Cost overruns come in two forms. One type is due to insufficient planning before the project begins. Often people view hiring an architect or house designer as a luxury. But a good architect can help you define the project on paper before you sign a contract for construction. With many things undefined, there are ample opportunities for unexpected added costs to come up. Make you materials, finishes, and fixture selections early on so you don’t get unpleasant surprises later. Think through the entire project and try to anticipate as much as possible. Make sure your drawings and specifications describe the work to be done so there is little ambiguity. Unclear construction documents will open the door for extra charges from your builder. An experienced design professional can help you with this. It’s not just their skill you are buying when you hire them. You are also buying their experience.

The second type of cost overrun is actually more common and is self-inflicted. I’m talking about scope creep. By this I’m referring to the gradual addition of work to the project. We are all prone to this. It may seem like a good idea to add a built-in cabinet or refinish another room’s floor, or a multitude of other tasks ”while you’re at it.” And this is all well and good. Often doing some these other things while you are already dealing with the turmoil of construction makes sense. It often can cost less than doing it later since the craftsmen you need are already on the job for the original work. But be careful. You can add what seem like small things only to realize later that they add up quickly. You’ll look back and wonder how you managed to blow your budget so badly. You’ll feel like everyone wants to keep charging you more money. But in fact, you were the initiator of those changes and added costs.

Building a house or remodeling a house requires some good planning and budget discipline to keep costs under control. Don’t let yourself get into budget trouble. It’s a lot like dieting. You have to have the will power to push yourself away from the table before it’s too late.

Read more articles about home design and construction at my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

Luci wrote:

I know the correct answer for this, but I’d like to find out that it CAN be done differently – My husband and I will be building, (and by building I mean designing and having someone else build it) our retirement home in the near future, and I’ve found an “outside” that I like.  I don’t just like it, I want it!  I know you should design the floor plan first, then the outside, but I want to do it the other way around.  Any advice?

Thank you very much!

Luci

Here’s my answer:

Luci – Thanks for the good question. I have begun a number of projects with an image my client has found that captures the exact look they want. What we often do is to evaluate the plan of the house that has the “ideal” exterior and see how well that floor plan fits the program we’ve developed for the client’s Perfect House. Sometimes the plan can be simply adapted to suit my client’s needs. Sometimes it takes some clever redesigning to get things perfect. A good architect can even modify the exterior of the house to fit the revised floor plan and still retain the essence of the look of the house that captivated the client initially. The secret is that the exterior usually does not have to be a perfectly identical match to still look “just like” the exterior they had found and fallen in love with.

So don’t worry. Your Perfect House plan can usually be designed to give you Your Perfect House exterior look. It just takes some clever and creative thinking.

Best regards,

Bill

For more articles about home design, homebuilding, and remodeling, please visit my other site, www.about-home-design.com.

Jean wrote:

Need your expert advice please if you can.  I have installed acres of 18mm solid wood flooring in all my rooms. this winter with the heating on it seems to be shrinking. Seems to be taking wooden studding with it, i.e., door frames fixed on top of it have moved too. Will this settle down do you think?  Many thanks in advance.

My answer:

This shrinking is due to the wood losing moisture content. The indoor relative humidity is usually quite low in the wintertime. As the air dries out, it draws moisture from the wood floors and the rest of the wood in the house, studs and doors included. When the weather warms, the relative humidity will go back up and the wood’s moisture content will increase. The wood floors, studs, joists, and doors will swell up again. If the wood was excessively moist when installed, it will never return to the original size. If the wood had the proper moisture content when it was installed, it will return to its original size. It’s impossible for me to say without knowing the condition at the time of installation.

Seasonal shrinkage of wood in a home is a normal occurrence. One way to reduce this shrinking is to add humidity to your home. A central humidifier installed on your heating system will work if you have forced air heat. Otherwise, a free-standing humidifier would help. If you install or start using a humidifier, it might take weeks for the wood to absorb enough moisture to make a visible difference in the shrinkage you see.

If your floors do not return to normal and excessive cracking is still a problem next summer, call your contractor and tell him you think he installed a wood floor with too high a moisture content. Hopefully he’ll stand behind his work.

Read more about many home design and building topics at my other site, www.about-home-design.com.

