The biggest hit to our budget was the garage foundation. Because of the size of the garage, we were forced to put a full 4' foundation rather than just slab on grade. That was about a $15k hit.

There has also been a lot of stuff that I priced out a year ago, by the time we actually needed it, the price had increased 10% or more.

For us so far was looking at different structural options and thinking "we can do it now for so much cheaper than down the line". So we are adding french doors where possible, adding windows, etc as much as we can now. We are cutting here and there on our wish list- on cosmetic things we can do later but are doing a lot more than we thought to the original plan now that we are in framing stage.

Building a custom house that has never been built before : meant a 10-15% increase in our original budget. Then came the modern/contemporary /clean line look that further increased it. Although we definitely had a hard line item amount beyond which we were not ready to spend, we compromised on certain things that could be replaced down the line 10-15 years.

I guess knowing what you want further increases when you actually price the item and go to buy it. Although this building process has taught me patience and a disregard for zeroes. :-)

I think it is good advice to have a 20% contingency fund regardless of how much planning you do on the front end. We went over on site development (ie, running electric/gas, unique survey requirements, septic, well, etc) due to unforeseen circumstances. Could better planning have uncovered these items sooner? Some yes, some no.

Then, I think there is knowing what you want (not just finishes, but mechanicals and floor plan, too), making sure your budget accomodates what you want, and not changing your mind.

It is so easy for a budget to spiral out of control as a result of the "it's only" and "it's so much cheaper/easier to do it now." For example, "it's only $200 more to add electric outlets and it's so much cheaper/easier to do it now than after drywall is installed." While that is true, those things that are a few hundred dollars more here or there add up very quickly.

Yes...that is what I was super careful about, Alley. Most of the time, if I just HAD to have something that wasn't originally budgeted for, I'd figure out where to cut something else. However, near the end of our build we had a case of "if we don't do this now, we will never get around to it." Our architect had originally drew our master bedroom w/ 10' ceilings like the rest of the 1st floor. But our master suite is in its own "wing" of sorts with no portion of the 2nd floor above it. Dh had the idea to raise the ceiling all the way up to the roof gable, which was fine and easy to do (and didn't cost anything, really.) However, once the space was all dry-walled, we realized it was just awful & boring looking. Builder suggested thick beams to break up that enormous expanse. We were near the end, and there weren't any allowances left to play with (unless we removed the irrigation or something insane like that) so we decided to go for it. So glad we did, but I am also glad I didn't start playing like that earlier in the process. Discipline is your friend if trying to stick to budget, lol!

I have no help to add, but this is a great question.

I also do not have anything to add as I am at the very beginning stages of our build. But this question is an excellent one and would love to hear from those who have already gone through the process.

We are at the beginning stages, but are over what we had originally wanted to spend. Major items for us included structural engineering requiring a fair amount of steel framing rather than wood (we have a full wall of glass in a mountain setting right on a ridge), radiant heat throughout the home and polished concrete floors in the basement. Now that we have our final contract price, we hope to stay pretty close on target and that we have addressed most items upfront.

Our build was an "all inclusive" meaning everything was figured into the price quoted by the builder. There were allowances for cabinets, flooring, lighting fixtures and plumbing fixtures in the price. We knew how much was allowed and if we wanted to spend more we could, but it would be above the quoted build price. We did spend more on flooring and we were extravagant on a $1200. Shower door for the master bath walkin shower. But we really watched how much we spent on picking out cabinets, flooring, light fixtures. We got what we wanted and are very happy with our choices. Overall, we went about $5,500. over but that does not include kitchen appliances thaT were not figured into the build cost. I think we did pretty good. Other than unforeseen building costs you just need to be careful on what you want vs what you need. Like us, sure , we could have gotten by with a $100.00 shower curtain in stead of a $1200.00 shower door but that was our only real extravaganice. We kept everything else pretty much in budget. Sometimes hard to do, but ya gotta discipline yourself:/

in stage of rough-in. set of small double hung window with Havc upgrade $2500, $750 for garage side door, entry wood door upgrade $800, $2000 upgrade colors quartz countertops, unsure what cabinets will be cost, grading, and list is go on :(

We ended up 15-20% over what we had budgeted. The biggest hit was extra foundation work that had to be done due to soils issues. We had a soils analysis performed, but did not realize that the report was never provided to the potential builders during the bidding stage. The next-biggest unforeseen cost was for our cabinet throughout the house. We thought we were doing our homework when we were taking bids, and looked at all the builders' estimated cabinet costs, and the architect weighed in and confirmed the estimates looked appropriate. But the actual cost proved to be much higher. We chose to pay the higher price, rather than put in lower-end cabinets that would not have been consistent with the finishes in the rest of the house. Some other items we went over on, but to a much smaller degree, that were our choice. The flooring, for example, we ended up choosing something more expensive (but that we love). Other things, we did come in under budget, so some things cancelled each other out (plumbing fixtures, as I recall, was one).

This will sound crazy, but we didn't start out with a budget! We just knew that we needed to control every penny, and it would cost what it cost. One surprise was a sudden run-up in building materials shortly after we started. We paid 50% more for roof sheathing on our house than we did on the barn, in just one year's time. Of course, after we finished, the prices came back down.

Since our house is evolving as I build it, there is a constant temptation to make expensive upgrades. I bought a cute antique sink for the powder room, but the only faucet that would fit it was at least double what I had planned on. Then, I couldn't just throw a $100 toilet in there; an 'appropriate' one was more like $300. Once I put the tin ceiling up in the kitchen (planned), I couldn't put just any ceiling fan up there. The 'perfect' fan was $400, about 4 times what I usually pay for a fan. Take these few anecdotes, and multiply them times the hundreds and hundreds of items in a house, and you catch my drift. It would take extremely detailed planning and will power to set a budget and actually stick to it.

On the other side, we've saved a lot of money by watching for bargains and being flexible. I really wanted a Kohler Stages 45 sink for the kitchen, but found a 43" sink on ebay for $165. Our Nichiha siding was bought for 25 cents on the dollar. Again, these are just a couple examples of many bargains I got.

I'm doing almost all of the labor myself, so if I had to pay for all of it, we would have gone WAY over budget. Many of the little details I've incorporated take a long time to do, and that would really add up if I had to pay for the labor, too. I would say labor is the one thing that could really break the bank.

Our biggest money pit was the foundation. It was at the end of the building recession here when the guy started it, and he often worked alone on it- I guess so he could make all the money. It went way over time and way over budget. Our GC was clueless about how much it was going over bid until it was way too late. Our only consolation is that it was poured by the teaspoon, so it had a lot of time to cure:[

It's interesting to hear how different everyone's stories are! Mushcreek I like that y'all are taking your time and truly being able to put the money where it matters to you!!

Gale.. Our slab is getting poured next week.. I'm hoping they at least use gallons and quarts! ;)

Vw Tyler I think being abode to come in under on anything is a huge plus! We knewfrom the beginning we would need a bigger cabinet budget, flooring budget, and countertop budget. Now I can't remember where we ' borrowered' that money from! I'm hoping lighting will come in under since I'm deal shopping.. But usually I just end up finding something that was initially or of our budget on sale for exactly our budget. ;)

Zorro, i think 5k over isn't bad at all!! We started the process with my husband planning to spend a certain amount max. Well, that turned into 15k more. Contract ended up adding an extra 5k, plus 8k out I'd pocket for electric and another 8-10k on upgrades.... Hopefully we've had all of our budget creep already.. Unfortunately I have gardenweb to show me that I DO need all these upgrades...... :D So I'm sure that won't be the last if it!