Investor · Sarasota, FL · Member since 2008 · 17k+ posts · 17k+ votes
Interested in following along with our most ambitious project ever (both online and in the real world)?
My wife and I are getting ready to tear-down and rebuild our personal residence, and we're documenting the entire process online. This includes live video streaming, time-lapse videos, detailed plans/specs, pictures, daily blog updates, budgets, schedules, contractor bids/invoices, and a whole lot more!
Investor · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2013 · 27 posts · 5 votes
12y
This is pretty awesome!. I just checked out the cam and within a few seconds, saw a call drive-by and the cam quality was incredible. The frame rate had the car going by at real time speed. Therefore the demo should look pretty awesome! I'm going to mark my calendar (while on vacation @ Hilton Head Island) to make sure I catch the demo!
Although my start in REI is slow (still scaling back my lifestyle to get in a better position to invest), there is no doubt the generosity of your time spent sharing and documenting your experiences will help save me money hand over fist. A serious thank you from a small time newbie.
Good luck J and Carol -- Absolutely love TheScottPad!
Awesome J, it has been fun following along. Are you all still under budget?
Our budget was $350-360K, but it looks like we're going to end up closer to $370K -- so we're a little bit over. Some overages are due to changes we've made along the way (cabinet upgrade, for example), some was due to underestimation of costs in Maryland (granite, for example) and some are due to costs that I forgot to forecast or were unexpected (for example, we paid nearly $5K just to haul excess dirt off the property during various excavation and grading work).
Investor · Sarasota, FL · Member since 2008 · 17k+ posts · 17k+ votes
11y
We were (very) rained out yesterday, so today was the day to finish up the exterior. Unfortunately, it was 18 degrees out when I woke up and it wasn't scheduled to get above freezing for the day. Luckily, my contractors rallied for me and moved mountains (literally, in the case of my dirt hauling guy).
My driveway guys were hauling base gravel to our house while waiting to find out if the asphalt plant was even going to be operating in this weather. At the same time, they couldn't get their roller machine to start due to the cold. Meanwhile, my trucking company couldn't get their backhoe started either. And my landscaper couldn't put seed/straw down until everyone else finished their jobs.
At 5pm tonight, in the dark, my driveway guys were finishing up, and my trucking company had a half load of dirt left to take. My driveway guy hopped on his bobcat and helped move dirt, while my landscaper finished up the rest of the property other than where the dirt was.
Ultimately, the driveway is completed, the dirt should be gone by sunrise tomorrow and my landscaper (who ran out of straw) will be back by 8am to finish the last bit of seeding. We're scheduled for our final building inspection for tomorrow, and hopefully there won't be any unforeseen issues -- assuming there aren't, we could get our occupancy approval tomorrow.
We still have some surveys, certifications and a final grading inspection to formally close out the permits, and hopefully that will come in the next week or so...
Investor · Sarasota, FL · Member since 2008 · 17k+ posts · 17k+ votes
11y
We are officially done...5 months and 5 days after starting...
We got our CO this morning, the hardwoods are being finished today and we'll be moving in tomorrow. That gives us 48 hours to get the house ready for Thanksgiving... :-)
Investor · Sarasota, FL · Member since 2008 · 17k+ posts · 17k+ votes
11y
Just to close out this thread, for those wondering what the build costs were for this house in Maryland -- we ended up spending about $364K. That's about $91/sf for the total interior square footage (including 3400 of finished sf and 600 sf of unfinished space but not including about 1000 sf of garage, porches or decks).
I'm comfortable calling my Maryland build costs for a house with a concrete basement and mid-grade finishes about $90/sf. If I had to do this project again, I probably could have gotten the cost down to about $85/sf, but we also called in some favors and saved some money here and there as well that we typically wouldn't have.
For reference, we were told working with a builder would have put us between $120-150/sf, so I'm pretty happy with our results/findings. Pretty crazy that we're about 50% higher than in Atlanta...but that just goes to show how divergent prices can be between markets.
Btw, we almost got to test out the interior sprinklers 24 hours after moving in...we had a little fire during Thanksgiving dinner...luckily, no harm done and the sprinklers weren't as sensitive as I had feared... :-)
Investor · Sarasota, FL · Member since 2008 · 17k+ posts · 17k+ votes
11y
Since I've been asked many, many times (and since I had never updated the website with these), here are some final pictures of the house. They're not professional pics by any means...just a few random snapshots we did when the house was semi-clean... :-)
I helped a friend mount an elevated train for his kids (or so he said ... kids are now gone, but the train is still there). We even put "tunnels" through interior walls so the train could go between rooms.
His wife hated it and took measure to remind me every time I saw her for about two years.
Investor · Sarasota, FL · Member since 2008 · 17k+ posts · 17k+ votes
11y
Originally posted by :
I helped a friend mount an elevated train for his kids (or so he said ... kids are now gone, but the train is still there). We even put "tunnels" through interior walls so the train could go between rooms.
We planned this when we built the house, and put the "tunnels" into the wall between those two rooms when we were framing and drywalling...that certainly made the rest of the construction work MUCH easier...
And luckily, the wife thought it as a great idea...the boys share a room right now, but when they're older, they'll each have one of those rooms...we plan to leave the holes in the wall so they can still have fun when they're in separate rooms (at least until they make us seal them up :).
South Bend, IN · Member since 2014 · 318 posts · 156 votes
10y
@J Scott Thank you for all the knowledge and resources you share and allowing us to learn from your experiences..... both good and bad here on BP and on 123Flip. Congrats also on finishing your pad!!!
I went to check out the site dedicated to your build at thescottpad.com but the site has an error message on the home page and several other pages. The only pages with some content are: Daily Updates, Schedule, Links and Final Photos Finally . I don't know if you were aware of this or not. It would be great to be see what is on the broken pages if you can get around to fixing them. Thanks again.