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Thinking about building your own house?
Designing your own house?
Big House Red can help.
First, if you already have the land, go sit on the land with a compass and look around for awhile.
Big House Red is all for encouragement, but a few cautionary tales might also help you.
Contact Big House Red with your project ...
It's all about the order of things.
- - Land
- - Orientation on site - light, wind, south exposure for passive solar, approach to house,
saving mature trees on the site.
- - Design (blueprints… take your time thinking everything through)
- - Soil survey by a septic engineer (usual cost about $1,000 for a report on where to locate
a septic system - this is required in order to get a building permit from the municipality/city)
- - Building permit (must submit blueprints for house, and septic survey)
- - Excavation
- - Foundation
- - Excavator backfills around the foundation with weeping tile and crushed stone for
drainage, then soil
- - Drill well
- - Framing the house (or methods other than stick frame: eco-brick, straw bale, pre-fab modules)
- - Glue and screw the plywood floorboards down… glue them! Then they won't squeak!
(many
framers won't do it… so get out there and use that glue gun yourself, as they're screwing on the plywood sheets.)
- - Roof - get this sealed before any insulation is even opened
- - Electrical
- - Plumbing
- - Insulation
- - Sealant and vapour barrier
- - Windows
- - Insulating around windows - so, so important to do this well.
- - Drywall
- - Drywall mudding and taping and sanding (the worst job ever… get a professional)
- - Painting
- - Trimming the windows and doors
- - Interior doors and trim
- - Flooring
- - Fireplace/masonry heater/woodstove installation
- - Kitchen cupboards, appliances
…and on and on.
Big House Red can offer a range of helpful advice ...
from a general information overview at the beginning of the building process, through design ideas,
to ongoing consults during the construction stages of your home ...
If you'd like to have Big House Red play around with your preoccupations when you were 12,
contact: design@bighousered.com.
INTERIORS Magazine Feature Article (PDF) |
