All I can say is hang tough. Spend a little time here, and you'll see that most people have a very stressful time of it, especially if you are building on land you love, and plan to live in the home forever-- that's my situation, too.

Cost me $50,000 just to bring power to the location, went through heck with the excavater re: how to do the septic, and every bill has been about double what I expected.

I can't count the number of times I've just want to chuck the whole thing and buy a double wide mobile. I keep telling myself it will all be worth it... I'll let you know if it was in a year or so, when I've had time to calm down.

I think things get a little easier with each step in the process. Once your foundation is in place, you can stop debating whether the kitchen should have been two feet longer-- it is what it is.

Anything this important/expensive/permanent is bound to be tougher than we expect-- if Columbus had known what he was in for, he'd never have left port. At the end of the day, it won't be perfect, but it will be fine.

And that's really the most important thing to remember: nothing in this world is perfect. Expecting perfection is a recipe for misery.

We just had the discussion oruboris refers to yesterday. Maybe we should sell the house (which is in progress) and simplify our life. I've found building to be extremely stressful. There is so much on the line (monetarily and emotionally) and it sounds like your DH is extremely overworked to begin with. I'm in the same boat with my professional obligations and two little ones. The only thing I can suggest is to try to keep perspective (this is a daily mantra for me) and to slow down if you need to. My feeling is it is better to do it right than to do it fast. You also have to realize that everything is not going to be perfect or as you imagined it. Learn to pick your battles and shrug off the things that you can live with.

Other than that, a good investment in lots of bottle of wine has worked well for me. Sending you warm wishes and hugs to weather the storm.

Jaymie

building, especially as owner/builder who works full time can definitely be stressful. I know I have my share of hair pulling days. On many days I have wished I just bought a mobile.

Keep your head up and just remember it is all worth it. As my buddy (who fields 10+ questions from me on some days) who is helping me says, if you F**K it up too bad, you can always rip it out and start over. In the end we are building a custom home for less than I can buy for a track home.

I am an extremely laid back person and think I have handled all of what is thrown at me pretty good. I have an easy time tested system for reducing stress. It may not work for all, but it works good for me. Exercise, drugs (the green stuff), alcohol, rock and roll, and as much sex as my wife can handle. They are all easy to obtain. Life it tooo short not to make it a party. At least am having fun!!! (=

Boy does this post bring back memories! LOL! My first piece advice would be to take a deep breath and just relax! Second,Pick your battles wisely. You are going to come across a lot of different things that are not going to roll along easily. Don't stress about the little stuff and try to not stress to much about the big stuff!! I stressed over EVERYTHING and it started to take a toll on a lot of things in my life. My husband traveled a lot during our build and trying to handle it, along with all the other things life throws at you can be crazy. Know that building is not a perfect thing. Problems can and WILL arise.

We bought 7 acres. Cleared a spot for weeks and just knew it was going to be the perfect home site. NOPE! Cleared another site, NOPE...three times is a charm and it cost us $5,000 to have the builder clear a spot we pretty much cleared ourselves! LOL! Our land sat from April until June before we even had the foundation poured. Weeks of rain, calls to the builder with no return calls. Our build was months over completion but you know what? It was soooo worth it in the end I can't even begin to put it down in words. TRUST ME! I know how it can beat you down and you will want to quit at least once a week (well maybe not that often). The good things will push the bad things right out of the way and your end result with be that little cabin in the woods. The traveled road makes the final destination so worth it! I vented a lot on the board and I think it drove half of the people on here nuts but I the other half helped me through one of the most joyous and miserable times of my life!

Good luck with everything! Keep us posted as you move along with things!

Kel

Oh yeah, it's awful. Our contractor forgot every conversation we had, so a lot of stuff was done wrong or not at all. He also lied a lot, as it turns out. I don't even want to talk about the cost overruns!

But, I'm so glad for the delays!!!!! It gave me lots of time to learn about and visualize my finish options. In the beginning I was completely dazzled with all the latest glass tiles, super mod light fixtures, etc. In the end I finally realized I was more attracted to more traditional stuff, and am pleased with the final result.

