If you’re thinking of building your own home instead of fixing up an old house, you already know you’re taking on a major project. There are a lot of advantages, such as designing your home exactly as you want it and being able to build with sustainable living in mind, but there is a lot to plan, and a lot of easy, common mistakes. Here are the top things that you need to know before starting to build your own home.
Your Schedule Is a Guideline
There are lots of things that can cause your schedule to go awry, no matter how well you plan. Go here to learn how to plan a house build, but remember that bad weather, delays on materials, building issues, and scheduling problems with contractors will mean that your timeline can change at any time. The schedule is a guideline, not a guarantee. When building a house, understand that your ideal schedule may not work out as you hope.
Design for Your Future
You might be young and newly married now, but design your home for the future too. Are you planning on having children? Do you have parents who may need to live with you in the future when they become more elderly? If you’ll need more space in the future, design with that in mind. If you build only for you now, you’ll outgrow your home in a few years and have to move anyway.
Finish Before Moving In
After a long build project, you feel more than ready to finally move in when you get near to the end of the project. The plans you made to finish off the landscaping or the basement seem less important if they’re delaying the date of when you can actually move in. However, it’s better to wait until everything is finished before you move in, or it’s likely that those last jobs will be delayed for a long time once you’re in. If you already have contractors on-site, you will find it a lot easier to finish off those last projects now than if you have to reschedule and pay for contractors to come back at a later date. Get all of the work done before you move into your new home.
Plan for Storage
Nobody feels very excited about planning out their storage space. Most of the attention naturally gets put into fun things, like choosing your kitchen cabinet details, or the master bath plans. However, more storage space is one of the top things that most homeowners wish their homes had. Planning for storage might not be very exciting, but it will make a big difference to your life and how happy you are in the finished house.
Research Contractors
Make sure to thoroughly research any contractors that you’re hiring, especially before you give them any money. Get referrals and reviews before you do any business with them. This will save you time, money, and stress in the long run. If you skip the research, you risk being scammed by people who take your money and disappear, never to be seen again. You also risk hiring a genuine contractor, but one who will cut corners, overcharge you, or deliver a low-quality of work. If you can, try to find someone who has done work for someone you know, or at least try to see their previous work in real life if you can, so you know what you’re paying for.
Invest in Fixtures
When you’re building a new home, it can be tough to know where is the best place to allocate your funds. There are lots of trendy interior items that you could easily spend most of your budget on, like designer pillows or expensive curtains, but in the long term, it’s better to invest the majority of your budget into the fixtures. The fixtures are the parts of your home that will stay the same for the longest, even as you change the decor in the future. If you spend money on high-quality fixtures, they will last longer, so you can swap out finishes and colours around them to freshen your decor, without making major changes or repairs.
Building a house is a daunting task, but by planning for the long-term and putting in the work, it can also be the best thing you will ever do for yourself. Planning is the key, as is some room for flexibility. Plan as well as you can, but be prepared for change too.
