_________________________________________________________________________ Welcome to Farmhouse From Scratch! Farmer and I are on the adventure of our lives building our dream home, on our dream property, debt free. The only way that was possible was for us to be our own general contractor and do it all ourselves. Come follow us on this adventure and…
How to build your own custom dream home for a fraction of the price
I need some extra help
Building your own house is a HUGE job. My goal is to help you out as much as possible. Throughout our build, I will continue to fill this page with “extra” things to help your building go even smoother. I will answer questions, provide detailed explanations, and anything else you might need. If you…
Checklists, schedules, printables
Organization is key when you are your own general contractor. There are a million and one different pieces of paper to keep track of, dates to remember, and things to write down. I will continue to add checklists, schedules, and printables to this page throughout the entire building process. The comprehensive checklists will help make sure you…
Who should I hire?
You are going to need to hire a lot of different people when you are your own general contractor. We call those people sub-contractors. Depending on what you decide to do yourself, you may be hiring carpenters, painters, excavators, plumbers, electricians, designers, surveyors, consultants, roofers, and a whole lot more. This page is mostly geared…
Scratchlist- buy, sell, trade
Shopping hard for building materials can sometimes lead to huge savings when building a house. However, it can take a lot of time and dedication to actually find these deals. Throughout our build I have shopped at all the usual places for killer deals … clearance aisles, thrift and second hand stores, garage sales, and…
Products I highly recommend
It’s really difficult to know which products are the best ones when you have no experience using any of them. This is one hard problem to overcome when owner-building. The best way to combat this issue is to talk to other people about which products they like to use (or really hate using so you…
What can I help you find?
Sturdy Simple Pantry Shelves – DIY
I absolutely love my pantry shelves. Farmer built me the most beautiful and simple custom pantry shelves and I could not be more in love with them. How did we build our easy, super sturdy, and incredibly simple pantry shelves? They are made out of 16″ melamine board and 16″ shelving brackets, plus some left…
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How big is your house? A: Our house (the Farmhouse) is 3,500 square feet on the main level. We have a 600 square foot bonus room up inside the roof trusses that is being used as storage and a theater room. Then we have 700 square feet of covered back deck and a 754…
Real numbers behind buying our fix and flip
We just bought our first fix and flip renovation house. (If ya missed the big news, here is a YouTube video and a blog post all about it). One of the things I find frustrating is when you are trying to plan or prepare for something and you can’t find real numbers on things because…
The big problem with building our own house SLOWLY …
Farmhouse From Scratch has a big announcement guys! We are …..
Countertops 201
If you haven’t check it out, Countertops 101 helps describe some of the popular options when it comes to countertops! I have loved receiving the comments so be sure to read about other home owner’s experiences with the different options! Countertops 201 will be a short read but will give you insight as to the…
Countertops 101
When it comes time to shop for your countertops, there are a lot of different factors to consider and there are even more options. You may know exactly what you want as far as materials go or some have no idea which countertop is best. Trying to figure out the style… the material… the budget……
Floor Plans 101
Floor Plans 101 This article contributed by Mrs. B who is owner building in Union County, Ohio Are you dreaming about what your house will look like? Spending more time than you’d care to admit online looking at houses and floor plans? Waking up at 3 a.m. with yet another idea? Are you in the…
Building your own house with a full time job
So you are kinda feeling some anxiety about your home building process. You don’t know how you can afford the build if you hire a GC, nor do you know how much time you can devote to the build if you do it yourself because you have a full time job, sound familiar? As our…
Drilling and Blasting for your home’s foundation- Everything you need to know
Drilling and Blasting to Prepare for Foundation. You know that parable about the wise and foolish builders who built their houses on rock and sand? Well if you don’t, the parable goes… “I will liken him to a wise man, who built his house on a rock. The rain came down, the floods…
5 myths about finishing your house while you live in it
Most people are usually pretty decided on this subject. Either you are fine moving in to an unfinished house or you just aren’t. And that is totally okay! Everyone is different and every situation is different. Farmer and I moved into a very unfinished house because we were fine with it, but mostly because it…
Silt Fencing 101
Silt Fencing: 101 Are you getting ready to break ground or have you just started digging your basement or foundation? Are you adding drainage tile or hauling in dirt to grade your property better? Maybe you were driving by a new build and wondered what is that little black fence, thinking, do I need one…
3 things I learned visiting another person’s owner build