If you are pouring concrete in cold weather, weather where the average daily temperature does not exceed forty degrees farenheit, your concrete is considered “Cold Weather Concrete.” The American Concrete Institute has specific guidelines for how to pour cold weather concrete. Their document ACI 306 spells out the things that should be done. Warming the reinforcing steel, mixing the concrete with hot water, adding accelerating agents to the mix, covering the concrete with insulating blankets, and adding more cement to the mix to strengthen the concrete and speed up the curing time are all methods for overcoming the potential problems with pouring concrete in cold weather.

Concrete does not dry in order to get solid. This is a common misconception. Concrete hardens through a chemical reaction. And water is critical to this reaction.  The curing process is often referred to as hydration. Concrete that dries out too fast will be weak and prone to failure (excessive cracking). You may have seen contractors spraying water on concrete slabs when they pour them in hot weather. That’s because the water in the concrete mixture is drying out too fast due to evaporation. Without the right amount of water, the chemical reation will slow or stop. Concrete is actually more difficult to pour in hot weather than in cold due to this quick evaporation problem.

But when pouring concrete in cold weather, care must be taken to prevent ice crystals from forming in the concrete as it cures. And colder temperatures slow down the hydration (curing) process. That’s why “accelerating agents” are used to speed up the process. Once concrete has reached a strength of 500 psi, it is no longer significantly affected by cold temperatures. Most concrete used for house foundations and slabs is called 3000 psi concrete. That is the strength it will reach after about a month. So it only takes a few days to reach 500 psi. During that time it needs to be protected from the cold. Since concrete generates a lot of heat while it cures, simply insulating it is all that needs to be done. No additional heat source is needed.

Don’t be worried about pouring concrete in cold weather as long as your builder follows the guidelines in ACI 306. If he does not know about these guidelines, point them out to him and insist on compliance. Or find a builder who knows about the proper methods of pouring concrete in cold weather.

If you would like to read more articles about homebuilding and house design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

Shutters used to serve a functional purpose on a house. They were opened and closed regularly. Wooden shutters increased a home’s security when closed and allowed light and fresh air to enter the house when they were open. Shutters were usually closed and latched at night to make the home less susceptible to break ins. And, glass was very expensive. It needed to be protected during storms to prevent breakage and shutters served that purpose, too. Shutters were a key part of the function of the windows.

These days, windows are much more durable and we depend on security systems for home security. If you live in a hurricane prone area, you know the benefit of hurricane shutters. But normal window shutters are no longer used to protect windows. Shutters have grown to simply be a decorative feature on a house.

However, even if they are merely decorative, shutters should look like they could function. If they don’t they will simply look like a couple of panels screwed to the wall for no good reason. Giving the shutters the visual impression that they could operate properly will make the proportions of the window and shutter look correct and pleasing to the eye.

Shutters should be the same height as the window frame. The sash is the part that can open and close. It is the glass plus the wood that holds the glass. The frame is the next part of the window that the sash sits within. The shutter width should be half the overall width of the frame. If sized according to this rule. When the two shutters are closed over the window, they will neatly close over the complete window sash and frame.

Do not size the shutters smaller than the window frame or they will look silly. Operable shutters would never do their job of protecting the window if they did not completely close over it. So your fixed, decorative shutters shouldn’t look too small to fit over the window frame either.

Do not size them larger that the frame or they will look like if were closed they would lap over the window plus part of the wall and look just as silly. Some windows have an additional trim board around the window. Ignore this when measuring. A proper shutter should not lap over the exterior trim.

Shutters mounted with real hinges and shutter dogs always look best. The shutter dog is the piece of metal that holds the shutters back to the wall and is usually shaped like the letter “S” . But mounting shutters this way adds significant cost and this subtle detail may not fit within your budget. But you can always afford to get the size right, even if the shutters are purely for decoration and permanently screwed to the wall. All it takes is a bit of thought, planning, and a tape measure.

For more articles on Home Building and Remodeling, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

Dan’s blog is called Sometimes, Sometimes Not.

Dan has a Dave Barry-ish way of writing and looking at things. He writes about everything from Home Improvement to Goats (Not his goats. He doesn’t have any, thank goodness). And life with his two kids, Bella and Grey, and his lovely wife Melissa, give him plenty of material. Like any typical family, odd things happen, both funny and distressing. And you can count on Dan to give it a spin that keeps you reading.

Take a look and let him know what you think. I’ll bet you find your self bookmarking his blog or subscribing to it and coming back over and over to see what going on in the Dan Hirsch household.

