Look Before You Leap

We are beginning the construction of a new home and are in the process of calculating costs and completing all material takeoffs. I designed this house plan in consultations with my client over the past 3 months and it is time to put the pedal to the metal.

There is an old story about a man traveling to Chicago and trying to make his way around the city and finding it to be a difficult proposition. He wandered for a while and ended up in front of the then Sears Tower. As he tried, in vain, to picture where he was and then how to get to where he wanted to go, frustration set in. Even as he opened the map of the city, which he had purchased, he was overwelmed by the scope of what lay before him, and the task seemed an impossible mission. Suddenly it dawned on him that if he went up to the top of the Sears Tower and got his bearings while looking out over the city, indentifying the places he wished to go would become an easier task. After returning to the street, he felt assured of the direction he needed to go and had the map of the city and the location of his venues now tatooed in his mind. The moral to the story is this: Have the complete picture of the task in your mind before you start. A roadmap, as it were, of how to get from point A to point B. It requires careful planning and a method of organizing all of the pieces on paper in black and white. Creating your roadmap for success.

With that said, we can begin. I filed the application for the building permit 4 months ago and have just received notice that it is ready to be picked up. I have gone over the houseplans and have calculated all of the building materials to be used. I then compiled them into an excel speadsheet to organize each area of construction and determined the estimated cost of construction. This is my roadmap. It gives me a complete picture of not only the construction costs, but the order in which each area of construction must be completed and an accurate timeline for the scheduling of each sub contractor and the completion of the project.

At the building site we have measured and staked exactly where the house is to sit on the property. We have taken elevations shots with the laser transit to determine the amount to be excavated. We have layed out the site for where to store the spoils of excavated material, installed the silt fence for storm water runoff protection and can now begin the dig. The excavation sub contractor has been scheduled and it is time to move dirt.

This is always an exciting time for clients as they can begin to see the physical progress of their project and start to dream of an actual move in date. Stay tuned for further insights of the construction process.

John Anderson