House Details

These are a few details I wanted to record about building our house:

I really tried to save money as much as I could while we were building, and I spent a lot of time researching, haggling, and bargaining with local suppliers. Since we were across the country while our house was being built there were still some things that ended up being done that did not save us money but for the most part we were pretty smart.

Like I said before I spent over a year on our kitchen and in the kitchen I spent the most time worrying/planning/searching for countertops. I really wanted Calacatta Gold Marble, which of coarse is the most expensive material you could want. The initial quote for our kitchen was more than we paid for either of our cars. So I looked into just about every material but couldnt find anything that fit in our budget and also had the look I wanted. I ended up finding a slab of calacatta on sale at a fabricators shop that one of their clients decided against, and they wanted to get rid of it. One slab wasn't enough for our kitchen, we needed three. So they called the supplier and they had two more that they wanted to get rid of as well because they were the last two in the bundle. They were about half the price, cha ching! Let me tell you this marble is Gorgeous. So on top of the good deal on the stone, I talked the fabricator down a bit. Then when they came to install they messed up big time, with huge gaps, really visible seams, and crooked pieces, I was super bummed. So I made them come back and fix everything, make and install a backsplash for free and then give me a really big discount. Before the discount I was going to pay about the same as a mid grade granite, but I think I ended up paying about what you would pay for low grade granite, score!

Our stovetop I found on craigslist in California for 1/3 the price

Our other appliances I purchased for 12% off and then had a 10% rebate

I really wanted wool carpet but my goodness, its expensive. So I shopped around like crazy and found a really cute wood blend carpet that was in our budget, and it turned out perfect.

We did trade for a few of our subcontractors in exchange for work, saving us many thousands of dollars:)

I searched and searched for tile for our bathrooms, for months. Our tile budget was next to nothing and I came across this white polished porcelain tile that was super cheap, all the other sizes were discontinued except the 24x24. So our tile guy took the time to cut down and polish each tile, he even cut down really small pieces and laid a herringbone pattern on the bottom of our shower, he did such an awesome job!

I kind of agonized over faucets, which is kind of silly. But to make a long story short I found some great ones that were on the very cheap side that I still liked. I wanted single handle faucets for the bathrooms so that the kids didn't turn on the hot water and burn themselves. I had a very specific faucet in mind for our kitchen but could not find any look a likes that fit the budget or the look. On my way out of the showroom I spotted a faucet hidden in the back that really looked exactly right, and when I found out the price it was even under the budget, awesome.

Our cabinet guy gave me 10% off, and he did a really good job.

I chose the cheapest tub possible that fit in our spot, and it turned out to look pretty good.

I found cheap knock off lighting at overstock that was about 20% the price of the originals

We had just the base of a deck built and we were going to add the railing and bench later since it was expensive but the builder built the deck too high so to pass code he had to install the railing, which we got for free:)

I also spent hours and hours going over every invoice, and detail on bills from subs, which I was able to catch thousands that were overcharged or overlooked.

So There were a few things that we did spend some extra on:

We did a solid wood floor, with a waterbased finish.
We spent some extra and got solid cast bronze knobs on all the doors.
And I had the concrete guys do our front steps with overhangs using fiberglass reinforced concrete, which was not cheap.

Not sure that I would do the knobs and the steps again, but the floors were worth it.

It was a very long year, with a lot of stress, glad its over.