Well so far we are about 9-10K over budget. Good news is we kind of planned for that. Bad news is we don't even have the rafters up yet :)

We are the ones responsible for pushing the budget. Chose satin nickel instead of chrome for plumbing fixtures plus a couple extras (6K), and a couple other foundation changes which made the entire rear of the basement a walkout rather than just a small portion of it.

We are going to try and trim some items here and there. It does make you really nervous. Its so easy to spend money while you are building. It can take you years to pay for a simple "Go ahead" lol.

We will be trying to save money on things such as painting (Still debating on that one), doing some of the wiring like cable and cat5/6 myself. We have an excellent builder and I have asked if there is anything I can do to cut the budget (weekend work, etc) let me know. I think his answer would be stop spending money lol.

With us and the rezoning, we had a fee schedule from the Municipal hall, but then the Dept of Fisheries and Oceans got involved because of a water course. Well, out came the surveyors, biologists, arborists, not just once, but several times; reports, reports and more reports.
The bigger part of our house over run has been the excavating, we ended up having to do alot more than was first anticipated, and then we elected to have a concrete wall to shore up our patio downstair. Glad we did it. The rest of it was small nickel and dime stuff. I forgot to mention a $3000 over run budget just for installing a fresh air return in the kitchen. I had no idea installing a high CFM island hood was going to cost me this much. Not only do I have to provide fresh air, but because when on high, the fan has the capacity of 940 I have to make sure that there is an electrical coil heating the incoming air.
Add to that $2500 extra for the siding colour that we like. The flooring was easy for me to find great deals and come in under budget. My brother in law will be installing our kitchen cabs and got a builders discount for them. I was planning on putting in quartz countertops because I could still come in on budget because of my BIL's contribution...I may second thought that now.

We didn't have a strict budget but we are where we expected to be at this point. We went over at first digging our wel and septic and fondation. The whole property turned out to be rock. Then we recouped over the rest of the build. We made a few adjustments and we saved some money by lucking out with a few of the trades we hired. In the end it all came out well.

$150,000 over. Enough said. My gig as a "Stay-at-home-Mom" may be up...

fairytalebaby- All of a sudden I don't feel as bad :)

I just gotta ask......How did you go over sooo much fairytalebaby??

I built a home based on a model, and went in knowing I would go over the base cost of the model by $30,000. I *just* completed another new home and had good knowledge of upgrades and such, but we still ended up going over an additional $25,000. (pool and landscape upgrades were a big chunk of this addional $25,000).

I really don't understand how we're so far over budget. I feel like we may have been doomed from the beginning as we think our GC quoted us a very low price to build this house. Everything we chose was an upgrade from what he'd planned.

Also, when we signed on for the build it was understood that we'd get to see where the money was going each month. We only received two of those itemized statements and they were at our demand.

We gladly approved many upgrades along the way, but we were pretty conscious of the costs of each decision, so we're still not sure what happened.

Our family that's in the area worries that we've been getting over-charged by the subs for many months that our GC has been occupied and not on-site. I don't know. Maybe all of those things combined equals $150k over?

Holy doodle fairytalebaby!!!!I know that getting a detailed spread sheet on expenses can be like pulling teeth, but insist on getting one, and nag and nag and nag(I had to)until you get one.

Whenever you're building with a GC you must make sure he gives you a specification sheet detailing EVERYTHING he/she's going to put in the house. Without that a building estimate is essentially useless; fairytalebabe that's a classic build bait and switch. Our GC tried to delay ours as much as he could but we forced him to include it in the contract. So far we've stayed on budget.

We padded our real budget with 10% for overages. Our budget was originally broken down into 30 or so categories but the construction loan folks consolidated into 18 or so. Each category has the +10% so by that figure we're actually under budget. We were way over by the time we finished framing but have actually reversed the trend and are way under at this point. I think we'll end up right about where we thought we would as DW is thinking about taking the 10% surplus and using it for furnishings, TV etc. Since we're moving in with 30-40% equity from OB'ing we may use SOME of it anyway.....

we're over budget, but it's only money right?

we actually didnt have a budget, it was more of a goal. I sat down and decided to build our house for $180k. This was all based off estimating myself not actually getting bids. I was actually ahead of my goal until we were about to sheetrock..

Then we decided to do a bunch of upgrades since it was going to be our house for a long time. We took a 3300 sq ft home and turned it into a 4350sqft home..

did concrete stained flooring
we reframed and added rooms and features
we upgraded cabinets
upgraded granite
hidden doors
wine closet
upgraded appliances
upgrade trim materials
builtin gun rack
upgraded showers
upgraded lighting
etc,etc,etc..

basically another 50k worth but again it was only money.

