Smarties Bar & Grill #76

How much is that costing? Are the costs of materials going down or up over the last year? Are you doing it yourself? Sounds like a lot of work.

I'm hoping to close on my land in the next week or so. I'm going to build a barndominium. I hope I'm not biting off more than I can chew. I'm not doing the slab, the metal shell, the spray foam insulation, or the drywall. That leaves framing, electrical, plumbing, painting, cabinets, countertops, air conditioning, solar installation, windows, floors, security cameras, landscaping, and building some of my furniture. I hope to move in within a year and finish within 2. I'll live only with my 21 year old son, so I'll have help, unless he gets married and moves out. He's a diesel mechanic. I have friends who will help and/or provide technical support for electrical, framing, security camera and home theater wiring, and air conditioning. When I get started, I may start a thread.

 

barndominiums are getting to be kind of trendy around here but vary wildly in size and quality. Some are neat. Some are, well, peculiar to be polite about it.

 

Mine will probably be a little bit man cavy. I'm a 56 year old recently divorced guy. I'm going to do what I want, but I think I have decent taste. My dad framed high dollar custom homes for a living. He'll keep me in line and make sure I do quality work. I'll leave the closed cell foam exposed on the metal ceiling and paint it flat black. I'll have dropped lighting and the sheet rock walls will go to the ceiling. Walls will be a nearly white gray. I will make a butcher block island and the rest of the counters will be poured in place concrete. I'll make curtain rods and some light fixtures with iron pipe. Floors will be polyurethane stained concrete. The house and the shop will be 1200sf each and bordered by a 60x15 patio awning. Solar on the roof and super efficient appliances. 26.5 SEER AC. Dad is giving me his tools for the shop. Table saw, planer, joiner, router, drill press, dust filtration, radial arm saw, etc.... I can use them to build custom features after I move in.

 

Going in for surgery Friday morning. Broke my ankle a little bit over 3 weeks ago on a dirt bike at 8 miles an hour off road.

Not a very complicated break but the bone has shifted and I will need to go under anesthesia and have a plate with screws.

How much might that cost out of pocket you ask? The answer is 28,000$

So between the hospital and the surgeon I had to pony up $3,000 cash up front.

I did get it reduced from the original 28,000 but it still hurts.

 

Ouch. I try to limit my injuries to "on the job" incidents. The hernia operation was from lifting batteries at work, free. I had to have my gall bladder removed using my insurance. I think it cost me about $5k. Good luck with the healing. Take your time and do what the doctor says.

 

Well you can't go but so weird with a 1200 sq. foot building. I've seen a few fugly monsters where they went too big and tried to shoe horn in too many different exterior features. We have one locally that is like a a barn exterior on the top floor, a cape cod style on the bottom floor with a stone faux silo style staircase stuck on one corner of the front and the back of the house has a completely different exterior (more generic) look than the front. It was stick built from scratch so it isn't like they were just retrofitting something. They spent a king's ransom on something that looks like they couldn't decide on a cohesive exterior look.

 

The 'while yer at it' gets expensive.... but, you'll have a nice place when you're done!

 

Holy cow! Especially if you can't work for weeks (unless you can sit) that is gonna hurt.

My back surgery (December) cost me about $8,000 out of pocket, and I DO have insurance. I think the tag price was about $24,000, but we know that prices get jacked before being submitted to the insurance.

If you haven't had general anesthesia before, make sure someone is with you for the first day or two afterwards. It took me about 3 days to fully shake off the effects and side effects.

 

Unfortunately I can't work until it's healed so that will probably be six more weeks but fortunately I do have some money in the bank. It's damn sure eating into my savings but I won't be broke anyways.

Hopefully you healed up fine.

 

This is a computer mock up of my design. I'll eventually add some landscaping. The living area and shop are in the same 40x60 building. I'm hoping not to bust my $250k building budget because I want to pay cash. I'd like to do it for $200k and put $50k down on the financed land.

 

Would shipping container home be allowed? People make incredible spreads out of those. Virtually bomb proof for storms and well below your budget

 

I can do anything where I'm buying, but I like the open space of a metal building. The floor plan can be as open as I like inside a metal building. In this case 40x60. I can take shop space to add bedrooms if the need arises. Framing walls inside a building is easy. I worked for my dad as a teen.

 

One of my favorite youtube channels is Life Uncontained. A young couple sell everything and put an RV on some remote East Texas land and build a shipping container home. They have no electricity or running water at the start. It takes 3-4 years and they have their second kid by the time they are finished.

 

about 3×30,000 I started off with, but we’ve had a lot to project. And we started when prices were high safe come down some of. Hold on a second there’s a Premium some sort.

 

sold my Harley a few months back, managed not get injured badly, but I still have another Harley in the garage.

I think if I had known how much I was going to spend out of bulldozed the hundred year old adobe stuck a nice double wide trailer on it lol.
Sorry, that should’ve been a parade of some sort.

 

Out of is supposed to be, I would have

 

OSB was up in the $40+ range a year or two ago. It's about $9 for 7/16" 4x8 sheet now, so prices seem to be coming down. Good for me. I'm hoping for less than $40k for lumber, electrical, and plumbing. I'll still have spray foam insulation, utility hookups, septic, paint, windows, drywall, light and plumbing fixtures, tile, a tractor, gravel for driveways and storage container foundation, etc......... It's tough to budget accurately.

Once the place is built I have to prioritize what's left by how much money I have left. Landscaping, fencing, automatic gate, storage container, fruit and nut trees, custom home accents, screened patio, hot tub, etc.....

It's scary and exciting all at once.

 

My cat Raedwald has befriended a feral cat on the farm and got it pregnant.
She is really timid but comes in the cat flap and helps herself to his food.
She's huge. Struggles to get out the flap so it won't be long now.
Anyone want a kitten?

 

Why isn’t your cat neutered?

 

Because I didn't know there were any females on the farm.
I was going to neuter him when he got to about 2 years old. Give him a chance to develop his character.

 

Pictures will be required. I'm a sucker for a purr.

 

This feral cat looks young.
She only turned up a few months ago.

 

I'm hoping I can find them in time to get the kittens socialised so I can find homes for them.
It's actually quite hard to find kittens these days when you want one.

 

We seem to have more and more, the shelters are full to overflowing. Spring is birthing time around here.

 

We can’t adopt a cat that hasn’t been spayed/neutered. There’s a big push over here to cut down on feral cats. Two cats can turn into over 10,000 cats in just 10 years, so every bit helps.