you only get one chance before stuff changes!!

Rob

Elkhart House Project

 

[czechsonofagun]

As a contractor, I deal with people all the time in the planning stage of a home or remodel, and what happens allot of the time is they try to recreate a place that they either already own, or that they know of. Time after time, it doesn't work with the new location or what they really want. Getting past that wall is the hard part, but once we get there, they realize what they were doing.
Eddie

What an interesting point, Eddie. I never thought of that, but I am sure it is true for many people. Got no excuse to make that mistake myself now

 

[schmism]

we closed in aug 06. we towed the popup to the closing and then on to the property afterward. I picked up the tractor the next day.

we were lucky enough to have running water and power at our site already in our old run down farm house. we set up the popup and over the next few weekends did a minor rehab on the bathroom so we could use it for showers, a flush toilet and a sink to do dishes in.

we "lived" out of our popup on weekends till it got cold cold! we had moved it inside the barn and thats were it lived during the winter. down to 30 we could manage.

march of 07 we landed the deal on the used single wide for 16K delivered and setup. by june i had utilities hooked (setting new power pole, moving 200 amp service to the barn, trenching water off existing line that fed the yard hydrant etc) up to it including the new septic tank.

by august we were living there 4-5 days a week. My wife who works in town was basically moved in permanently while i still had to commute back to st louis for the my job. I had picked up a couple of 100lb propane tanks and had plumbed them to the hard line of the trailer for the stove around the same time. (we got tired of cooking off a single propane camp eye setting ontop of the real stove) we ran that setup for stove only until oct 07 when we needed real heat and we had the 500 gal propane tank set.

in nov 07 i was layed off and that meant we were to move in at the property permanently. we didnt sell the st louis house till april 08 and the last of our stuff wasn't moved out till march of 08.

Hopefully this gives you an idea of how we spread things out in both planning and for financial reasons.

Going forward we have the old house burnt down, and are currently in the process of putting a plan together to build a new house in the same location.
our goal now is 4-5 years. At the end of that process our ideal plan is to pick up another few acres close by and set the trailer on it for rental property or long term guest house. (have the parents come stay for the summer)

 

[WBWI]

Congrats on the purchase. Your property looks like a great place to live and raise a family. We recently bought 5+ acres and built our dream home. It was a fun process but as mentioned you can blow the budget very quickly on "upgrades". Looking forward to updates as the process continues.

 

[Flatheadyoungin]

...lots more to come, just need time to put it all together!

 

[denmansoft]

Congrats and listen to Eddie!
I found that getting a trailer load of materials at a time has worked great. Materials are a good part of the cost, but if you have too much sitting around too long it will get ruined, wasted and the savings won't be so great!.
Look for quality not price. We had to get an extra 4 sheets of ply a couple of weeks ago and only HD was open. The price seemed comparable to what I had been getting from my usual supplier. Those 4 sheets developed an 8" twist in less than 2 weeks sitting flat (and tarped) on my trailer. The other stuff that has been sitting for closer to 2 months were still flat!

We put our 5th wheel just above the house site and over the last few years explored the siting and views. We still like our original plan, but have had to do some serious research when we started poking holes in the ground and found solid rock real close to the surface. That is our challenge is burying the utilities to the required depth without having to truck in major amounts of fill.