I couldn't imagine doing a completely custom home. We made a lot of changes to an existing model home floor plan . We added a 'bump out' to make the house a little less boxy and to also allow us to have a jack and jill bathroom (my dream for the girls!) We changed ceiling heights, added moldings, moved the fireplace and enclosed the space above the family room to make a media room. We also removed the 4th bedroom and moved the laundry upstairs and made 2 separate closets in the master bath. This change caused the master bath to be completely redesigned.
It took us over a month to get all the things ironed out for the floorplan design in order for us to submit it for appraisal for our construction loan.
Right now we are currently waiting to close on the construction loan and they will start building the next day.
I know there are a ton more decisions that will need to be made, but I can't wait to see some digging going on!
Friday, May 31, 2013
Deciding on a builder
Justin & I started looking at floor plans last July when we bought our land. We started by visiting Schumacher homes because they had 2 models close to where we work. We did a price quote to get an idea and decided to list our house and pay off the land.
We fixed our house up and listed FSBO through www.owners.com. We sold within 8 weeks and moved in with the in-laws. We've been here a little over 3 months now and we are getting antsy!
Backing up...we thought that a one level was what we wanted. No, we knew it. We got several price quotes and just couldn't meet at a number. We were frustrated and decided to price some other builders. While searching for other builders we ran across something crazy. Fully finished homes in a lot of different neighborhoods (so different price points) that you could go in and walk through on your own. I don't even know how many houses we walked through before we discovered we loved two levels. We were able to get more house for our money.
We came across S&K's website and scheduled a lot walk. We immediately clicked with the coordinator and she responded to us so quickly. At this same time we were still dealing with Schumacher and the communication was seriously lacking. There was also discrepancies between certain quotes we were given and things we were asking for.
After weeks of emails and walk throughs (of the model homes) we were confident in S&K. They normally build in neighborhoods, like Ryan Homes, Crown Homes and Legendary Homes, but they also build custom on your own lot. This fit us perfectly. We didn't require a truly custom home builder where picked out everything individually from all different stores...we were able to change anything we wanted and saved money by modifying one of there existing plans.
We fixed our house up and listed FSBO through www.owners.com. We sold within 8 weeks and moved in with the in-laws. We've been here a little over 3 months now and we are getting antsy!
Backing up...we thought that a one level was what we wanted. No, we knew it. We got several price quotes and just couldn't meet at a number. We were frustrated and decided to price some other builders. While searching for other builders we ran across something crazy. Fully finished homes in a lot of different neighborhoods (so different price points) that you could go in and walk through on your own. I don't even know how many houses we walked through before we discovered we loved two levels. We were able to get more house for our money.
We came across S&K's website and scheduled a lot walk. We immediately clicked with the coordinator and she responded to us so quickly. At this same time we were still dealing with Schumacher and the communication was seriously lacking. There was also discrepancies between certain quotes we were given and things we were asking for.
After weeks of emails and walk throughs (of the model homes) we were confident in S&K. They normally build in neighborhoods, like Ryan Homes, Crown Homes and Legendary Homes, but they also build custom on your own lot. This fit us perfectly. We didn't require a truly custom home builder where picked out everything individually from all different stores...we were able to change anything we wanted and saved money by modifying one of there existing plans.
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