Last week Farmer and I had the amazing opportunity to travel all the way across the United States to meet with, and work with, another owner building family. The trip from Central Washington all the way to Boston Massachusetts was a long one, but I am so glad we took the leap and went. Our…
Loans for owner builders
There are several different ways to prepare to build a house financially. Farmer and I feel strongly about saving up the money first and building with cash because we hate interest with a burning passion. Had we taken out a loan to build our house, even a short 15 year loan, it would have nearly…
Foundation Preparation and Pouring the Basement
That happy day has come and you have received word from your local building department that you can FINALLY begin digging a hole for your foundation (check out applying for building permits if you haven’t gotten to this point first). You feel like you have the golden ticket and can’t wait to get started! Digging…
Permits and applications for building your own house
First steps toward owner building your dream home… Permits and applications **These experiences are based in Norfolk County, Massachusetts. Each county requires different things for owner building. Please check with your local building department for rules and information regarding your specific area. You can also check out the Farmer’s wife’s permit experiences and information based in…
9 things you must do before buying land
So, you’ve decided to owner-build your dream home and looking for that perfect spot? A year and a half ago we decided, that building a brand new house from the ground up was the right choice for us. This was a promise for a fresh start in a house that was exactly the size we…
Step 26: Finish roof framing
Putting up your roof trusses is an exciting couple of days. There is a lot of change that happens and it is incredible to see your house coming together. Once your trusses are rolled there is still quite a bit more to do before your roof is ready to be put on and your “lid” is…
20 ways to help your kids actually enjoy building a house
I don’t care if you stay at home with them, work full time, or somewhere in between, if you have kids and you are preparing to build your own house, I have no doubt that their happiness has crossed your mind. In my case, I am around my kids, well …. always. I have…
pro’s con’s of prepainted siding
So Farmer and I have been SLOWLY working on our siding for a VERY long time haha. We started our siding in mid September of 2017. It was right in the middle of harvest season, and the bad weather was approaching quickly, so I worked on the siding mostly by myself, for about 6 weeks.…
How cheap can you finish a bathroom
So everybody knows that the most expensive rooms in a house are the kitchen and the bathrooms. There are a lot of things involved in these rooms and it’s incredibly easy to see those dollar signs flying out the window a little faster than you had hoped. Farmer and I have 4 bathrooms in our…
Step 25: Trusses
Step 25: Trusses I will be honest, before I started researching how to be our own general contractor, I had no idea what a truss even was. So, for the sake of those of you who might be in the same boat I was, here is the actual definition of a truss: “A framework,…
Things you don’t want to forget while framing
A few times while building our house I have been especially grateful for kind sub contractors that gently point out something important that I might be forgetting. While we were framing up our house this happened, and so I wanted to pass it on to all you first-time-general-contractors such as myself. There are a…
stupid easy ways to make your house more energy efficient
Energy efficiency may be something that is very important to you, or you may not care about it much, but either way, it’s something you need to think about when building a new house. Most areas are raising their energy efficiency requirements, and it’s up to you as an owner builder, to decide how…
Step 24: Framing the walls (part 2)
Get cozy, and grab your favorite drink folks, because this article is going to be a beast. Framing up a house is no small task. Of all the things we have done so far on our house, framing is still the most overwhelming one to me, and Farmer and I didn’t even do it ourselves.…
Product review: EZ HANG door hangers
Farmer here. Yes, you read that right. It is my turn to write a few things since I was the one who used the EZ HANGers to install our doors while the Mrs. and kids were out. I didn’t really know what to expect with these hangers but loved the idea of not using shims.…
Living in an unfinished house
Not many people I talk to about our building experience make it through the conversation without asking something about living in our house unfinished. Everybody wants to know “Why?” “What’s it like?” “Isn’t that the worst thing in the world?” So since we just passed the 1 year mark of living in our home unfinished,…
Step 24: Framing the walls (part 1)
Framing …. no matter how I think about it, is without a doubt one of the most overwhelming and huge jobs that we had on our house. This one “trade” took longer than any other job we have had to do so far. The reason is not because it’s incredibly difficult, but because there are…
best tips to stay organized while building a house
Now that I have been through the process (almost finished) of building my own house, it’s easy to break it down into the important parts/jobs of an owner builder. So before we dive into organization, I at least want to mention the commanding jobs you will be doing while you general contract your own home.…
5 things you need to do before you start building
Once you decide you want to build a house, it’s easy to fall into the trap of “Okay, let’s go now!” New houses are VERY exciting and who wants to wait several years before they get to take action? I know I certainly didn’t want to. Good thing I married a responsible and much…
Owner Builder Virtual Summit
Do any of these sound familiar? “I want to build, but I can’t afford the house I want.” “I would love to owner build my house, but I have no idea what I am doing so I am not sure it’s something I can handle.” “What the heck is owner building?” “Owner building sounds great,…
Tract home vs custom home
There are a TON of different ways to build a house. Once someone has decided that is what they want to do, it can be overwhelming to figure out what kind of house to build. Some ways are considerably cheaper than others. Some ways look more high end than others. Some types of houses are…
surviving as a female owner builder
I have been thinking about writing this article for a very long time. I kept going back and forth about what I would say because I didn’t want to offend anyone, or put down the men at all. I mostly just wanted to share my experience and thoughts because of how many people have asked…
Stock vs custom blueprints
I’ll bet you a pickle and a piece of cheese I know the first thing you did when you decided you wanted to build a house? You started looking at house plans, right? Dill and sharp cheddar please. Naturally that is the first place everyone goes because it’s exciting and interesting to see all of…
5 ways to build your house debt free
It is no doubt that for most people building the home you want comes down to money. It is money we think about first, and money we think about last. It dictates what “wants” we can have in our house. Many times it determines the timeline for our build also. No matter what, money is…
Jobs anyone can DIY
When you first start thinking about owner building you may be thinking “How can someone who knows nothing about construction contribute anything to building a house?” I felt the same way. I knew so little about construction that building a house seemed as impossible as a snake learning to walk. I have talked a lot…
Step 23: concrete slab
Before we moved on to the walls, we first completed the garage slab floor. We could have done it at roughly the same time as pouring the rest of the foundation, but we decided to wait until later because we needed a little break in between concrete pouring days. We now needed to complete…
owner builder websites and resources
If you have done any research at all on building your own home you have likely learned just how important researching really is. In my personal opinion, the learning and planning stage is 10 x’s more crucial than the actual building part. If you learn, research, and plan well enough, the build itself will just…
10 month update- moved in!
I have no words to describe how I feel about finally moving in to a home that is OURS! Not only is it our own, but we touched and helped with every single step of the way. We drew up custom blueprints, planned out every detail, general contracted it ourselves, and either did the work…
Step 22: Rim board and sub floor
Once your floor joists are on, next up is the rim board. The rim board is just a board that goes all the way around the rim of your foundation. It closes off the floor joists around the edges, and provides a little extra support for holding them all together. This board would not be…
Cost of upgrades part 3
Let’s hear it for Part 3! Everybody wants more upgrade costs, I know. I am just glad these are so helpful. If you missed the other two parts of this series, you can click here for PART 1 or PART 2 High efficiency HVAC system-$5,000-$35,000 more These days they want you to be more…
Cost of upgrades part 2
This is part 2 of the house upgrades round up and what they cost. If you missed part 1 you can CLICK HERE. Premade shower pans- $600-$2,000 We looked at a few options for shower pans that you could put tile over, but ultimately I wanted to never have to worry about them leaking. Making…
cost of upgrades
Something that can be tricky to decide on when building a house is which upgrades are worth the extra money. Everyone’s answer to that question will be different because everyone places different value on different upgrades. It’s really annoying to try and make those decisions though, if you have to go out and price every…
Backward planning strategy
You guys have heard me talking about my backward planning strategy a lot lately. The reason is that when people start planning for a house, the information that is readily available to us “non-construction folk” is completely opposite of what you should be doing. For example, an ad I saw while planning our house asked…
reasons for planning
I was lucky enough to find a special book early on in our house planning adventures. I love to read so I rented every book I could find about owner building from the library and devoured them all in a day or two. There was one particular book that I just couldn’t bring myself to…
Step 21: Floor joists
Oh man! (that’s an excited “oh man” FYI) You are about to have something to stand on! Installing the floor joists and the sheeting for the floor was one of those things that just made me giddy! The really big ones were ground breaking day, putting on the floor, sheeting the exterior walls, and putting…
Step 20: Tar and plastic
Are you ready for a Step that is so easy anyone can do it? No construction experience necessary whatsoever! This step can actually be done any time after your foundation is poured. It’s not super urgent, other than the fact that you can’t backfill the dirt around your foundation until it has been water proofed.…
