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Thinking about building a house in the mountains — advice? (1 Viewer)

Ditkaless Wonders said:
Wondering why build, with permitting and construction hassles.  Why not buy?  I bet their are thousands of very nice homes available.  Homes built by guys much like you, with the same dreams, homes which no longer work for them, life having moved on?  Building could take years.  Find one turn key ready.
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Sometimes it’s not so much the destination but the journey.  Plus it seems cool to create something from nothing, and then have it to pass on for generations (or for them to sell the day after I bite it).  

 
Otis said:
Sometimes it’s not so much the destination but the journey.  Plus it seems cool to create something from nothing, and then have it to pass on for generations (or for them to sell the day after I bite it).  
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Some marvelous Timber Frame companies out there.  Couple that with and expert exterior company specializing in stone patios incorporating lighting, a hot tub and pool grotto and an outdoor kitchen.  Add in a nice six gar garage for all of your Otistoys, boats, snow mobiles, four wheeler, with a MIL suite over the garage for guests.  The outdoor space is where you will be living and if well done is even useful in the winter for après ski.  A nice hot tube grotto with a nearby fire pit during a snowfall can be quite nice, not a bad spot for a bit of wine and to unwind while the kids commit havoc inside.

 
parasaurolophus said:
He isnt really describing "living in the mountains." 
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Otis looking to enjoy the fruits of his labors. Maybe a ski home, a place to Christmas with the kids, a retreat from the City, a place to sit on a stone porch, by the fire pit, and to play his guitar to the night sky and have a bit of a drink, maybe a nice cigar, a place to have his buddies for a poker weekend now and again.  Good for him.  He has achieved a measure of success and with that comes a few rewards.  If he can build a place to help him relax and to make memories with his family and friends I say good for him.  He will have a learning curve to go through.  Stocking a second home can get confusing.  What you are looking for is always in the other home.  Also, winterizing a home one does not occupy can be a bit of an organizational chore, but those things come. Growing up my folks had a lake home.  Some of my fondest memories occurred out there.  Maybe that will be the case for Otis girls. 

 
Otis said:
The annoying of this for me is when they bug you for the tiny details like "hey what faucet fixture do you want in the sink" and what color tiles do we want in the 2nd bathroom.  Stuff like that is just a who cares for me.  
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That was the worst part of the whole process for me and why we paid an interior designer to make all (most) of those decisions. My wife and I spent a lot of time on Houzz.com picking out pictures of rooms that we liked and sending them to her. The designer took those pictures and used them as inspiration to design our house. Pretty much everything she selected, we are going with. Made the process much easier, albeit more expensive. It was worth the added expense however so I didn't have to deal in the minutiae. 

I can look at a picture of a room and be like "yeah, this is what I like" but if I had to build that room from scratch, no way could I pick out everything individually. 

 
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Senor Schmutzig said:
That was the worst part of the whole process for me and why we paid an interior designer to make all (most) of those decisions. My wife and I spent a lot of time on Houzz.com picking out pictures of rooms that we liked and sending them to her. The designer took those pictures and used them as inspiration to design our house. Pretty much everything she selected, we are going with. Made the process much easier, albeit more expensive. It was worth the added expense however so I didn't have to deal in the minutiae. 

I can look at a picture of a room and be like "yeah, this is what I like" but if I had to build that room from scratch, no way could I pick out everything individually. 
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I always hated the rooms in home magazines that gave you the color names. Customers would want to copy it and be shocked when that color on their wall didn't look like a 2x4 picture in a magazine taken in different lighting. 

 
Otis said:
I mean, I'd love to be in this for under a mil.  Maybe if we decrease the size of the house -- which may make sense as noted above if we want the house to be energy efficient and self sustaining -- maybe cost will come down a bit too.  And seeing some land may help.  Otis has zero concept of what 5 acres, or 10 acres, or 30 acres, or 50 acres looks like.  I just know my home is on like a third of an acre.  And that's a good chunk of space around here.  

Really just want it to be big enough that we don't have neighbors building on top of us, and we have some open spaces and views and some land to explore.  Thinking we could forge a secret path into the woods, and have the contractor build a bad-### treehouse while he's there.
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Treehouse Master

https://www.nelsontreehouse.com/show

 
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Living in the mountains off grid with a big pool and multiple tv's.  Yes.  Living off the land indeed.  It's like ordering 3 big macs and a diet soda. Or wiping before you poop.

 
One of my fond memories as a kid was my dad's poker Weekend at the lake house.  It was in the spring, before we moved out there for the summer.  He would have his poker group out for a full weekend of poker and some beer drinking and some BBQing.  We boys would be out there to fetch beers, start grills, grab more chips, fetch matches, clean ashtrays, and what not. Often at the end of the weekend my Dad would have enough to buy Mom a new car.

