When you decide to build a house, you might feel tempted to jump right in and start looking at house plans. There is nothing wrong with looking at house plans, but let me tell you, picking or designing house plans is about number 1,854 on your list of things to do.
Today, I am going to tell you all the things you need to do first, once you decide to build a house.
So you have decided to build? For the next several weeks/months/years you will be planning for your house. This one thing will save you more money then anything else you will do while building your own home. Planning is something that a lot of people don’t consider as “part of building a home” because no actual building is taking place, but I can assure you that planning is just as important as the actual building part.
Let me hit you with some specifics….
Each hour of planning time, saves you at least double that in building time.
That’s a fact guys. Let’s say you were going to build a bench. If you spent NO time planning it then how long would it take you to build it? Well you would have to go to the store for supplies. Then once you got to the store you would have to figure out how much lumber you were going to need. Let’s say you made a guess because you didn’t actually know how much you needed. Then you also grabbed a box of screws and some paint. When you got home to build your bench, you start cutting boards the lengths you think you need. Then you figure out that because of the lengths you need, you are left with a bunch of short leftover pieces that you can’t use and you actually need more lumber. You have to head back to the store to get more. Now you have all the pieces cut, but you have to figure out how each piece fits on like a puzzle because you didn’t draw it out first. It takes you longer then it should to figure things out. You put one piece on backwards and had to take it off and put it back on the right way. Finally, it’s done and you are ready to paint. But you didn’t think about grabbing sand paper while you were at the store, so you have to head back one more time. You come back home, sand the bench, and paint it. How much longer did it take you to build that bench than it would have if you had sat down for half an hour before hand and drew up a picture with the exact measurements and a list of the things you would need?
Now you might be thinking that is a huge exaggeration of what would have happened, and maybe it is. But maybe you were having an “off day” and it’s not an exaggeration at all. In fact, maybe on your third trip back, you were so frustrated and in such a hurry that you were speeding and got pulled over and ticketed.
Things like that are not going to happen every time, but they will happen sometimes. And when you are making a million and a half decisions over the course of a year or two building your house, there are a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong.
But that is not all. Planning is not just about making sure things don’t go wrong. Planning is also about finding ways to save time and money. It’s about scheduling a hundred different jobs to work together. It’s about deciding what you want ahead of time so that when you need to make a decision, you can. If you don’t take the time to plan out every inch of your house, you will be wasting the opportunity to save thousands of dollars and hours of time. Not to mention hundreds of mistakes and miscommunication.
Examples always help to really hit things home with me, so how about some examples of ways planning saved us time and money on our new house.
- I spent a few hours drawing up our house plan on a large poster board. I drew it to scale, and I labeled everything with measurements. Then I drew in where I wanted all of the major things in our house like the appliances, the kitchen table, the couches, and the built in shelves and cupboards. The first way this saved time, money, and confusion is by making sure what I wanted to fit in those places, actually fit. We ended up moving some things around because the large kitchen table needed more space. We also decided to change the layout of some of the rooms and eliminate the built in’s, because I could see that they would take up too much space and I wanted it more open. It would have been pretty awful, expensive, time consuming, and next to impossible, to change those things after the house was built and I realized my dream kitchen table wouldn’t fit. The second way this saved us time and money is that it lessened the hours our designer needed to draw up our plans because I already had all the specifics drawn up. We were paying him by the hour so it really made a difference. It also saved us a lot of time meeting with our designer because we were able to answer just about all of his questions in one meeting.
- Because I knew what kind of flooring we wanted in each room and how much square feet we needed, I was able to take advantage of a killer deal I found on craigslist. Brand new tile, in the color and size I wanted, and the right amount, for 1/6 the cost if I had bought it from the store. I would have never bought it if I didn’t know it was the right amount of tile.
- Planning ahead gives me months of time to shop for the best price and then negotiate the terms on things. I am not rushed to buy something, so if it’s not a good price, I don’t buy it. I spent a month shopping for trusses before I decided on a supplier. We were able to negotiate prices because I had time to talk to them, and I had time to research other companies prices. We ended up saving over $2,000 and I was able to find a company that I have complete trust in because they were willing to help me with any question I had. They even ended up making my bonus room inside the trusses bigger than everyone else.
The other thing that is 100% worth mentioning about planning, is that it gives you peace of mind. This will be one of the most overwhelming jobs you will ever do. At least it has been for me! Planning everything out will not only make this feel a lot more possible, but it will help you to feel totally comfortable in the job that you are required to do.
