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Vi's home construction blog: Spring 2011 Update - Landscape Torment

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vi edit said:
Every bed room & living space has Cat5 run to it. I've got whole house audio set in the kitchen/living room on seperate controls. The master bath has it's own. Family room upstairs has one. So does the future deck area. I'll be going with a 6 zone controller and that leaves one more zone open for the workout room in the basment when I get around to it. I'll be buying a squeezebox or a Sono system hooked up to my Rhapsody account for music. Plus a receiver for FM access.

The vaccum system will use a couple different setups. Bathrooms, kitchen and laundry room have kick pans mounted in the base of the cabinets where you can sweep stuff into them. Main floor by the entry and the upstairs bath have a dual kickpan & hose outlet so you can vaccuum with the hose attachment. Have a couple other basic outlets that work with just the hose attachment. It'll all be routed to the garage where the canister will be mounted...eventually.

I HATE HATE HATE having dirty floors. My wife couldn't care less. She didn't want/feel the need for the system. I said f'it and put it in myself. We've got a dog that sheds like crazy and the hair being everyfreakingwhere just annoyed the hell out of me. Sweeping it up is a pain in the ass and the vaccum is a 45 pound brick named Kirby that is a different kind of a pain in the ass to drag around. Plus it sounds like a freaking turbine running. Having the motor out in the garage lets me run it at night after the kids are in bed without making too much noise.
Click to expand...

That's freakin' awesome!

Definitely going to have to keep some of this in mind when we build our house..
 
vi edit said:
Every bed room & living space has Cat5 run to it. I've got whole house audio set in the kitchen/living room on seperate controls. The master bath has it's own. Family room upstairs has one. So does the future deck area. I'll be going with a 6 zone controller and that leaves one more zone open for the workout room in the basment when I get around to it. I'll be buying a squeezebox or a Sono system hooked up to my Rhapsody account for music. Plus a receiver for FM access.

The vaccum system will use a couple different setups. Bathrooms, kitchen and laundry room have kick pans mounted in the base of the cabinets where you can sweep stuff into them. Main floor by the entry and the upstairs bath have a dual kickpan & hose outlet so you can vaccuum with the hose attachment. Have a couple other basic outlets that work with just the hose attachment. It'll all be routed to the garage where the canister will be mounted...eventually.

I HATE HATE HATE having dirty floors. My wife couldn't care less. She didn't want/feel the need for the system. I said f'it and put it in myself. We've got a dog that sheds like crazy and the hair being everyfreakingwhere just annoyed the hell out of me. Sweeping it up is a pain in the ass and the vaccum is a 45 pound brick named Kirby that is a different kind of a pain in the ass to drag around. Plus it sounds like a freaking turbine running. Having the motor out in the garage lets me run it at night after the kids are in bed without making too much noise.
Click to expand...

Wow... that's going to be one amazing house!
 
It's just funny where/how you can spend money and what the utility is with it.

I'll have about $2500 wrapped up in the radiant heat in the basment once I finish that up.

Whole house audio will be about $1500 after controller, cable, and speakers are done.

Vac system will be about $1000 after smoke clears.

Cat5 cables, chases, smurf tube, and LV boxes, and associated stuff was about $300.

I've got about $5,000 in luxury/geeky items that will be used damn near every day and she was a little annoyed by them. But she didn't really bat an eye at spending $16,000 on a cabinets & counters, another $1500 on super fancy cracked glass backsplash pieces, and another $6,000 appliances.

With my stuff it's not really the materials that are pricey. It's the labor. And I'm free. 😀 I'd probably be paying double, if not triple or more if I paid a contractor to come in and do that.
 
vi edit said:
1. How many sqf is the house?

A: Around 3200 sq/ft "above grade". With a 1860'is sq/ft unfinished walkout basement.

2. How many bedrooms?

A: Technically 5 w/ closets. But one the one over the garage probably doesn't have a big enough window for the sq/ft of the room to be counted as a BR.

3. How many bathrooms?

A: 2 full, 1 half

4. 1 or 2 cars garage?

