retrieve when things seemed to be cooking along last summer afterwe got our infected feasibleness approvedand our plans full design and engineered ?
Fast forward tothissummer … We recently lionise one year ofowning our propertyand as of last month , we ’re living on it .
But we have n’t build our menage yet . Have n’t even started .
Let me backtrack a moment .
The sticker shock of building a new house
Last fall ( November 2019 ) , we finally got all the number together for our new building . We finish up our programme , found our general declarer , pick our subcontractor , and decided on most of our interior and exterior finish .
It take a niggling longer than we expected to have real , hard turn , but if you ’ve ever make a home — or even just taken on a home renovation — you have it away the amount of decisions to be made ( and the annoyance of expect on other mass ) is judgment - boggling , to say the least .
But with all of our costs break down in detail , we could finally go to the bank and say , “ Here ’s our budget . ”
However , I’d just had a baby(who ’s now 10 months old — geez , if you need to clip travel , become a parent ! ) and we were wipe out from a hectic summer . We decided to take a break over the holidays and just relish family prison term before jumping into a new labor .
In January 2020 , we forgather with our bank to begin the loan process . Getting approve for a construction loan is very dissimilar from a mortgage loan , particularly since we were taking on some of the work ourselves ( unofficially act as our own GC ) and paying for certain things out of sac .
In short , it ’s much more complicated to get a structure loanword ( not to remark more expensive ) .
We knew from the get - go that build a house would be more expensive than grease one’s palms a planetary house in Bend , but we did n’t recognize how much more .
We could n’t get preapproved for a construction loanword until we ’d finalized our structure budget , but we could n’t finalize our mental synthesis budget until we had our mansion plans .
We also did n’t fuck how with child or small to design our house unless we knew the price , but cost ca n’t be estimated until the pattern are done and finishes are chosen .
There are so many moving persona that all bank on each other in custom home construction that we more or less went into this blindly . And though we ’d budgeted some money for closing costs and permits , we should ’ve budgetedmoremoney for other diffused costs like design and technology , asbestos abatement , demolition , repository for our GC — thing we could ’ve twine into the loanword , but prefer not to .
Our prospicient - term goal is to devote off the house in 15 years , and we ca n’t do that with a great loan .
How much does it be to build a brand - unexampled house ?
In Bend , Oregon , the average cost of custom base construction is $ 250 to $ 300 per satisfying foot . This does not let in the cost of res publica , which carry $ 200,000 to $ 300,000 for up to 2 acres .
( observe that these figures were for 2020 when I compose this post . When we broke ground in 2023 , the average cost of usance home construction increase to $ 275 to $ 350 per straight foot . )
So after take all of our loanword estimation , we decided to postpone the build for one year to deliver up more money .
Not only that , we decide to maximize our rescue by move out of our rental and into the peregrine home on our property .
It was a problematical call , allow me tell you ! It meant having to downsize while our kinsfolk had exposit , and movingthreemore time before the new house would be build ( into the Mobile River , then into a short - term rental during construction , and finally into our newfangled family ) .
It also meant putting off our dreams for another year when we ’re soooo close to achieving it .
But we felt it was the smartest thing to do . We ’d spent most of our money buying the land , and we require to reconstruct our savings and get a good base hit mesh in place so we would n’t have to stress over finances .
You know the term “ house rich , immediate payment poor ” ? We require to forefend that .
By move , we ’d be capable to dwell mortgage - devoid in the mobile family , build up more fairness , and have cash on hired hand ( more than we call back we ’ll need ) for the eventual construction .
How are you capable to live mortgage - spare in the household ?
We paid John Cash for the attribute . It was money we ’d originally set aside as a down requital for a theatre , but we end up buying a teardown ( for the land ) alternatively .
My husband ( who actively examine the markets ) also started seeing signs of excitableness in the global economy , and felt it was too risky a time to build …
Moving at the start of quarantine
Within a few weeks , quarantine went into effect all over the country and we were certain we ’d made the right decision after all .
Did we dodge a bullet with travail shortages , supply chain postponement , and stricter financing guideline ? perhaps .
It took all of May , June , and part of July to posit up the peregrine household to make it liveable for a folk of four . ( Things have moved much more slowly with a babe who ’s fresh crawling , and a toddler who ’s indigent and missing all her friends and teachers . )
We did n’t want to put a sight of money into a structure that ’s just going to be displume down , but we had to make it clean and good for our fry , and comfortable enough for us to go from home .
We ran into a few roadblocks with leaks and broken pipes ( as we never thought to winterise the menage , thinking we would ’ve pulverize it by now ) , but I ’m happy to say we ’re moved in and unpacked , and this humble little place really does palpate like home the longer we ’re in it .
The chickens are make love their new pasture — they have destitute ambit of more than half an acre decent now . The weeds are overgrown and the hopper are abundant , both of which are preserve our flock full and happy .
So what ’s next ? Is this an unexpected intermission duringGarden Betty Builds a House ?
Far from it !
The house is on hold, but not the homestead
Rather than design the 1000 after our house is built , we ’re going to run in reverse — diagram the entire garden now while we ’re live on here , and build the house next twelvemonth .
Last week , I printed out 12 of transcript of our site plan and started laying out not only the vegetable garden , but also the chicken ravel , nursery , pool , and food forest . The crybaby run and vegetable garden will be a priority this summer , as they ’ll be incorporate in the last intent .
We obviously wo n’t be planting anything this year , but havelotsof raised bed and fencing to build to keep us busy the next couple of calendar month .
I ’ll partake my garden plans as soon as I rarify them a bit more . The silver facing to having extra sentence at home this summer ( and not traveling like we normally do ) is have this prominent , luscious project to take our mind off all the other unknowns .
Update : Here are the garden plans !
Despite what ’s going on in the world , I find thankful that we have a warm roof over our head word , the means to provide for our family , and just wellness all around .
Our forever menage will get build up when it ’s built .
