In the process of building a custom home, I’ve learned a few things, uncovered some myths, and confirmed some of my original beliefs. Most importantly, I have learned that a good team of specialists is
the solution to most every problem.
I correctly anticipated the level of complexity in building our first custom home. Yet despite over 3 years of planning, there where still more decisions than one person could handle. The range of problems are so diverse that no one could have the range of skills or experience. A team with a multitude of skills is required. The level of
complexity only increases as the home’s design and level of finish diverge from standard building practice.
A cookie cutter design greatly reduces the level of complexity, but custom architecture requires many more decisions at each phase.
Our team consists of myself as project coordinator, superintendent, pseudo general contractor (GC) and most importantly, Mr. Money Bags. Followed by the framer (and real GC), architect, interior architect, and finally, all of the subcontractors. As the leader, I am only as good as my team.
For those of you thinking you would like to general your own home, I would like to formally talk you out of it. It was my original intent to general the whole job, and while I did handle a fair amount of the load, but not having an experienced general contractor (i.e. Fletcher – my framer and Real GC), would have been a train wreck. As a layman, I have a better skill set than most to fill in as GC. I have a mechanical engineering degree, a general contractor’s
license, a flexible schedule allowing time on the job site, and great local connections due to my profession. Yet still, without Fletcher’s knowledge and assistance, I would have been dead in the water. There is an interaction with all the subcontractors, inspections, known details and unknown details that requires experience to anticipate, coordinate and execute.
Together, I handled what coordination I could and then Fletcher would fill in the gaps and basically save my butt, on a time and materials basis. This relationship has worked great. It has allowed me to be involved in a capacity
that my skills allow and yet have somebody who has the nuts and bolts experience and ability to execute the missing pieces. Most importantly, Fletcher cares about the end result and is extremely conscientious. Not the adjectives that
most people use to describe their general contractor experience.
Having a GC on board for the inspections was critical. The inspection process is about the relationship between the GC and the inspector. Fletcher made it very clear to me right up front, “Don’t ever try to slide something by an inspector, or be deceptive; if you do they can make things very difficult.” Since our inspector trusted Fletcher, more leeway was given. The inspector knew Fletcher would handle any corrective action required. Even though I might
have been on the property, and knew things were up to code, I didn’t speak “inspector-eze”. Having somebody
capable of answering the inspector’s questions needs to be present.
To facilitate smooth inspections, Fletcher often sought the ruling of the inspector ahead of the schedule, allowing us to get each phase signed off and keep the project going. You want to avoid re-inspections. This can set you back several days and waist many hours. Usually inspections occur at the end of one work phase, and this phase needs to be approved before the next phase of construction can begin. So work comes to a grinding halt until that phase has
been approved.
The balance of the team consists of the architect, interior architect and subcontractors. Many architects put out what I call cookie cutter homes. It’s their job to give the clients what they want: a good floorplan, traditional design, and possibly some dormers for the cutesy factor. Our architect was a little different. He doesn’t design Tudors, Spanish, Colonials, or Bungalows. He designs one thing; modern art. If you want anything other than modern art, get another architect. This was OK with us, we wanted modern.
True architects (as in artists) are a different breed. They are passionate about creating art as well as function. During our initial conversation, our architect, Robert, conveyed how serious he was about keeping the design pure. I asked him about roof lines and types of shingles. The room got quiet, he then looked at me with a dead pan seriousness that conveyed the gravity of the matter and said “Shingles….. I don’t do shingles”. What did I know? I don’t design homes, but Robert was right, modern homes don’t have shingles. It became very clear that he is extremely passionate about his work, like an artist he is committed to his vision.
The interior architect, Suzanne, was another critical component of our team. Just as Penny & I don’t have degrees in architecture, we don’t have degrees in interior design either. Many times we simply didn’t have an opinion regarding some design choice. Having somebody like her on board who can select all of the finishes and make decisions was critical. She usually gave us several choices that would go with the overall design plan. When she asked us which choice we liked, we’d often look at her with a blank vacant stare and say, “We like what YOU like!”. We’ve said this so many times that it has now become a joke, but none the less true. We love her selections. Given the literally thousands of tile choices, we would be sure to either screw it up or just take the safe road and pick some blah paint or tile color. Suzanne’s knowledge and experience has maintained the integrity of the design. It has also saved us money since costly design mistakes can be avoided.
Lastly, are the many sub-contractors vital to the completion of the project. With only one exception,
everybody on the job has been superb. Really! But oh that one. This particularly bad subcontractor absolutely
drove me crazy. He was truly incompetent. Sloppy quality and lack of communication skills, caused much anguish and loss of sleep. Needless to say, he was the only one we fired. It turned out for the better because his replacement was awesome. Which leads us full circle to my first conclusion; You are only as good as the people on your team.
Other thoughts
Budgeting:
While a more basic addition can have a budget, a custom home with unique design features is a budgeting nightmare. How any general contractor can bid out a custom job is beyond me. I would imagine that most custom homes are not built on a fixed budget, but allow for budget changes as progress is made. There are an impossible number of details to anticipate and any builder that can give you a firm price on a custom home is either pulling a number out of a hat, or they have over 100 pages of firm bids with every possible detail listed. The process of analyzing the entire building process to give a reasonable bid would take over several hundred hours. I can’t think of a contractor that has that much time. So the bottom line is that in a nonstandard project, it is the owner that is going to have to take the risk regarding variations in price from original guesstimates. It doesn’t mean that a budget shouldn’t be done, it just means that the budget is only a guideline. Figure that your cost is going to be between $150 – $300+ per square foot to build a custom home.
Leaving one wall:
Everybody seems to know about the leaving one wall theory to save on fees. It is true that your permitting fees are less for a remodel. But there is no truth to the one wall theory. Either your project is a remodel or it’s new construction. To qualify as a remodel, you must leave 50% of the exterior walls of your existing home. You can probably get away with less because not many plan checkers know this 50% rule and many people have gotten by
with less. But leaving 50% of the exterior walls is a huge constraint. Paying the additional permitting fees
may be worth the freedom to create what you want.
Scheduling:
Are you on schedule? This was one of the most commonly asked questions. To be perfectly honest, I never knew how to answer this question. My thought was…. what schedule? I simply scheduled the next job or trade required to complete the job. What am I supposed to do if a 2 week job takes 3 weeks? Flip out, get mad? What would be the point?
The end result is that it is going to take about 1 year from start to finish.
Would we do it again? Definitely! It’s a huge price to pay but you get what you want and to us it was worth it.
Please feel free to contact any of our team if your considering a new home or remodel, we highly recommend them:
Architect – Robert Trucios – 562-491-5373
Interior Architect – Suzanne Schafer – 562-433-5678
General Contractor – Flectcher Noel – 562-598-6333
If you have any questions regarding your home or
any planned improvements, please don’t hesitate to
call. With our broad knowledge of Real Estate you
will find us a valuable resource.