Building a home from the ground up can be an awesomely rewarding experience that gives you the opportunity to design your own home to suit your tastes and needs.
It gives you the opportunity to design a space for you to live in for the rest of your life, one that will provide for your every need as you grow older.
For self-builders, there seems to be an infinite number of things to think of, and it can cause sleepless nights just thinking about them. But building your own dream space doesn’t have to be all stress. It’s all in the planning.
As long as you’re willing to spend enough time planning, and as long as you are willing to hire decent, qualified, experienced, well known contractors to complete the work, there shouldn’t be a problem.
For new home builders in Canberra, or for anyone else considering building their own space, read on to hear some advice on how to create your dream home.
Planning Your Ideal Home
You cannot over-plan building your new home. You should give consideration to every last detail and plan exactly how you want your house to look. Think about:
- Which direction will it face?
- How many rooms will there be?
- How many bedrooms will there be?
- Where would you like the staircase?
- How is the kitchen going to look?
- What are the doors, windows, fixtures and fittings and furniture going to look like?
Budget Realistically
No matter how good your planning skills, and how good your budgeting, the building process is probably going to cost more. This doesn’t mean that your contractor is giving you an inaccurate estimate, but more that finishing costs such as internet hookups, landscaping, fences and gates, decking and letterboxes, are not usually included in the estimate your builder will give you.
These types of finishing costs can be anywhere from 15 to 25% of the overall cost of the build.
Saving on Costs by Salvaging materials
Collecting recycled or salvaged materials from around old demolition sites and scrapyards is a great way to source materials for cheap for your newbuild. Look for things such as:
- old barnwood
- used bricks
- distinctive wood doors
- beams
When salvaging old unwanted materials, you can often pick them up at little or no cost.
Make sure you get sound, professional advice before committing to a building contractor.