A: 3.75

5. Estimate cost of total construction before project started?

A: Contract was for 342k and that included a $20,000 allowance for the well.

So far we're a bit over. The well cost almost 2x as much as estimated because we had to drill to 450 feet 🙁. I've got almost $30,000 wrapped up in well & septic. Electric contrac was for $8000 but actual cost was about $10,500. We've got another $1000 overage in trim/finishing stuff for nicer baseboards and stair hardware. Our cabinets and counters will be over $16,000 which is about $4,000 more than the allowance was budgeted for. The flooring is about the only thing we were under on. And that's because we really bargain shopped and doing most of it myself. Tile is working out to around $1 a sq/ft. Strand bamboo cost around $3.29 a square, and my laminate for the kids rooms upstairs was about $1.09 a square. Carpet will run me another $2,000 for the stairs, hallway and a few other rooms.

6. Estimate of cost of total construction at the moment?

A: Pulls on construction loans are at $165k'ish for excavating, foundation, framing, roofing, windows and the well.

7. Is the project going to be finish on schedule?

A: No freaking way. We signed the building contract last October. Waited 8 weeks for the permits to go through. Then winter hit and never left until March. Started digging first week of March. 2nd day of dig road commissioner shut me down until 1st week of April. Then the mason was on vacation for a week. Then we proceeded to have one of the wettest springs on record. Once framing got up the building ispector stalled us for two weeks with our thumbs up our butt. Then once we got clearance for that the insulation subs were on vacation for a week. Hoping to be in by 2nd week of October at this point. And we probably won't have the brick & stone done by then.

8. How much did the project cost before you broke ground?

A: Lot was around $43k for 1.5 acres w/ electric, cable TV, and natural gas at the lot line.

I want to built a house in the next couple of years (already have the land), and would like to know the cost/s involved before I jump both feet in.

Thanks.

PS. Those stones are damn nice....where they came from and what are they?

A: Chilton rustic
http://www.buechelstone.com/Homeowner/stoneSelector.asp
They are $475 a ton. You wouldn't beleive the number of drive by's we've had with people stopping and commenting specifically about the stone. It's really a beautiful looking rock. It looks truly amazing from the road. Not that it looks bad up close, but from the road it does make the house look like a million bucks 🙂. The plan is to run the brick knee wall all the way across the house, brick up the middle elevation and then stone up the left elevation and the right side over the garage stalls.
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Thank you.

$350 is well within my budget. I though that your house was going to be a lot more than that.
 
iGas said:
Thank you.

$350 is well within my budget. I though that your house was going to be a lot more than that.
Click to expand...

There was a lot of "fluff" in our contract price that others wouldn't have to deal with depending on location.

The "base" price of the house was around $299k. And that's with a very complicated framing of the mid level room. The rough idea is best shown here: http://public.bay.livefilestore.com...Kl_xbrF-xM3rQ7j1-7PVo7HBg/IMG_4511.JPG?psid=1

I'm standing on the "main" floor. The stairs from the main floor go down to the theatre room, or they go up to the upper den/office. And then you can still go another flight to the basement or up another flight to the upstairs.

We paid about $30,000 for that option because of complexity whereas a typical main floor den/office would have been about $5,000. But it adds a very cool affect to the house that very few others have and it works out awesome for the theatre room in the bottom because of access and decoupling from the rest of the living space.

So really, I could have done this thing for closer to $275k if I wanted to keep it simple.

In my contract there were a bunch of things added in from that $299k.
- $3000 for a generator allowance (never used because of redirecting to well costs)
- $20,000 for well & septic
- $3000 to add in that extra 8'x14' section in garage & attic above
- $3,000 in extra allowances for complicated front elevation
- $3,500 in walkout & excavating for it
- $1,500 in iron spindles for stairs
- $1,500 to turn 2 story family room into two seperate floors of living space
And then a pile of other things that added up to the $342k.
 
8/15/10

Slowly whittling away at the brick & stone...my Dad has done a pretty amazing job with this stuff. The traffic driving by and just looking is crazy. Easily 5-10 cars each day on the weekends. And we're in a way off the beaten path cul-de-sac.
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com...osrtJfB52EbLMruYmXaBOPFQg/IMG_3737.JPG?psid=1

Piers around garage stalls look sharp in person, pics don't do them justice:
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com...EZ8m9nCVrPCkF6TcO2QhnNrQw/IMG_3734.JPG?psid=1

Insulation should be finished tomorrow. Have all the blue board & drywall inside the house now too. Should be starting that tomorrow in top floor and working way down. Should be drywalled up by end of week.
 
Dubb said:
at was the reason for the skinny row of cut brick at the soldier details?
Click to expand...

We got a good deal on these brick because they were leftovers in the yard. Only drawback was that they didn't have any solids available. We couldn't run the soldier all the way across without the holes showing. So had to take some creative liberties.
 
Is that a temporary main door? I noticed it's bland gray-ish-ness looks a bit out of place compared to the wood/glass part right beside it.
 
Aikouka said:
Is that a temporary main door? I noticed it's bland gray-ish-ness looks a bit out of place compared to the wood/glass part right beside it.
Click to expand...

Heh. Yeh. That's so somebody doesn't take out a $1500 etched glass entry door with a piece of lumber, stone shrapnel, or whatever sort of manner a construction site could destroy it. 🙂
 
Aikouka said:
Is that a temporary main door? I noticed it's bland gray-ish-ness looks a bit out of place compared to the wood/glass part right beside it.
Click to expand...

It's a "cull door." They'll use that until everything gets finished so the nice entry door doesn't get dinged up.

vi edit said:
It's just funny where/how you can spend money and what the utility is with it.

...

I've got about $5,000 in luxury/geeky items that will be used damn near every day and she was a little annoyed by them. But she didn't really bat an eye at spending $16,000 on a cabinets & counters, another $1500 on super fancy cracked glass backsplash pieces, and another $6,000 appliances.
Click to expand...

Trust me, it's not too difficult to spend $16,000 on cabinets, but I'm a cabinet guy. I'm working on a house now that is $27,000 of cabinets (installed). That's a mid-sized (open concept) kitchen, master bath, laundry room, main bath, master closet, basement bar, and pantry all in special birch. It's one of the nicer places that I've worked in personally. I know the guys are drafting on a job that will come out at over $100,000 of cabinets. Hopefully I'll get to install that one too.

Too bad you're not close to Wisconsin. We probably could have set you up with the same kitchen with all the top-end Blum hardware for the same price.
 
stinkynathan said:
Trust me, it's not too difficult to spend $16,000 on cabinets, but I'm a cabinet guy. I'm working on a house now that is $27,000 of cabinets (installed). That's a mid-sized (open concept) kitchen, master bath, laundry room, main bath, master closet, basement bar, and pantry all in special birch. It's one of the nicer places that I've worked in personally. I know the guys are drafting on a job that will come out at over $100,000 of cabinets. Hopefully I'll get to install that one too.
Click to expand...

If there's one thing I've learned working in architecture, it's that cost is relative...my residential high water mark is a $465k cabinet budget ($6M home). That was a VERY meticulous owner.
 
vi edit said:
We got a good deal on these brick because they were leftovers in the yard. Only drawback was that they didn't have any solids available. We couldn't run the soldier all the way across without the holes showing. So had to take some creative liberties.
Click to expand...

Ah, makes sense. I was actually asking about how the soldier course wasn't 3 rows tall, but then I realized you were using an over sized brick and didn't have the special tall soldiers to make it course out.
 
vi edit said:
A: No freaking way. We signed the building contract last October. Waited 8 weeks for the permits to go through. Then winter hit and never left until March.
Click to expand...

First, looking good, huge endeavor. Curious - do you know if contractors build in the winter? Closing in the next few weeks and with 8 weeks of waiting for permits it looks like we'll be pushing toward winter as well. It will be just a 2nd floor.
 
rh71 said:
First, looking good, huge endeavor. Curious - do you know if contractors build in the winter? Closing in the next few weeks and with 8 weeks of waiting for permits it looks like we'll be pushing toward winter as well. It will be just a 2nd floor.
Click to expand...
I'd want to see the work plan and how they'll keep the weather out before they crack open your house. It will run in to the winter for sure.
 
rh71 said:
First, looking good, huge endeavor. Curious - do you know if contractors build in the winter? Closing in the next few weeks and with 8 weeks of waiting for permits it looks like we'll be pushing toward winter as well. It will be just a 2nd floor.
Click to expand...

It just really depends. If you have a foundation/basement to deal with things get quite complicated in the winter. If we could have started in October like we wanted to, we could have had the foundation in and framing started by November. Would have had a roof up by December and then they would have worked through the winter.

In our case our permits didn't come through until December and by then it had started snowing. We needed at least 3-4 days above freezing to dig the hole and get the footings poured. Never got that break until March.

In some cases they will dig the hole, pour the footings when they have the opportunity and then cover it in straw until the weather permits better building.

In a way I'm glad things took so long, we weren't paying anything on the construction loan and I didn't have footings/foundation sitting in the brutal winter for 3 months waiting to put a house on it.

I would imagine the would work on an addition over the winter, if not even prefer it. Extra money for the builder in a normally slow time. Less things to worry about than a full build. Will probably take them longer because they'll piece it out more to keep things covered/closed up.
 
8-31-10

It's going to be 6 weeks of absolute chaos and brutality. Plaster guys will finish up tomorrow. Sanding crew comes in on Thursday and sands down all the sub floor. Then final trim-in crew sets up shop to close the deal.

My wife and I are going to have a ball busting couple weeks getting everything painted, about 2000 sq/ft of bamboo & laminate down, trim painted & stained, and continue laboring on the exterior with my Dad. Plus I've got three major activations at work over that time.

UHG.

This was taken on Saturday. Dad has one more day to put in a decorative accent over that left peak and then it's done. Then on to the double stall garage and stone.
http://uf1new.bay.livefilestore.com...hf9Tarlf1Mn4UlQSHSpuwjaZ2/IMG_3774.JPG?psid=1

Here's the screen wall of my theatre room:
http://whlu4w.bay.livefilestore.com...pKyQn-p6xXZkuHgv2E7q0KDwy/IMG_3754.JPG?psid=1

Start of plastering in living room/kitchen area (with holes in ceiling for whole house audio)
http://whlu4w.bay.livefilestore.com...AQCr4KRVxjSf5GxF-aIQWPMyo/IMG_3759.JPG?psid=1

This will be a bastard to paint:
http://whlu4w.bay.livefilestore.com...EJ3YIe3af6K7GJhLTPcIYzuc_/IMG_3761.JPG?psid=1

Looking from the entry in:
http://whlu4w.bay.livefilestore.com...xaqfyDbhgbwwH-moO7-udPD-R/IMG_3763.JPG?psid=1
 
BornStar said:
Is that the finished look of the ceiling and if so, is there a reason you went with that look?
Click to expand...

It's a plastered ceiling and the swirl finish is pretty common around here. Walls are a skip trowel/knock down texture. After we prime that swirled look will get subdued some.
 
That's a nice blend of stone, great contrast. Will the brick continue around the house?
The skip/ knockdown thincoat on the walls is a favorite of mine. It adds a old world character to the entire living space. I would have flat troweled the ceilings.
Beautiful house vi.
 
Unfortunately the brick and stone is just a front veneer. I don't have the time or money to do the whole house in it. Doing this part is a huge burden on my Dad. We figure that the front alone is about $25,000 in labor & materials if I had a full union crew come in and do it. I've got about $9,000 in brick, stone and materials just for the front. And that's taken about 2 months to get to this point. There aren't many...if any houses in my neighborhood that are full brick so it just wasn't worth the cost.

Same thing with the plaster situation. I got smoothcoats in the bathrooms per the contract, and would loved to have done that in the rest of the house...but it's $.25 a sq/ft. With a house this size it's a staggering number. Every time I turn around somebody else is in my pocket for $500 or $1500 more than planned. Have to stop the bleeding somewhere.

:O
 
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