Building your own home seems like a great idea if you can’t find exactly what you want on the open market. There are enough TV shows on that make it look easy enough. However, when it comes down to actually doing it, the majority of us think twice and decide to make compromises on the home we want instead. Others such as Nick and Katie Clarke just go ahead and do it anyway.
“The plans and having the house designed used to be the hard bit. Architects can be expensive and take up the lion’s share of the development budget. Using country house plans is a much better idea. While there are small compromises to be made, the plans are easily modified and any competent contractor can integrate your ideas into the build, as long as you tell them in the beginning,” says Nick, 27, an IT Support Consultant. “We bought the land a couple of years ago when we got frustrated with there being nothing around that we really wanted. It took us a while to raise the money, then find an architect when a friend suggested buying ready-made plans.”
For most people, building their own home will always remain an unrealized dream. Too much work, too many headaches and too many unknowns. Indeed, the list of potential complications, such as planning, finance and finishing touches is endless. But it took Nick and Katie a little over two years from when the ground was first broken to moving into their new Gulf Coast home – a four bedroom, three bath villa-style house. Although the bulk of the work was carried out by contractors, they did all the internal work and decorating themselves, including insulation, a bit of plumbing, flooring, kitchen and bathroom.
“We were working until midnight almost every night and every weekend for almost two years,” Katie says. “We would go to work during the day and have to function normally even though we were exhausted and getting very little sleep. It’s like having a child, the first couple of years are exhausting, sleep deprived and such hard work. But once that’s over you can sit back and enjoy the fruits of those years. You look at other people’s children and think they’re adorable or pretty or clever, but never as much as your own. This house is the same. It took everything we had, wore us out for two whole years, but now we look at it and have the satisfaction of thinking, we built that. It’s better than anything else.”
Using country house plans cuts much of the work out of building your own home. The range is extensive and each plan can be modified within reason. In total, the couple spent $200,000 on their home, which is now valued in excess of $300,000, even in the current climate. Despite that, Nick says, “we like it so much, we’re not planning on moving, ever.”
Related posts:
