House building is all fine and dandy if you can afford to live in one home while your dream dwelling is being constructed. However, if you have to reside in a caravan on a muddy plot of land while it is being built, then building your own house might need a little more thought, as you could be roughing it for a year of 3, depending on the size and resources of the project. Building a house can be even more stressful if you have a young family all packed into your temporary mobile home for the duration. With this said just how does one start to build their house?
Some years ago, my husband and I moved to the country to build a house. Plots of land were going cheap near the East coast of England, and we took the plunge. We had considered many possibilities of building a house or converting an old one. We did look at a number of old, run down properties which were advertised for restoration. The problem was there was so much work to do on the roof, the wiring and plumbing, that it would have been easier to knock it down and start again.
We decided to start from scratch, and be rewarded with the exact house we wanted. It had to be a house that fitted our particular needs. I wanted an office and my husband paints, so he wanted a studio with plenty of light. He also wanted a room with a pool table but we never did manage to incorporate that into the house building plans! Building a house is a lot of hard work, unless you have the money to pay contractors to do everything. We were on a tight budget, but fortunately my husband is very handy and he can do just about everything. He is a trained electrician and has also picked up other skills having worked on lots of construction sites.
Obviously the cost of building a house can vary enormously depending on all sorts of factors such as size, shape, landscaping, location, what you do yourself and what you pay to have done, plus all manner of other variables. Therefore it can both an exciting and exhausting time, but for those that see it through are usually rewarded with a home that is beyond their wildest dreams in as much as they get their ideal unique home and at as much reduced cost if they have done their sums right.
For my husband and me, the only practical way to accomplish this was to buy an old caravan, which we put on the land and we lived in for 11 months whilst building our house. It was ok in summer but the winter months were tough. One morning, we woke up to find our bedding had stuck to the caravan wall and frozen. It was desperately cold and we took it in turns to be the one to jump out of bed, and put the gas heater on and fill the kettle for tea. When you start building a house and you live in a van to keep the costs down, you're exposed to the elements plus it's a very dusty experience too. I remember my poor husband painfully laying bricks down in the snow.
Work parties were frequently organized, when friends kindly volunteered to come over at weekends and lend a hand. This was in exchange for hot meals and a night down at the village pub. Laying the foundations is the most tedious and time consuming bit of building a house. Once that's achieved, you feel like you're getting somewhere. Then there's the bricklaying, plastering, putting the roof on, plumbing and painting. It all takes time and it always costs you more than you think so you might want to overestimate your anticipated costs so there are no ugly surprises and tears at the time of construction.
At last, and within our time limit but over budget, we got our dream home and moved in. Building a house is probably the most difficult but satisfying thing we have ever done. It was a glorious day when we saw that old, clapped out caravan rolling away for good.
Building your house is very doable and more folks than ever before are getting into it. But if there's one piece of advice I can pass on through experience, that's please make sure you plan, plan, and plan again, leaving no stone unturned before you take the plunge, and especially if you have a young family to consider. Good luck!