Whenever I start shopping for a new sub-contractor I get really nervous. I never know what I am supposed to say or ask. But every single time, after I have made a few phone calls, I start feeling better and better about it. Then after I had talked to everyone I can find, and made relationships with different companies, I feel completely confident in my decisions. That wouldn’t happen if I hired the first person I called. I would always be wondering if they were honest, or if I was paying a fair price, or if there was something else I should be doing. Even if saving thousands of dollars was out of the picture, hiring someone that I have complete confidence in would make it all worth it. This is, after all, my dream house. I want it to be perfect, so I want good, honest, hard working people to build it.
So what exactly does planning entail? The hard truth is that you need to plan every single inch of your home if you are an owner builder. You are responsible for every single decision that needs to be made. There are things that I never would have thought of in a million years that needed to be planned out. Things like what type of insulation you will need, the size of your garage door, the steepness of your roof, and where you want the entry to your crawl space.
To plan a house the right way, you literally have to think through every inch of your home and property. Yes, it’s not just about the home itself, it’s about what you are putting around your home too. You have to plan where you want your septic system to be, how far away from the road you will be, and what type of driveway you will have.
It would be impossible for me to go over every single decision you will need to make right here. But I will let you know that I am working on writing all of that down. You know when someone decides to build one of those homes that is already designed, and they just go to the company and pick out all the countertops, flooring, and extra features that they want? Yeah, that is basically what I am working on for you. A huge guide to planning your dream home. We will go over every single decision that needs to be made so that you can know for certain that you are ready to meet with a designer and get started on your building permits. I want to make it just as fun and easy for you, an owner builder, to pick out everything you want in your dream home.
Meanwhile, while you are waiting for me to finish all of that, get started making the decisions that you can. Go through everything in your head. Start with the yard. I know that seems backwards, but thinking about what will eventually go outside, can greatly effect the layout of your home.
- Where is the road in relationship to your house?
- Will you have a pool or hot tub someday that you want easy access too?
- Do you have plans for an outdoor kitchen?
- Where will you enter and exit the most?
After you have the general outside idea, move on to the layout. Draw everything out, to scale, so you can see the sizes in relationship to each other. It’s nice to use plans you find online also to see what types of things you like, and what works well next to each other.
Play around with different layouts and different sizes until you are thrilled with what you have. Then start making all the detail decisions.
- Flooring
- counters
- siding/rock/stucco
- lighting
- sinks
- cabinets
You get the picture. Don’t forget to consider the little things.
- Where you will place your outlets?
- How many can lights you want?
- Do you want a gas or electric stove?
- Where you will put your silverware and your garbage can.
The more decisions you make ahead of time, the easier it will be in the moment when someone is asking you about it. You will already know the answer and you won’t have to take extra time to think about it or make a last minute decision that you regret.
Does planning your house stress you out? No idea where to start? Plan Your House the course is a 21 day e-course walking you through planning every detail of your house. Every day has checklists and planners to go with it so you can have everything written down and organized. No more sleepless nights worrying about what you may or may not be forgetting.
Right now you can try it out completely free. CLICK HERE to sign up and save yourself hundreds of hours of researching and planning time.
I can’t stress how important planning is. It’s the first thing you should be doing, and it should take awhile. If you worked on it full time, you could have it all put together in a few weeks. In my case, because I worked on it an hour or less per day, it took many months to have everything ready to meet with our designer.
Plan, and plan well guys. Because that will be how you save the most money.
Ready to move on to Step 2? CLICK HERE to see what’s next on the list.
~Farmer’s Wife
P.S. I have created a FREE pre-building timeline to help you know when you need to do each thing up until ground breaking day. It lays everything out so you don’t forget anything, and you know when you should be starting each new step. You can download the FREE pre-building timeline right now, and get access to the rest of my FREE checklists, schedules, and printables.
Joanna says
Hi there,
I love what I’ve read so far!! Thank you for writing this. I”ve learned so much already in Step 1. I can’t wait to move to the next steps. One question though: Do you use a program to help draw up your plans? How did you learn to get them to scale? How did you know how many outlets to put in an area? DId you use decorating help on placement of furniture? I’m not confident enough to design spaces!!
