Building a New House

I haven't built a house, but have done a few boats now! (For oursleves and clients). One tip that does apply is: Make sure you know exactly what you want before you start - even if it means pouring over the plans for months. Getting it right while it is still on paper will save you a lot of money and/or regrets.

Have fun!

We recently built with Horncastle Homes.

My tips would be:
- go through as many show homes as possible and pay attention to layouts that would suit your site. (DH and I still love going through show homes - it's addictive!)
- you don't have to use the standard layouts from the building companies, they can tweak them to suit what you want or design a new plan just for you.
- look over the plans and spec carefully to make sure they have included everything you've asked for. (The amount of times my proper rotary washing line reverted back to a stupid down the dark side of the house washing line was ridiculous.)

Some of the things we are so glad we did:
- we down scaled our flooring option to vinyl planking instead of tiles. Tiles are so cold and can crack if you drop something on them etc. Plus it saved us some money.
- enlarging all our bedrooms slightly from the standard size makes them so much more vesitile.
- getting "real doors" on the wardrobes instead of those flimsy sliders (I hate those things!!!)
- getting a tristone benchtop. Yes it's more expensive than formica, but it looks so much nicer and is way cheaper than granite.
- we do have a scullery in ours like you want and it's fantastic! So much more storage space and you can tuck away messy things like the toaster and kettle.
- my "real" washing line. Love it!

Oh yes, the separate toilet and laundry - so glad we did that too!
The builders really struggled to get their heads around seperate toilet with a basin. They wanted to put it in the bathroom, then separate but coming off the bathroom so you had to walk through the bathroom to get to the toilet... Then separate but with no basin.

Oh and the other thing we love is our extended garage so it has an extra metre down the side. Means you can still comfortably fit two cars in along with all the other extra crap (lawn mower, bikes etc)

We are currently in the process of building with South Pacific Homes. Bricks are being put up today! They have been great in terms of speed of build thats for sure! I think what we found when shopping is the varying levels of "help" they give you when it comes to design etc. My DH is a mech eng designer/draughtsman and he made up our plans which was great. But as far as colours of bricks etc go - we are pretty useless with our imagination and we get no help with that. Verses stonewood homes give you several hours with a colour consultant. So next time we would make sure that we could afford that extra help.

People say building is so stressful, maybe we havent had anything go wrong yet (touch wood!!) - but its really not that bad :) And super exciting seeing the progress :)

Oh and MrsH - do many places include landscaping? We have our section leveled and grass sown but thats it. All other companies were the same (that we asked)..

I think its so much better doing it through a project management company because all you really do is pick what you want it to look like then they organise EVERYTHING !! :) Exciting !

If you can afford to, go and see a registered Architect rather than a spec home type place (even if its just for a quote initially). It will likely be a little pricer but they can stick within your budget limit and you tend to get a more personalised home (and a lot more thought is usually given for your own needs, wants and priorities).
Ive seen a lot of spec homes built where the owner has a lot of 'oh we should have...' 'I wish we had thought of...' once the house is all done and dusted. Spec home companies have their place, but I liken them to factories where they pump the houses out as quickly as possible - very efficient but not so personal.
You can still have a simple and low cost house with an Architect so dont let that put you off.

Planning is the most important part of building - rush it and you end up missing or regretting things. It is always more expensive to change things once you have lodged for consent or started construction (unless its a change such as not building a large chunk of the house).

Whoever you go with, get recommendations (like you are on here!) but for the actual branch of Architect/designer/builder that you will be using. A firm may have a good name in general but your local branch may be full with a bunch of idiots

Also, if you and your DH do not have much experience with building, I would recommend getting whoever you use to run the project from design right through to completion - buildings are tricky and there is always construction queries and subbies to organise, best to leave that to those who know how and you will find it a lot less stressful! (and its much more fun just to have to pick colours and materials, rather than spend hours on the phone to the plumber working out how you should fit your septic tank!)

I worked at an Architecture Office for 5 years prior to having kids and have no doubt that I would use an Architect if we were to build (unless I could be bothered designing it myself).

Good luck and have fun!

FLAKE! Haha been a while since I've called you that! Hi

We built our own house during the weekends, we got a kitset from A1 homes, but it was changed a lot from the original plan.

Things I learned;
- You can never have too much storage.
- You can never have too many lights, just make sure you have enough light switches (not too many lights on one circuit as it wastes energy!).
- If you have stairs - use the dead space - cupboards/under stairs office (we did this - hand made the benches/cupboards to suit, was excellent).
- Must factor in landscaping, power, amenities etc
- Ask how much it costs for changes
- Friend paid for a certain end date - wouldn't recommend this as the companies just rush through if they run over time (which often seems to happen!), not worth it!
- If you're short on cash factor in what is important to you - for us it was a big garage and big kitchen with a double door fridge, massive oven... love it!
- Separate bathroom/toilet/laundry
- Check sizes of bedrooms as they're often teeny!
- Check the quality of door handles, kitchen handles, doors, facets, toilets/bath etc. A bit more spent there makes a massive difference.

Think that's it - we had an amazing time building our house - it took a while as there was only myself, DH and my Father but it was worth it.

Oh the other thing when going with building companies is check the payment plan.
Horncastle do 10% up front (I think it was) then you don't pay any more until the build is completed.
It's good incentive for them to complete the build on time as they're using their own money and better for you if they go bust as you won't be left as out of pocket as if you have to pay more upfront.

Also, not sure if you have purchased the land yet, but we got the house as a house and land package which makes getting a loan less complicated as the banks view it as buying a house rather than building a house.
(Hope I got that right - DH and my Dad took care of that stuff because it's way over my head...)

Agreed on the ease of borrowing minipig.. Makes a big difference... We found we couldn't get the 40% deposit for the land, and the 20% deposit for the build which the bank was asking for.... So our building company are doing the entire thing off our specifications, then we buy it off them at the end... So at the moment, all of the risk is with them. We have a fixed price we have agreed on and a Sale and Purchase agreement as if buying an existing home (with no conditions)... Just have to be a bit more imaginative sometimes huh?

We haven't built a house before, but we do live in a GJ gardener home.
The house is great, the layout is open plan which isn't so great. We have a big family and the only place to hang out is either in your bedroom or all in together in the lounge dining area.

Another big thing that is a total pain in our butt is the cheap fittings the original owners put everywhere. The down lights have cheap fittings so they are always crapping out, the curtain rails were hung up just on the jib and not into solid parts of the wall so one was ripped out when one of my boys pulled on the curtain a bit, not quite enough power points, and door handles that sometimes break, cheap kitchen tap that needs to be replaced etc. Our main annoyance is the lights though. There are so many of them through out the house and when they get temperamental it starts to drive you batty.

Sorry about the rant.

Basically, my advise is don't build a great house then skimp on the fittings.

Good luck.