I remember one year during a break in the game a bunch of the guys came down to the lake where my brothers and I were putting in the pier.  There were some ducks swimming around and those guys were tossing them Ritz crackers. (They were not throwing them for distance, the fools!)  They started betting on which duck would get the cracker.  They each picked a male mallard, none being willing to bet on the tinier lone female.  I laughed and one of the guys got offended.  I told him he was wrong and he said if I was so sure maybe I ought to put my money where my mouth was.  It was a $100 a pick. That was a lot of money in 1970, all the money I had from shoveling driveways in the winter and I also knew I was to be seen and not heard.  I declined.  The guy rode me a bit and my Dad heard this as he was walking down.  I looked at him for permission to bet and he nodded.  I took the female and agreed that the loudmouth could throw the cracker so he could get a fair toss.  He tried to toss it in front of the male he was betting on and away from the second male and the female.  My girl turned and got it with the two males following closely behind.  We went twice more and each time I won.  The loudmouth who was losing his shirt all weekend asked how, how did I know?  My dad nodded to me, meaning I should tell him.  I said because right now the males are not looking for food, they are competing for a mate and they are trying to stay on her tail.  They are not interested in the cracker. I was not actually gambling, I knew the outcome before it happened.  The loudmouth smiled and then said to my Dad, "Jerry, these kids are as ruthless as you when it comes to this weekend".  In the end he was a good sport about paying up.

 
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Find your region's equivalent of Lucas lagoons, the company that does the insane pools show.  Planning your pool and hot tub grotto, your outdoor kitchen at the same time as you design your house, your geothermal field, and your septic field is essential.  Big savings in the long run.  You can't have these interfering one with the other.  also, outdoor electrical outlets need to be plentiful, including thinking about your holiday lighting needs and your electrical needs for your yearly major blowout party and for your kids weddings. 

 
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I wish I was better iFriends with Otis... his future cabin sounds awesome.

P.S. I was thinking an A-Frame at first, but they are not typically big enough to host multiple families at once.  Godspeed GB. 

 
Jaysus said:
I wish I was better iFriends with Otis... his future cabin sounds awesome.

P.S. I was thinking an A-Frame at first, but they are not typically big enough to host multiple families at once.  Godspeed GB. 
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I'm fairly sure we're all going to be invited to the housewarming party.  I mean, I'd be surprised if we weren't.

 
I am willing to become O's personal trainer, in the event this mountain cabin comes to fruition. I have no formal training, nor am I particularly fit, nor do I even have much knowledge of fitness/diet/exercise. However, I will spend every moment that Otis is tempted to guzzle wine and gorge on Oreos, pelting him n the pauch with Hershey's Special Dark chocolate minis.

 
Another thought, for waaaaaay down the line...

Was at a friend's house on the beach over Labor Day; she had just bought it, and we were talking about the random stuff about owning a second home. She mentioned that she did not want to rent it, and when she had been going over the final papers with the lawyer, he asked if she was interested in renting it, she said no, and he said she would need to get a whole different set of insurance if she was going to use it for income. She was happy! She could use that as an excuse to decline offers from people to rent it. Now, if someone wanted to borrow it, she is fine, just can't get income.

 
When are we looking to break ground?    We're going to need multiple web cams on this debacle.    This is going to be way better than that eagle laying eggs.

 
how much snow do they get up there that would impact my decision how to build the house and two the ole west branch of the deleware is one hell of a fine trout water so keep that in mind take that to the bank bromigo

 
one other thing i will add i think about three quarters of chicagoland drives four to four and a half hours every weekend to get to northern wisconsin or michigan so if 2 hours plus gets you el cheapo land think what three or four would do and a lot of the second city seems to make it work i know because the traffic in the waukee on fridays and sundays is unbearable most of the summer from all the fibs and fibtabs take that to the bank brotis 

 
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SWC said:
how much snow do they get up there that would impact my decision how to build the house and two the ole west branch of the deleware is one hell of a fine trout water so keep that in mind take that to the bank bromigo
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They get snow in the Catskills. It's not Rockies or Sierra level snow, but still snow and cold.

 
Otis said:
The annoying of this for me is when they bug you for the tiny details
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Purchase, renovate, and sell a couple of crappier homes before you do this. That way you can educate yourself on the process from start to finish. It's not often that an "education" generates a profit, but if you do it correctly you'll get all the first-hand knowledge you are looking for - and even if you break even in the end, still gain value by learning how to avoid making simple, stupid mistakes on your "final product" you guys are talking about building here.

The quoted feels like a red flag to me about "not being able to finish what you start." When, in reality, focusing on those tiny details is a perfect starting place for you to begin your education; moving on to bigger, more complicated home-building concepts as you go.

 
ChainsawU said:
Purchase, renovate, and sell a couple of crappier homes before you do this. That way you can educate yourself on the process from start to finish. It's not often that an "education" generates a profit, but if you do it correctly you'll get all the first-hand knowledge you are looking for - and even if you break even in the end, still gain value by learning how to avoid making simple, stupid mistakes on your "final product" you guys are talking about building here.

The quoted feels like a red flag to me about "not being able to finish what you start." When, in reality, focusing on those tiny details is a perfect starting place for you to begin your education; moving on to bigger, more complicated home-building concepts as you go.
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This is a good post.  But @Otis doesn't have time for this.  This isn't about building wealth, it is about spending it.  :)  

 
I look forward to teaching Oats how to throw a baseball in the rolling meadow behind his house.  It'll be like the ending scene of Field Of Dreams.  

 
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