The Concept

I started off with very little in the way of "concept" for my house. It was only a couple of weeks ago I was driving around and I noticed a few things about most of the houses on the market:

1. If they were nice, they were big.
2. If they were big, they were expensive.
3. If they weren't expensive, they were far out of town.
4. If they were mysteriously inexpensive, they always had a flaw.

I'm no real estate agent but I knew I was going to be in somewhat of a bind to find something I really liked. The problem is that most people who want a smaller home want it because they need something to start with. Typically, when this is the mentality, they'll use a lot of vinyl, carpet and laminate. Also, the cabinets and fixtures are typically cheap. As mentioned above, I'm no real estate agent but I do know what I like and believe it or not, I'm somewhat particular.

So during my drive I spotted a model home for the Elizabeth Park subdivision. I had been talking to Bill and he mentioned building but being the typical person who listens to everything they hear from people who don't really know what they're talking about, I assumed building was a lot more expensive. I took a little tour of the model home and was very impressed. Beautiful hardwood floors/cabinets, nice rooms, nice windows and so on. When I asked the price I was a bit taken back.

"$166,000 was the selling price", she said.

Needless to say, I was a little taken back. Everything I saw out there in a similar "class" of home was usually around $180K at least (used). However, like most things in life, there was a catch. This home was a bungalow with an unfinished basement. Not exactly a lot of living space for a blossoming family. And then I learned my first lesson:
Lesson #1: If you don't need a finished basement, there is no point in finishing it.

Finishing a basement can cost upwards of $20K in a 1000 sq. ft home. That's an extra $20K tied up in the mortgage that you are paying interest on. So let's say, hypothetically speaking, you didn't need a basement finished right away. You decide to get the builder to finish it anyways because you will have a need in 5 years. Over the course of those 5 years, at a 6% rate, compounded annually you'd be looking at an $7K in interest. The calculation isn't quite that straightforward but you get the drift. Why not just wait and do it in 5 years?

Back to the house. I liked the bungalow. I called Bill and we chatted about the house and some of the other things I could do conceptually. And here comes another lesson.

Lesson #2: When given the choice, get off the main road and up onto a side street.

Pretty self explanatory. Side street houses demand high resale by a fair margin.

Bill's first suggestion was to get on Aragon Crescent as opposed to on the main "drag". Secondly he recommended a split entry as opposed to a bungalow. The idea was that in a split entry more of your house is above ground and you'll typically get more light in the basement. Simply put, they make for better rec rooms. After he picked my brain a bit more he asked me if I was interested in a garage. If I were to list my priorities beforehand, garage would have been somewhere fairly high up on the list. This made me incredibly excited. Any houses I had looked at with garages were well over $200K.

We chatted some more, and Bill went off to get a conceptual drawing created. The first one I received looked as follows:


As a first draft I was actually quite pleased with the results. The main floor layout was as follows:

And the basement...

Once again, for a first draft, not bad at all! I had some suggestions and we have since made some revisions. I'll get into my thoughts on these layouts and the proposed revisions next time. Until then, I'm Ty Pennington.