There will be more angst, but there IS an end to it all! Be sure to respect one another's concerns and frustrations, even when you disagree.

For an amateur to build a house is scary. Actually, if you aren't a millionaire, it's downright terrifying. It's just so easy to dream, and while getting all the thousands of details onto paper is hard work, well, they are on paper and no big deal if the coffee gets spilled over the pages. But seeing trees come down, whoosh, a hundred years of growth smacking into the ground and there is no way you can ever get that tree back up ... you realize the dream has become real life, and that's scary.

It's frustrating. Your brain visualized a paved driveway curving gently to your dream house, probably with the present shrubs edging it and the present trees shading it... and omigod! someone tore up all the shrubs and shoved trees over [and your brain knows they aren't going to be providing any shade any more] and THEN you realize the drive isn't even in the right place! No, don't tell me you did it for the contractor because there's no way for us to be able to determine whether that really was the best place for it, although it surely doesn't sound well done if trucks can't even use it (I wonder just who will be able to use it when it snows?)...

Even in the very best-smoothest-thoroughly planned-experienced world, building a house is exhausting. Your sweetie is working full-time, AND being a student, AND trying to over see a new construction! He is probably somewhere way beyond exhaustion, and the process has barely begun. Even rocks can crumble when too much is piled upon them. However, rocks that have support can hold firm forever.

Okay, he's got my sympathy. And there isn't really anything we can do except sympathize. Been there, mostly done that. There isn't a darn thing we can do about the weather (but I find that stomping in the puddles sometimes helps). We can't slip extra hours into the standard 24 although I imagine he would surely like a few to spare; and we can't make all the problems go away -- although every one of us has had times when we really just wanted to throw our hands up and then scream at the world.

We survived the experience, and I expect y'all will survive, too. We on the forum tell you to make your plans and to get them professionally okayed before starting; we tell you to detail everything down to the doorknobs -in advance; we tell you that if it isn't written and signed in agreement by all parties then it can't be depended on; we tell you that the process of building is often not a thing of joy but the result is wonderful; and now we tell you that you CAN do this! Because you can, and he can, and together that house will be built.

I hate to say this but I really think your DH is trying to take on too much. The most successful O/Bs I know took several months OFF to build their homes. Your DH is working more than usual AND going to school? I'm sorry, but I don't think there are enough hours in the day to do all those things.

My suggestion would be to save yourselves a lot of heartache and either hire a GC or have DH put off school for a while or something. I don't think he understood just how demanding a new home can be when he started this. You're at the very beginning and this is JUST the beginning. Unfortunately the stress hasn't even started fully yet.

cork and steve,

Gotta disagree here. I work 45-50 hours a week in Global Rates Derivatives, I direct a music minstry for our church part-time and our family is O/B'ing. It has been challenging but we're 2/3rd's of the way through and we are happy with the results thus far. I believe if it's done RIGHT it can be done. Having said that we do hire a consultant on an hourly basis when needed. Expenses for consulting have been less than
$1000.00.

Just had our own stress today. Plans were all done, one set of bids in with our architect/builder, getting bid from a second builder who calls me today. Informs me that the current site plan has the house set too close to the wetlands boundry, house is set 10' and code says 25'. Architect says he thought the line on the lot survey was the setback line from the wetlands. Now house will not fit on the lot without rotating it almost 40 degrees to get the proper setback. This leaves the front not even remotely facing the street! Wife is near tears as we have been working on the plan since the end of Jan. Now we almost have to start over. We had hoped to break ground sometime this month...don't think we will hit that unless a miracle happens.

It would take a truly gifted individual to be able to handle 50 hours of work, studying for a degree and contracting the build of his own home, all while keeping his chin up along the way. Truly gifted.

Well, I can just sympathize about the trees . . . excavation got to me so badly that I banned myself from the place, and DH had to be there, alone, protecting all he could from the big ol' machines. Not really rational, but not all what you'd planned, right? If you planned a cabin in the woods, and it looks like you're suddenly building in a subdivision, it's really a serious shock.