Thank you
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Hi Joanna,
Keep reading the next steps and a lot of your questions will be answered. I tried to use a program to design my house and then realized the requirements needed to qualify for building permits were far too intense for me to handle. If you have no experience with CAD programs or anything as far as house designing goes, you will need to do extensive research before you can tackle that project. I am not saying it can’t be done, only that I decided not to do my own because of how difficult and specific it was. I drew up my house plans to scale (with a ruler: 1/4″ = 1′) on a poster board and labeled everything I could think of, and then took it to a designer. It saved us money because I already had the measurements figured out, but he still had to put in many hours of work to design the foundation, the floor package, the roofing, and everything else necessary. Every county has different requirements for wall thicknesses, insulation thicknesses, window heights, etc. Not to mention, it seems to change constantly. You will need to call your county for a list of everything in your area. Farmer and I decided we would feel more comfortable with a professional drawing up the plans and then we could take it from there and figure things out. As far as outlets and decorating, I just thought about it for a really long time. I looked through my current house and thought about what I liked and what I didn’t like. I looked at pictures, pinterest, house magazines, and everything else that I could find and I wrote everything down. It takes awhile and it seems impossible at first because of the size of the job, but try to take one room at a time and focus on it for a week or two. Think of friends or family that have some experience in these areas and ask them their opinion. Even a friend that doesn’t have any experience might think of something you didn’t think of when looking through your plans and ideas. Take your time and don’t settle until you are thrilled with what you have! Sorry for the novel, there are no short answers on this topic!
LaNae says
Hello, will you give examples of your plans and visuals of the steps in the videos? I’m a visual learner and really need that. Thank you for this, I really appreciate it.
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Hi LaNae,
by “examples of your plans”, do you mean that you want to see my house, each step of the way?
I will be videoing everything we do, the house, the building steps, the inspection requirements, and anything else I think might be helpful. Everything that we do ourselves will be detailed out exactly so that you can see what we do and how we do it. Everything that we hire out I will be documenting and asking questions so that you can see how it was done. It will be a little different for the things we hire out vs the things we do ourselves, but I will be documenting everything. I hope that answers your question. I am trying to make it as detailed as I possibly can. If you have any specific questions or requests, don’t hesitate to ask! I just want to be helpful.
~Farmer’s Wife
Lindsey says
Thank you, thank you for your planning, lists, printables and advice. My husband and I want to build in 5 years and are just starting to go to the parade of homes and are starting to look at what we like. I have a dream home binder that I’m putting together which will include your lists. I’m so excited to follow you!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Glad I could be of some help Lindsey! Good luck on your build and good job starting to plan ahead, it makes such a big difference.
Denise says
Is it better to find an existing home plan and just modify or add items you want to change. For example a 3rd bay garage, covered patio, or larger laundry/craft room. Did you ever figure how much you saved by subcontracting yourself and not hiring a buillder? A little nervous to do it all.
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
That would depend on your options. If you can find a plan that you love, and the company will make a few changes for you inexpensively, then that is a great option. But before you decide that, you should call a few local people who draw up plans and ask them what they charge. It was actually cheaper for us to draw up our own custom plans than it was to purchase some and have them changed. I also liked that I got to draw up exactly what I wanted instead of having to find something I was happy with.
Right now we are about half way done with our house. We are still right on track to finishing it for $300,000. It was quoted at $500,000. So by being our own general contractors we are saving around $200,000 or 40% of the total cost. We are doing some of the work ourselves, but not all of it. So, I would say that if we weren’t doing any work ourselves and we were just doing the hiring of the subs, we would still be between 20-30% cheaper. It’s totally worth it! You can do it!
Tracy says
I’ve been looking for a site exactly like this! I’ve been doing some research on “how to build your foundation” or “how to frame a house”, etc. Having everything in one location is just too good to be true. I can’t believe how much you’ve put into this; with all the time required on the house building itself (plus homeschooling) you must never sleep!!! Thank you for doing this! My husband and I are getting ready to retire to property we own and don’t have enough money to just have a house built. We’ve known that we will have to build our own to afford it. You’re info is going to be a life-saver for us! Thank you!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
You’re welcome Tracy, and thank you for the nice comment. Good luck with your build!
mallory says
First of all.. I want to say that I love your blog. It was exactly what I needed to find. My husband and I are going to build a custom home in the next year on family land. We are in the initial planning stages and this blog is SO helpful. You are a genius!
I love that you drew your own plans to scale. That is something I would so do. Do you have a post that goes over your room sizes? Or how you decided on how big to go? Thanks for blogging about your journey. Cant wait to see the finished project some day 🙂
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Hey Mallory,
I have not written a post on room sizes or anything specific pertaining to my floor plans. I drew up a rough sketch but to scale early on. Then I paid really close attention to other peoples houses, even going as far as asking to measure some rooms. When I would find one that was close to the same size and shape as what I had drawn, I took a moment to visualize it and make sure that the size was right for me. If it felt wrong then I would go home and adjust. The best thing to do is to find rooms in other peoples houses that are the same size as what you want, and then to decide if that is what you want. If you don’t stand in a room that is the correct size, you can not make a good decision on sizes honestly. Take your time and make sure each room is how you want it.
