A handmade house - 2 steps to get started on cutting your mortgage in half
Building your own house is no joke. It is not for the motivationally challenged. But for those who want to trade their time and sweat for years of additional mortgage payments, this is for you. My husband and I spent 4 years looking for the perfect chunk of land at the perfect price, as well as drawing out sketch after sketch of house plans. With patience, persistance and hard work you can eliminate a lot of the cost of building a house.
1. First choose the land. Like most choices, this comes with a list of pros and cons. Then make a list of ways to fix any cons if possible.We wanted a lot of land. A lot of seclusion. But we wanted to keep the cost low. Last August we decided on an 8 acre plot in Southern Illinois.
Try searching Buy a Farm https://buyafarm.com/ For Sale by Owner https://www.forsalebyowner.com/search/list/illinois# or find a local real estate company. They may have feelers out for someone who has not yet listed but may be interested in selling a portion of their property. Or put an ad in the paper asking interested sellers to contact you.
Some of our pros included: close to town to save on fuel costs, nearby state parks, natural areas, preservations, wine trails, brewery trails and lots of small local restaurants, a short distance off of a highway, already cleared land to easily start growing produce and livestock.
Some of our cons included: being able to see neighbors in the winter months, an un level and un square foundation from an old building, not enough acres of woods to sustain heating our square footage.
Privacy from neighbors can be fixed with fencing, trees or bushes. An un level and un square foundation takes a little more planning but is still more cost effective than starting from scratch and pouring your own foundation. We can sustainably harvest the wood we have and supplement it elsewhere. For example we can help a neighbor with a task in exchange for bartered wood. Or offer to clean up someones yard or wooded area of dead and dangerous trees. Unwanted wood can also be found on sharing sites like Craigslist https://carbondale.craigslist.org/or Heartland Swap https://www.facebook.com/Heartland-Community-Swap-227814757254933/.
2. Next is the house planning. As an artist I love sketching out drawings. But it is more than just drawing for fun. Consider function, cost, efficiency, room for life changes, etc.We selected function over visual preference most often than not. For example, I love the look a a log cabin home. But here is Southern Illinois we have wood bees that would bore their way through and high humidity that may damage wood. We chose not to struggle with future problems just because we preferred the look of something.
We designed a home with as little square footage as possible to reduce the overall cost. This means we chose cost over being able to host large parties indoors. However we can still host outdoors on our 8 acres.
Efficiency was a matter of editing our drawings so that our wood burning stove could heat all areas of the house well.
Leaving room to grow and anticipating life changes was the most challenging. We can't predict the future. However your plans may need to be erased and redrawn as you discuss possible new hobbies you may want to pursue or family growth. Do you think it is likely that you will want a large dog? Is it possible a family member may stay with you in the future? Have you always wanted to own a piano? You will have to decide if you want to add the space to leave the possibility for such things open.It's a good idea to keep your old drawings. You may want to revisit something again later.
Use resources to help guide you through decision making. Read articles, talk to professionals about appliances and materials or ask someone that has done it to share their research. If you have any questions for us send us an email at elyciacamille@yahoo.com
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