I do know why manufacturers of pressed wood and synthetic wood doors favor the embossed wood grain.

It is hard to manufacture pressed wood or any other synthetic product that is perfectly smooth. Minor imperfections are hard to prevent. The embossing disquises the manufacturing irregularities and that helps hold down costs. But doors made of “barn board” quality wood is not what you would expect to see in a well built house. It might be okay for exterior siding, but not for a home’s interior.

Thankfully, more and more manufacturers are offering smooth faced pressed board doors and at reasonable costs. Do yourself a favor and make sure you specify a smooth finish on your interior doors. Your home’s appearance and value will be enhanced by doing so.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

But another rule in laying wood flooring has to do with the aesthetics or look of the flooring. As a general rule, wood flooring looks best when running in the same direction as the longest dimension of the room. For instance, if the room is ten feet by sixteen feet, the wood flooring will look best when running in the sixteen foot direction. The narrower the room, the more important this is. So in a hallway that is only four feet wide, the wood flooring really needs to run the length of the hall and not crosswise, if at all possible. In rooms that are more square in shape, the direction of the wood flooring is not as critical.

Also consider the view you have of the floor when you enter the room. The wood flooring looks best if laid perpendicular to your view direction. This will disquise the cracks between the planks. If you are looking straight down the planks, the seams between the boards will be more obvious. And if the seams are not perfectly straight, you will more readily see that variation, too.

It’s not always practical to run the flooring in these optimal directions. But if you can do it, the benefits are real. If the floor joists below the wood flooring are running the wrong direction for the way you want the flooring to look in the room, ask your builder to install wood blocking beneath the floor from joist to joist to support a floor running parallel to the joists. This will cost a bit more, but it will be worth it in narrow spaces, like hallways.

Of course, selecting the right wood for your floor is very important. Consider the grain and color of the wood and how it will look with other wood items in the room, like kitchen cabinets and wood trim.

One other neat feature is to install flush thresholds between rooms. I show photos of this and describe it in detail in my book, Designing Your Perfect House.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

Consider reinventing your house. Remodeling includes all sorts of home improvement projects. Projects that change the characteristics of your house and make it suit your new life situation are more than a simple sprucing up and remodeling. I call this “reinventing” your house. Why not consider reinventing your family house into your retirement house?

Our families and our lives evolve. When you are raising your children, an upstairs master bedroom makes sense. You want to be near the kids in case they need you during the night. But when they leave home and you are getting older, those stairs don’t look as easy to climb several times a day. And you know that as more years go by, there is some chance that you may not be able to climb them at all. Many homes can be reinvented from a family house to a retirement house with the addition of a first floor master bedroom suite. It might take some clever planning and confirmation that there is enough room on your property to do it. An architect can help you with that.  But reinventing means you won’t have to spend all that money on commissions and moving costs. Instead, that money can go directly toward the cozy first floor master bedroom suite with the fancy new bathroom you’ve dreamed of.

Staying where you are and reinventing your house has many other benefits. If you like where you currently live, if you have great neighbors, familiar stores, doctors, and restaurants nearby, if your church is around the corner, and you live close to many of the things you like, why start over? Change your house into your retirement house and let those upstairs bedrooms simply become guest rooms for the children and grandchildren.

Remodeling  and reinventing can cause some turmoil. But selling a house, buying a new one, and moving can be an even bigger hassle. And with the construction industry being slow, construction costs are down.

Spend some time thinking of what your present house could be. Ask an architect for some ideas. He or she might see things you don’t. You might surprise yourself with the possibilities.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

Jackie asked: 

“We are reconfiguring our stairs and would like to know what is an adequate space to have from the last step to front door?  It is currently 74 inches – w/ the new configuration it would decrease to 60.  Is that enough room?  Thanks for your time.”

My Answer:

“In average-sized houses, 60 inches should be adequate. If the stairs are offset (off to the side) a bit from the front door, as they commonly are, this is even better. Either way, 60 inches is enough to greet your guests without having to stand on the stairs to do so. If your house is quite large in its other aspects, then this might seem like too small a space relative to everything else. 

You might try mocking this up. Lay a box or something the size of the first step in the position the new steps will occupy. Then try coming in the front door and see how it feels. Also try going to the front door to answer it as someone enters. This will give you a good feel for the appropriateness of the space. If that feels right, then it will work fine.”

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.