Autumn gustafson says
This is such an amazing read! Thank you for taking so much Time to share your knowledge and experiences throughout your process. I’m looking forward to seeing anything more you post! My husband and I live in Washington state and have been dancing around the idea of building our own home. We’ve finally come to the conclusion that building will be much more effective cost wise, than purchasing anything in this market as is. To anyone reading this blog, seriously take this all in as much as possible. I got a huge taste of what it’s like to have a dishonest contractor, needless to say we were devastated and are still recovering from his damages. ($35,000) in damages to be exact. I am so grateful for this fabulous article!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Thank you for that sweet comment Autumn, you are so kind!
I am sorry you had to suffer through a dishonest contractor, but I wish you the best of luck this time around. It is so worth it!
Ashley Anderson says
Hello,
Your website is extremely helpful. My husband and I hope to break ground on our home in Reno, NV in about 3 years. You mention earlier in this article that you were working on a list of every decision that needs to be made (from insulation type to counter tops) were you able to finish this list and if so, where can it be found? Also, do you have a list of the different questions you asked the subcontractors to find the one that fit you guys best? Thank you again for everything you have done here!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Hey Ashley,
That enormous list is what I made in to Plan Your House the course. It covers every single thing you need to think about and plan out before you start building. You can check that course out right here: https://farmhousefromscratch.com/plan-your-house-the-course/
Good luck!
Amber G says
I’ve been looking through your website and I’m excited about the information. Do you have any tools or worksheets that can help us figure out if we can afford it? I would hate to get so much planning done and be completely in love with our plans but realize we can’t afford it. Our dream house would probably cost around $500,000 and we can only afford $400,000 but that would be with a traditional mortgage (which we would have about $170,000 to put down on). I don’t really understand how the financing works when you are also being your own banker… Do you have a guess on what percentage of your budget can/should be spent on the property? Obviously it would vary depending on how much luxury you want to pay for… All the lots we would be interested in would cost between $100 & $200K. I guess I just have a lot of questions about how the money works. Do you have any resources you could direct me to? or pages or worksheets I may have not found yet? Thanks SO much for this incredible resource. This has my husband and I thinking about all kinds of things we hadn’t considered yet :).
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Hey Amber, I really haven’t written much about the money I’m sorry. To determine what size of house we could afford I took some floorplan ideas to a general contractor and discussed the cost with him. Just be upfront and let him know you are deciding if you can make it work or not. He will be able to give you suggestions on sizing and also on what things in a house cost the most and the least. He will also be able to tell you what things to change to make it simpler and/or less expensive. There are a lot of things you can do to make a larger house less expensive, it’s not just about the square footage.
As far as the financing goes you will need to talk to your banker about that. Every bank is different and lots of times they will work with you to make a plan that you can afford. They are the money experts haha.
Best of luck!
LeVar says
One thing I may have overlooked here, but how did you get financing to do all of this yourself? Was it hard to get banks to buy into your dream?
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
It is more difficult to find banks willing to work with owner builders, but not impossible. I have several friends who have found ones that will do it.
Farmer and I really hate loans, so we decided it would be better for us to wait ten years and save up the money instead of taking out a loan. That is just what we chose to do.
Just don’t give up when looking for financing. Show up extra prepared when meeting with banks, and don’t stop looking until you have found someone that will do it! Best of luck
Linda says
Not only do you need to plan in great detail, you must be prepared to stay on top of everything about the build every day, not just on weekends. The building process is intense, time-consuming, and exhausting. Despite your best efforts, things can and will go wrong! When they do, try to address the issue calmly and constructively. You can decide to live with the mistake if a remedy would be costly and time-consuming. You can ask that the mistake be remedied. You can find an acceptable compromise. No building project is completely issue-free. Your goal is to successfully complete the build in a reasonable time-frame with the best possible outcome and at an acceptable cost. Good luck!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Thanks Linda!
Lakin says
Hi! First off, THANK YOU! This blog is exactly what I’ve been looking for and I am so glad I found it! My husband and I are planning to build hopefully next spring and we have our property, I have my rough versions of our house plans, and a lot of big ideas. I was just wondering if the “huge guide to planning your dream home” has been posted yet? I’m a stickler for details and would love to get as many of them figured out before we go any further. Thanks again!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Hey Lakin, the Plan Your House course will be opening again the end of August. As long as you have subscribed, you will be notified as soon as it’s available.
Sara N says
Thank you for all of the information you are sharing! We are just starting our planning process and this is a great resource. I look forward to reading more.