After returning home to Oklahoma from living in Minnesota for ten years, I bought a two bedroom, one bath house and a two story two bedroom apartment on 3.2 acres in the edge of town for 7500.00. I proceded to plan and build a 24' x 36' addition that added a master bedroom, master bath, an office for me, a utility room, a sewing and craft room for my wife and a huge new kitchen and the way it is looking, I will have less than 10,000.00 invested in the addition. It has been in the works for a little over two years, but we are partially in the new part. I will post pics as soon as I can and will be sharing my methods and ways of saving money on this build. In any job this large, you will always have to involve some professionals to do work. Be it plumbing, a/c and heating or electrical, these costs are not avoidable. If planned right, these costs can be reduced or even eliminated by shopping around and comparing and sometimes if you use a small firm, you may be able to barter for the work. If anyone wants to hear the rest, just email me and I will post the progression of events up to today's point.
Building a home for little $$$$
- Thread starter handydude
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In the planning stage, I had my wife and two kids sit with me and came up with a rough idea of what we needed to add onto the house. The most important thing was the extra bedroom and a second bathroom. Even before this, I had been looking at garage sales, closeout sales, Habitat for Humanity stores and everywhere I saw something that I thought I might use in the build. For example, I contacted the roofing firm that was roofing a multi unit apartment complex about the extra shingles left over from the job. I was persistant and finally went to the owner of the firm and told him about my plan to build my house on my own. We made the agreement that everyday after work, I would go by the site and pick up scraps, paper and do a little better cleanup than the crews. In return, i would receive enough shingles at the end of the job to do my whole house, not just the addition. In the end. i received enough to do my whole house, the apartment and enough partial rolls of felt to do it all. This took me and my son about 45 minutes a day for 3 and 1/2 weeks and i received 32 squares of 30 year laminate shingles. They were not all in paper bundles, but i stored them correctly, so I lost none to sticking together.
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In the planning stage, i originally planned to go with a wood floor, but after comparing the cost of wood and the time factor, I decided to go with concrete. I contacted a local cement mill, and was able to purchase 90 pond bags of portland for 50 cents a bag if i took all that was there at the time. It took about 4 months until I had enough to mix and pour the slab myself(with my two kids and some others help) and after having two loads of fill brought in and leveled, I proceded to install the plumbing. NOTE: If you are going to install plumbing under a slab, hire a plumber to inspect it before you cover it up!!! I did and was glad. You get a whole bunch of peace of mind knowing that you wont(or should'nt) have any leaks to deal with after the slab is done. After the slab was done, I had a total of 453.00 invested in materials. I had a whole bunch of sweat equity invested, but that comes with this type of project. I had purchased a really old cement mixer (it had BRASS gears!)for 35.00 at a garage sale and had to put a 1/2 hp 110 volt motor on it. I salvaged the motor from an old furnace, so no cost, just a little work to install it and i have the mixer for future projects. Any time you are planning on doing a DIY project, plan ahead so you can be gathering tools and equipment for the job. Auctions are an excellent source and garage sales are also. If the tools are old, plug them in and test them before buying. If you have a doubt, pas on it. Another one will come along.
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When you are going to be doing a DIY project, sometimes a big factor is time. If you need it now, it is gonna cost a lot more. If you have the time and space to find,barter or deal for and store the items until you need them, you can save massave amounts of money. Everytime I go to a store like Lowe's or Home Depot, the first thing I do is go to the clearance area. I always have a list of the things that I need, the things that I want and the color selections of tile, walls, ETC. and the dimentions of the fixtures that I need. If you are flexable on the size of windows that you can use, a lot of times the big stores will have a group of windows that have been returned because they were a 1/2 inch too big or small, not enough or too much shading, ETC and this equates to BIG SAVINGS!!! I gathered for a year and a half before I even turned shovel one. Now as I am working on my house, I don't have to wait on the money to buy stuff, I already have it because I planned for it and had it in the storage bldg. Craigslist is a wonderful place to find material for your project. I have found that most times, the seller is willing to haggle on the price after hearing about your DIY. For example, I went up to Oklahoma City to look at a corner Jacuzzi Tub that was a 1500.00 unit and the guy was asking 500.00 for. After telling him about the project and chatting for about ten minutes, he came down to 250.00 and threw in some extra plumbing pipe and connections that he didn't need. KACHING!!! Some things I wont buy used such as faucets, anything electrical and bedding. This just makes common sense, but that does not mean that you have to pay new price for it. That just means you may take a little longer to find the items that you need. If all else fails, you can go to the lumber yard and buy it.
dragonlaurel
Improvising a more SS life
Very cool. 
I'll be following this thread. I want to learn all I can for when it's my turn to make a home.
fixed typo
I'll be following this thread. I want to learn all I can for when it's my turn to make a home.fixed typo
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When it came to the electrical panel and wiring in the house, i opted for nothing but new. Code calls for 14-2 wiring, but I went with all 12-2 for anything 110 volt. I went with the next size larger for items like the dryer, hot water heater and the furnace. The panel I installed was a Square D "Homline" from Lowe's and the 200 amp panel with 6 breakers was like 97.00. For the peace of mind and availability of parts, this was the only way to go. I had the outside service moved to a temp pole and had the electrician install a 200 amp main disconnect and a 200 amp meter base on the outside of the house when we got it in the dry.
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Something that I failed to mention. If you are going to build your own house, you need to check with your local city, county and state regulations about codes, permits and the requirements for inspection. Here, there are no codes, but I am very careful to follow the code from Oklahoma City so that everything is done correctly. If you do this AND spring for a state inspection, If you goto sell the house later, there will be less problems and your insurance premiums may be lower.
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Denim Deb
More Precious than Rubies
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I'll be following it, too. I'd love to build my own house. (W/some help from people who know what they're doing!)
