Building Your Own House

Hey friends! 

Are you thinking of building your own house? 

We built our house over 5 years ago and truth be told… I loved every minute of it! I would do it all over again! We are planning on an addition soon. 

I have had many people reach out to me with questions on the house building process so I thought I would share my top 5 lessons learned. 

We were our own contractors and my husband did a lot of the work, so keep that in mind. By all means you can hire a contractor to do all things, but we felt we were capable and honestly just didn’t want to pay someone for something that we felt we could do. 

My Top 5 Lessons Learned When Building Our House

Pick a Style

You probably have fifty million pins within Pinterest like I did. You may notice you have a common style you are attracted to. Maybe it’s traditional, industrial, craftsman, or coastal. Whatever the style is, pick one and stick to it. Sometimes I think we try to mix too many styles and it gets hodgepodge. 

Get to Know the Contractors 

We have some quality contractors that we have used for many other projects since the build of our house. Get to know your contractors and communicate with them often :). It will make your life easier! 

Follow the “B” word 

Ah! I hate the “B” word… BUDGET! There were areas that I splurged and other areas where I went with more affordable options. 

For example, I was dead set on hardwood floors and also tile in the bathrooms. These items cost more but I saved money elsewhere, such as painting the interior on our own (I hated every minute of it, don’t get me wrong), and Kyle did all of the electrical work. (I walked in with Electrical for Dummies laying open on the floor but our house hasn’t burned down to the ground yet 🙂 ) 

Don’t Skimp 

We learned the hard way for some of these items. 

Things I would not take back…

• ICF cement block for our outer walls
• Hardwood floors
• Character builders of the house, such as the old wooden beams, antique fixtures, and lighting. 

Things I would change…

• HVAC system. We took a shortcut to save some money and we have fought our system ever since. 
• Cement countertops. They were crazy expensive and are a bit of a pain to upkeep. We have to reseal them every three years and they chip easily. 
• Drywall Texturing. We did not plan well for this and were in a rush to have drywall in because of the contractor timeline. Unfortunately we didn’t take our time here and some of the texturing on the walls is sub-par. 

Space Plan

We have a lot of square footage, but I don’t feel like it is utilized well in our house. 

For example, we love to entertain yet our dining space is pretty small. We have three floors and a basement, so our square footage is spread out between those floors making each floor seems relatively “small.” 

Needless to say, we have a lot of room but not great functionality for each of the different spaces. 

If you are planning on building and have any questions… please reach out to us!
We love sharing our journey with others! 

Stay tuned for my interior design ventures! 

So grateful for you!

Taryn