Corner lot subdivide - New custom home construction
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Plumbing Fixture Allowance - New construction custom home
Comments (43)If you knew the owner's requirements in detail you would specify something that could be included in the bids even if it needed to change later. An Allowance should be used for materials (not labor) and act as a place holder in the contract. If the material is known but not the quantity, a unit price should be bid. It's not a difficult issue. What is difficult is how the contractor is allowed to buy the allowance material. Owners seem to get distracted by the Allowance numbers when they're not real prices. An owner might not know where the final price comes from; it might just be a number on a subcontractor invoice. On large projects, 3 sub contractor bids are required for each allowance item and the owner's rep chooses the winner. I usually stipulate that if the owner doesn't like the price or the supplier, the owner can delete the allowance from the contract and supply the material themselves....See MoreHelp with corner-lot, custom home floor plans
Comments (72)cp and bpath—thanks so much. I definitely see your points. Now I’m wondering about stretching the whole house to the left to be in line with the butler’s pantry as currently constructed, then moving the garage storage to the other side. I like what you did with the master suite, cp, though the asymmetry introduced into the left and right sides as a result of the smaller study may be getting close to the uncanny valley. I definitely see where you’re going, though. I need to think on the kitchen. The layout bp suggested is almost exactly what we have in our current home, except we have a U-shaped kitchen. The oven in our current house is where the fridge is in this design, and the fridge in the current house is on a wall where the breakfast nook is in this design. And I still don’t love walking into the breakfast nook. It needs to move. The “dog yard” is just shorthand for a separate area apart from the back yard. It will be kept clean and ununappetizing. And in re the three eating areas: yes, we use all three regularly. We host extended family (10+ people) dinner once per week (need: large dining room), have nightly dinner with the children every night (need: breakfast nook), and the kids eat at the countertop bar every morning (need: countertop bar). The formal dining is too big and formal (rugs don’t mix well with messy small offspring) for nightly dinner. The countertop bar is where the kids interact with us while they eat and we unload dishes, make lunches, etc. Could we conform to just two eating areas? Sure. But that feels like the tail wagging the dog....See MoreApprasial issues new home construction
Comments (16)When I checked into the tax situation, I found combining pins to lead to a small discount for total tax but not necessarily enough to be worth losing the flexibility to sell separately. Plus, combining parcels is only an option if you own them outright, otherwise you have to work with the lender and that might be much more cost than benefit. Combining and separating parcels can be troublesome and I wouldn't advise doing so if there was any possible expectation that the change would not be permanent. In fact, that is how I got into the situation originally. Previous owners had 3 adjacent properties, total just less than an acre. They had the bright idea to have the property resurveyed and to take parts of each lot and get a fourth buildable lot. The loans weren't modified but the county assigned new PINs. After the foreclosures, the property ended up with two PINs, one for house and garage, one for the back portion. I got tired of two tax bills and I had them recombined and saved a couple hundred bucks per year. Keeping the tax bills straight and making sure that each one gets paid is essential....See MorePlease review our floor plan for new house construction
Comments (65)Have you already chosen the architect? We've now had two custom homes built, but before that, we lived in a (nice) tract home for a long time. We were new to custom homes too, when we started! Continue doing what you have been doing, look at pictures of houses, house plans, visit open houses of new houses and resales, to get ideas of things you like (or don't like). A good architect will meet with you and have you talk about what you like and don't like. You could show the architect "sample" house plans, but only as a way to show things or spaces you like. Visit houses your architect has designed, make sure their style is what you want and like. In terms of having a house that's impressive, you might end up having a house that's right-sized for your needs, but be able to spend money on high-end finishes or appliances instead of unusable space and/or a huge roof. To me, that's much more impressive. Another thing to think about is what you want to "spend" your space on. If you're going to use a dirty kitchen only for frying fish, then maybe a cart outside makes more sense. It sounds like you've put this kind of thought into your coffee/bar area. Though for there, you might want to include a sink in that area. I would hate if our espresso machine wasn't near a sink. In terms of designs that work well for hotter parts of the country, look at U shaped house plans....See Morearcy_gw
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