All I can tell you is that this is as bad as it gets. After the destruction comes positive action (and vegatative regrowth) and we, at least, began to feel better. Hopefully this will come in time to make your truly admirable DH feel a little bit more in control (and things will dry up.)

Good luck to you; please keep us updated!

Pacountrygirl, all I can say is good luck with your decision. It's a really tough one and one that only you and your husband can make.
When we made the decision to build, the housing market was red hot, my husbands company was very solid, and we were excited! Now we've torn our original house down, moved into a 5th wheel, had our contractor walk, had to hire an attorney, husbands company has been struggling so paychecks have been hit or miss, have had numerous problems and delays with the build and it's over budget. It's been 21 long months living in a trailer (Me, hubby, 2 kids, 2 dogs, 2 geckos, 1 cat)and our house isn't even insulated or sheetrocked; we still have months ahead of us. We've regreted our decision to build numerous time and have considered trying to get out but with the market the way it is we're basically stuck. Husband and I are stressed to the max!! In all, our building experience has been a nightmare but we still have hope that things will turn around. Even when there has been nothing going on with our house for months at a time, I still check the GW websites everyday because it's motivating to hear about and see the finished products so many people share on this website. It helps keep me going.
Now that I re-read my post I realize what a downer it is. I guess that's the reality though, some builds go smoothly and some don't.
Again, I wish you the best of luck with your decision.

Hi Country Girl,

DON'T PANIC! (as quoted on the front cover of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). It will all be O.K.

I also had the same sinking feeling at this stage of the build. I had a slopped rocky site, and the site looked the worst right after the trees where knocked down. I also had to blast, with dynamite, truck in fill ... $$$ seem to flow into an ever ending pit ... however ... once the foundation was in, the rest was relatively plain sailing.

Note because you do not know what is below you and site specific issues, sticking in that foundation is the most challenging. Once that is in from there on up things are "standard" and there is much less to go wrong and much less variablility.

You also have the advantage that you have no rock. I.E. a back hoe will shift the soil if need be, and that can be done in like a day or so. No need to blast like what I did or rock hammer ....

Hang in there and it will pan out just fine. If you need help consider getting a GC to give you advice for like a month or so to get you over the tough bits, perhaps on a consultant basis.

All the best, Mike.

Will the censors running this board that removed my post please accept my regrets. I thought police states in America wouldn't happen for another 50 years or so but I can see one rooting up here.

Good to know that THS Gardenweb is ignoring our First Amendment rights gained by the bloodshed or our patriotic forefathers.

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We are halfway through our build, and have to agree that the excavation/clearing has been the worst part so far. A lot of unexpected things can happen during this phase and at least for us, it wasn't pleasant. Being that this was the first phase of the project, it made us really question whether we could stomach or pay for the rest of the build.

Now that part is done, things seem a lot less dreadful. We still run into unexpected twists, but they aren't always bad. For instance we have found some good deals on labor and materials and have come under budget in some areas. Also, some design elements which we overlooked on the blueprints have turned into cool features such as a small loft in my son's bedroom.

The project now is back to being that adventure that we can enjoy. The adventure is the number one thing that attracted us to being an owner/builder. Although it first appeared that we made a mistake in this decision, I now think we did the right thing. Hopefully I still have the same opinion when we are done, and hopefully things start to look brighter for you down the road as well.

Thanks to everyone for their encouragement & support. Although it doesn't really change anything, it helps to know others have been down a similar road. Things are looking up. DH is back on track and rolling with the punches again. We have walls on the first floor & most of the second. Hopefully we will be under roof within a week . . . weather has been horrible for construction in SW Pennsylvania but we're slowly getting there. With any luck we'll be able to locate the camera & post some photos of the progress of "our little cabin in the woods"

Thanks again for a great forum!

So glad to hear that things are going better pacountrygirl. Looking forward to seeing your pictures! Jaymie

Keep it up!

Great to hear things are smoothing out for you guys, Thanks for posting back, can't wait to see pictures!