Eric-ooooo, a built in gun rack! Have you got any pics? My husband would love to see that!

I will have to take some pics for you when its completed, but here is one at sheetrock stage... it is in the study/office. It is designed for 10 rifles/shotguns with top drawers and high self for handguns and ammo storage.

yes it will lock.

what kind of door are you putting on that?

right now we are about $40k over budget and that includes eating up the $20fk contingency we had. So total $60k. But I can name the places:
Added brick details
Bluestone patios and screened porch
Kitchen (appliances and cabinets)
Bathrooms (radiant floors in all - upgraded ceramic/traverine/granite in all)
Paint - (gosh paint is expensive)
Pre Wired entire house for audio/speakers/intercom system
Upgraded wood flooring
Kitchen ---
But like ericstc said - it is only money and I won't be looking back in a couple years wanting to upgrade anything...
Over all a little depressed about the money - but happy with my selections

Eric....that is solid man. Excellent Idea.....you ought to think about some stain grade trim in the study. The atmosphere of the room lends itself well to that and with the gunstocks it really begs for a woodgrain case......course it could always be something you upgrade after you're in.

Yeah, just money. As soon as we are done and going to start landscaping, I am going to the local nursery and see if I can find that money tree my husband keeps talking about.

We are about 10% over...which translates to about 125000. We added some extras such as geotherma hvac, foam insulation, and our GC just missed on some...ie..14000 for 4 tiled showers....I spent that much on the tile! The install for the baths and tile was 23k.

We are over about about 10 to 12k so far and are at the sheetrock stage. We have been under on some things but over on some big things that we don't have much control over like the well (525' instead of the 300' average for the area) and framing materials were over.

Some things we are over on and do have control of like hardiplank instead of vinyl and we are doing stone on foundation instead of stucco but I think those are integral to the design of the house.

I worry about the final price all the time but at the same time think I would rather spend the money on the things I like now and put them in the mortgage than always wish I had done this or added that.

I am waiting until the last minute to make a decision on whether we can have granite in the kitchen but there again, it almost seems silly not to do granite when the rest of the finishes of the house are going to be so nice. What is another 3k? It is only money, we can make more!

Yes, there are 4 large red oak beams running along the ceiling in a dark stain. the gun rack will be a custom built rack that will be built and then mounted in the hole. It will be made out of the same red oak and stain, with glass/wood doors.

We went over by $15,000 for the foundation and paid cash for that. I had originally asked for a soil test and the builder scoffed and said I didn't need it. Other than that, the builder ended up paying us back a few hundred out of the final draft. Credit for things we either didn't use or got for a lower price. Great builder!

It's all relative. I'm not sure why people think a certain amount is a large figure without knowing what the total dollar cost is. Whats the difference between going 10% over on a 1.25M house vs going over by 10% on a 300K house. One is 30K and the other is 125K. It's all the same in terms of relativity.

Some people think 150K is huge and other think 150K is a drop in the bucket. It's all relative. I know some people who spent $150K on just door knobs (and there was not expensive metals involved). There are people who will spend 250K on home theaters, 100K on tile, etc, etc. I think its better to look at where you are relative to your budget vs the actual dollar amount.

$84,419.52 as of this moment and we still need irrigation for the yard. Granted, we will probably have the CofO in another week but WOW!!! I never expected to be this far over...and this is the readjusted budget.

If we use the initial budget (grossly underestimated by the first builder) we are $267K over budget. It's insane.

Thankfully house values are not falling as much in our area so we are still coming out ahead of the price to buy our house albeit only 10% less right now instead of the 30% we planned on in the beginning of this marathon.

Houses in our area generally sell for $200 psf and we are right at $160 psf for the custom build out so it's not horrible....but still over budget

Anthem I think there is a big difference between 125K and 30K...how much good you could do with that money if used in other ways. Like donating to homeless shelters. Want to stay on budget? have a house that doesn't break you? have a house that you don't sell at a loss (see buying/selling forum)? generally be a better person?

BUILD SMALL. BIG IS NEVER GREEN. Sure you can "green it up" but if you hooked your geothermal to 2500 square feet instead of 5500 square feet, you could run the pump on one cow fart's worth of methane a day.

