In May 2012, we acquired our build lot. A 1950s bungalow currently rests on the 75x150 foot property. We closed on the property in August 2012.
Since May of last year, we had been working with a local custom home builder. We had commissioned them to design our home with the understanding that once the design process was complete, we would negotiate the construction of our home.
The design process was challenging at times. We spent an entire Sunday afternoon meeting with their designer explaining all that we wanted in our new home design. About three weeks went by before we received our first set of plans. We questioned whether or not we had even been at the same meeting and if this house was designed for us or if we had accidentally received someone else's design. It was clear to us that we were going to need to closely manage this project.
We continued the collaborative process of reviewing and commenting on the design, until finally four months later we had arrived at plan we wanted to build.
It now came time to negotiate our construction contract. We first chose this builder because they really simplified the process of building a custom home. This seemed ideal. Raising two young children and both being self-employed, we didn't have a lot of free time, so having someone build our home seemed ideal.
Through the process of negotiating the build contract we quickly realized that this builder's model wasn't going to work for us. The builder charged a price per square foot for the build and offered VERY standard selections. We felt we were paying a premium for a "convenience" and were still going to have spend many dollars to upgrade the building materials to our satisfaction.
We continued to price out our build and upgrades with this builder, hoping that there would be room for negotiation. We concluded that through this builder, we would have spent more money on this build, without even having moved in, than any other house has sold for in this neighbourhood. Not a good start. The builder was not flexible on his pricing ... his solution was to scale back on our finishing detail.
Our solution was to find a way to build the house we wanted within budget so that we could make money on this house from day 1. We decided that the best thing we could do was to build our own home and hire a general contractor. We hired a building consultant after touring several of his custom home projects and loving his work. We hired him in October of 2012.
Brad, our building consultant, reviewed our plans and made several recommendations for improving the design. He recommended his own architect who we worked with through November and December to finalize our plans.
In early December we filed our application for a Site Alteration Permit with the Town of Oakville and we also filed our Application for a Demo Permit. By mid-December we had received both permits. All that remained was our Construction Permit. But before we could do this, our plans needed to go through reviews for heat/loss calculation, joist layout, and roof truss design. By the start of January our application was finally complete and we were able to file our Application for a Construction Permit.
We went through the application process pretty smoothly. I can say that the Town of Oakville was extremely helpful and easy to deal with. We received minor comments from the zoning and structural reviews and our architect quickly handled the revisions.
On January 24th, 2013 we received our Construction Permit. We've owned this lot for over 7 months, and quite honestly, I thought we would have moved into this house by now. Wishful thinking. Good things come to those who wait, right?
We're going through some frigid -10C Canadian winter weather right now. We're hoping for warmer temps right now, and weather permitting, we will begin our demolition in the next week or two.
We have made some progress over the last 7 months. While we've been forging our way through the application and permit process, we have purchased our kitchen appliances, almost finalized our kitchen cabinetry design, made most of our plumbing and tile selections, selected our windows and doors and started to get quotes for many aspects of our build.
Our building consultant has helped us establish our budget and we are doing our best to adhere to it. By ditching the builder and hiring a building consultant we've cut about $300,000.00 off our build price (if we stick to that budget!). We're faced with the challenge of building our dream house and building a house that is not over-built for our neighbourhood. We'll face many decisions and selections over the next few months ... so sticking to our budget will be key. I finally get to put into practice everything I've learned from watching Flipping Out these last few years. Now, I just have to keep asking myself, WWJLD (what would Jeff Lewis do)?
