OT: building a house

[Cash68847]

Why put the lid in the basement if not finishing? Kills all your access and if you decided to rock the basement you’re drywaller is going to do it anyway.

If you are finishing try to run the plumbing on mostly one side and do a suspending ceiling in your bedrooms and bathroom for example and do a hard ceiling in your family room. It’s stupid to do a hard ceiling in your whole basement but it’s prevalent in Nebraska. You’re going to have a leak some day. One thing I would have done different looking back now, I would have polished my basement floor or epoxied it in atleast the family room and threw down area rugs.

 

[Quint]

That $350/sq foot for a simple house terrifies me. You don’t end up with much for square foot before you’re at $1mil and I think that’s nuts in a small town.

I’ve been building since 1980 (started in custom residential and moved to large commercial and federal projects years ago) and even with todays inflated prices on literally everything unless you’re going full custom with a substantial commitment to high end finishes $350 a square foot is higher than most new builds. Hospitals in rural markets are around $400.

Decide where you want to spend your money first.

Full brick facade is more expensive initially, but very low maintenance and high resale value.

Good HVAC equipment in my opinion is a must. You’ll either spend money up front or you’ll spend it later.

Custom kitchen and or bath cabinets and countertops are another high ticket item you may or may not need or want.

Windows are a huge investment up front if you go high end, but IMPO are worth the flowers.

Flooring finishes are places where folks generally splurge or skimp. You can go tile and hardwoods and spend a bunch of dough, but have little maintenance, or go cheap with the thought of replacing later.

You can easily build a home in central Nebraska for $200-250 per square foot. It might not look like a show home, but you’re building your own place, so it’s kind of up to you.