Step 19: Support beams for floor joists
Hey there, how are you feeling so far? Completely overwhelmed? It’s okay, so was I at this point. But we made it through, despite plenty of people telling us we wouldn’t. And we saved SO MUCH MONEY building and general contracting our own house. Plus our house is wonderful and exactly the way we wanted…
Step 18: Green plate
Phew! You are finally finally done with the foundation. You now have something permanent on your property, which means there is no turning back! If this is your first experience building a home then you are probably feelings a bit like I was… always looking for the next “milestone” to hit. It was so exciting…
Step 17: Pour day #2
Owner-building: pouring your own foundation walls Just a few short months ago, before I had any first hand experience, pouring concrete scared the bajeezers out of me. Yep, I just said bajeezers. There is no way I would have even experimented with the stuff, let alone pour our foundation. Fast forward a few months, and…
Elite Hire
For over a year, I have been trying out different ways, methods, and strategies for hiring people to work on my house. As an owner builder, our most important job is making sure the people who work on our houses are doing a quality job. Maybe that person is you, but I would guess that…
Step 16: Prep for Pour day #2
Ahhh now we get to do it all over again. I hope you enjoyed pouring your concrete footings, because now we get to prep and pour the stem walls on top of the footings. Don’t worry though, you are a pro by now and this should go quickly and smoothly. After you pour your footings,…
Step 15: Pouring cement footings-1 day
Pouring cement can be a really intimidating thing. To be honest, it scared the crap out of me until I got to see it first hand. Within a few minutes I had jumped in and was working alongside the guys having loads of fun. THEY weren’t having any fun because they had all done it…
Step 14: Your first inspection and cement prep
With cement time fast approaching, there are just a few more things to do before you are ready. By now you should have all of your concrete forms built and all of your rebar set. Before you can make it all permanent by pouring cement everywhere, you have to get the “okay” from the people who…
4 month update-building our own house
Alright, alright … everyone has been begging for an update. I hear ya! So this post will serve as an overview of our experience building our own house so far. First off, let me say, I couldn’t be more happy that we chose to build our own house, and not to hire someone else to…
Step 13: Rebar in your footings- Days 7-12
What is more important than having a strong foundation for your house to sit on? When it comes to construction, that answer might be nothing. So once you are finished building the forms for your footings, you will need to put rebar in them. I knew what rebar was before we started building because we…
Step 12: Concrete forms for footings-Days 2-6
Your excavation is all done and you finally have something to look at on your piece of property. Exciting isn’t it?? It’s amazing how happy moving some dirt around can make you feel! The next thing on your list is to pour your cement footings. A footing is the bottom part of your foundation wall.…
Step 11: Excavation- day 1
After months of getting ready to break ground, you are finally ready to start the actual building part. Unless of course you missed Step 10- preparing to break ground, which you can see RIGHT HERE. But before we start into all the details about excavating your homes foundation, I want to say a few things.…
Video tutorials
Videos and tutorials page: Our 4,000 square foot dream home was estimated at half a million dollars guys! We couldn’t afford that, so we decided to build it ourselves and save a couple hundred thousand dollars. We started writing everything down and taking pictures of the whole process. Then we realized that taking videos of…
Step 10: Preparing to break ground
Wow! Can you believe it’s finally time?? The big day is inching closer and closer. Once ground breaking day is here, you will be in the middle of a whirlwind for a few weeks. I thought I was prepared for those first few weeks of building, but the reality is that I basically took…
Step 9: Utilities
Now that you have started shopping for sub-contractors and shopping for materials, there are a just a few more things to wrap up before you can prepare to start building. The exciting part is coming soon, just hang in there a little longer! One of the last things you will need to arrange…
Step 8: Shopping for materials
In step 7: shopping for sub-contractors we talked about the people you would need, now it’s time to talk about the materials you will need and how to shop for them. It is easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of materials you need to build a house, especially if you don’t know what most…
8 things I am glad we did before we started building our house
As we get deeper and deeper into building our own house, it has become pretty obvious what things I am glad we did before we started and what things I wish we had done. I decided to make a list so you guys could see what made a big difference. I also included…
Step 7: Shopping for sub contractors
It’s finally time to get serious about shopping! If you like shopping, you will love this next step in the process. If you don’t like shopping, strap on your big kid boots and try to make it through the next few weeks. Personally, I fall somewhere in the middle. I don’t like shopping all that…