Love your big house while you're in it, and I do hope you're in it for decades (as was planned by many folks on the 'selling' side of the buy/sell forum)...but note that there are reasonble predictions that these homes will become the communes/slums of the future.

rileysmom, whoever said anything on size. Not sure where your observation is coming from. You're making some really large ignorant assumptions there. I won't disagree that easier on the environment is good. What I disagree is where you read that I advocated larger, less efficient houses ? I made no prejudice in terms of what someone was building, size of what one was building or efficiency of what one was building (you made all of those). My comment was purely made toward the differences of relativity vs absolute numbers and the need to take those into perspective.

Also, please don't make the wild assumption that cheaper equates to more efficient or that more expensive is always larger. There are some beautful 2500 sq ft houses that are several M. Even in those same smaller houses - you can have $250K theaters, $100k tile, and megabuck chandeliers. Don't make wild assumptions based on ignorance. . . .

BTW, green is all relative. One persons green could be another person's wasteland. Someone could say why don't you go live in a tent and reduce your carbon footprint even more ? Be careful where you throw your stones - especially since you have no clue where you are throwing them.

anthem, my observations were based on several of the other posters who noted budget over-runs due to increased square footage over the original plan. Solution...? note also that of the homes where square footage is given, these are big houses. I personally find the thought of 125K for doorknobs repellant, regardless of whether the owner considered this chump change. head to head with identical construction techniques, how can a 5000 square foot house use less energy and resources to build and operate than a 2500 square foot house. I read an interesting post on the buy/sell forum about a family that was selling their 5000 sq ft nearly-new home because the family members were living parallel but separate lives on different floors. obviously my philosophy is not a "I can afford it so it's ok to have it". it does seem as though I hit some sort of sore spot in your psyche, how big is your build did you say??? As far as construction cost over-runs in general, it seems clear that the construction industry has simply built in a homeowner acceptance of 10 - 25% overage, kinda like the auto sales industry in reverse...the official price and the real price will never be the same, at the outset everyone involved agrees to pretend that they might be.

ps I actually just reduced my "plastic footprint" by buying a Brita water pitcher and a home carbonator, so no more plastic water bottles and glass sparkling water bottles...ta for now...I'm off to my tent.

for anyone the ones that were interested in the gun cabinet here is a more recent photo, wood work is still not complete for the cabinet.

rileysmom, the difference is I am not going to prejudice whether someone wants to build a large or small house. It's useless to pass judgement as each person has their own choices in life. Why would you want to be repulsed because someone has the financial means to spend the money on what they want ?

And why is your magic number 2500 ? What about people who are at 1000sq ft who think your 2500 is wasteful and repulsive ? Like I said, its all relative. Just because YOU think its the perfect number for you doesn't mean it fits others ?

You ask about how much good a person does. That same person who you find repulsive for spending 7 figures on knobs/hardware on their house gave over 2.5m in charity last year alone. How much did you do in absolute terms ? Now, that wouldn't be a very fair comparison, would it ? So, you should probably look at relative comparisons - which is/was my earlier assertion. . .

I believe every person has their own choice. If they want to live in a 10m postage stamp house - thats great. If they want a 1m 10,000 sq ft house and can barely afford it, thats great as well.

While I think overruns are a very common practice in the construction industry, I think a lot of that also had to do with the person building a home. You have to understand that some of that is people not sticking to what was agreed upon (both sides). You're also talking about people bidding and accepting the lowest bid which unfortunately is usually a recipe for disaster.

Size is strictly a personal preference. There is no proof that small houses are any more marketable than large houses or any more efficient for that matter. Nor is there any proof that small houses are any cheaper than large houses. Is the person that builds 2300 sq ft for 500K smarter or more responsible than the one that built 4000 for 400K? I know a couple that recenlty moved from a 2000 sq ft home to a 4200 sq ft home and reduced their power bill by 40%. It's great to be enviromentaly conscious and a champion of the "not so big home" but not eveyone subscribes to that philosphy. There are as many archetectural tastes and building styles as there are people on God's green earth, I'm just thankful I live in a country where we have the freedom to realize those ideas.

So far, $19,000, or about 7%. About a third is the extra $$ for a geothermal system we decided to put in, another third is the result of going over on the way too low allowances in the builder's estimate, and the other third a hodge podge of different modifications. I'm really stressing over budget right now, as we still have to do well and septic. I'm really hoping we can hold the line from here on out.

Rileysmom17, don't be such a pompus axx! While I have always been proud of my recycling i.e. green efforts I am more proud of living in a free country. Now goody-good for you for bying a Brita filter. I'll sleep better tonight. :P