BILOXIHP-2769-1 - 4 Beds - 3.5 Baths - 2769 living sq. ft Biloxi House Plans

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I was able to employ a farmer who employed a deaf mute..

My wife and I purchased a lakefront lot on a wonderfully pristine Texas lake in 2000 with the intention of eventually building a lakefront home with retirement in mind. We were operating on a 20+ year plan. Two years ago my wife's parents approached us with a proposition. My father in law was planning on retiring in 2010 and was looking at their retirement options. While he wasn't in the position to buy a lakefront place that he wanted, he did have enough funds to help finance the construction of a home. We worked out an arrangement in that we would build a house on our lakefront in which they would live out the rest of their independent years. My wife and I would maintain ownership and my inlaws would have a wonderful retirement lifestyle that they wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise. It was a win-win for everyone. We began looking at house plans and were initially looking for a modest, easy to construct home. Since I was acting as the general contractor and doing a great deal of the work myself as well, design simplicity was important. But so was efficient use of space. We sat down together and drew up a list of key "care abouts". Those key care abouts included full masonry exterior, covered porches, separate laundry room, open eating/living space, a separate master suite area from the other bedrooms, spacious garage large enough to hold 2 cars and a golf cart. We also wanted a safe room as tornados are not uncommon in the area. My inlaws began surfing the web looking at various online designs and came across the HPG-1752-1 on one of the stock plan sites. It had most of what we were looking for, but needed a few modifications to suit our particular tastes and needs. I contacted the guys over at House Plan Gallery and discussed our desired changes. I was unbelievably surprised when I found out that not only could we make the requested changes, but that the modification cost was well below what I had expected! After a few email exchanges outlining the changes, delivered the modified draft plans for our review within a few days, and after one more round of tweaks, delivered what I thought would be our final plans at an extremely reasonable price. The first step in our construction process was site work. With plans in hand I met up with my site work subcontractor to lay out the plans on the lot. I already had a good idea where the house would sit and anticipated that we would need pad leveling to compensate for our gentle sloping lot. The plans called for slab on grade construction. Imagine my surprise when shooting the elevations, that the lot dropped nearly seven feet from one corner of the house to the other. The excavation sub estimated that he would need to bring in 60 truck loads of fill as well as cut one corner down 3 feet. I nearly choked on the estimate for fill dirt. Off handedly, I asked how much just to dig a whole. His estimate for a hole was significantly less. So right off the bat we were faced with a major decision. I could spend a large amount of money for dirt and end up with a 1800 sqft home sitting on very expensive dirt, or I could spend less money on a hole and potentially double the square footage of the house. Sure the basement would cost some money (so I thought), but I'd rather spend money on potentially usable space than dirt. So back to the drawing board... I contacted the designer and asked them what it would cost to modify our house plans for a basement foundation. Again the service was excellent, inexpensive, and fast. So now I had new plans with almost double the living area square footage. Our plan of record was to complete the upper level as originally planned, and to finish out the basement at some point in the future. As I mentioned the house is in Texas. Curious thing about Texas is that not a lot of houses are built with basements. Since the frost line is so shallow, slab on grade is perfectly adequate. But after a visit to the foundation engineer, I found out why else we don't build basements in Texas-expansive soils. I had a soil survey done as part of engineering the foundation and turns out my site had just about the worst expansive soil possible. This means tremendous lateral force is placed on basement walls as the soils expand and contract. The end result is a basement structure that my neighbors jokingly referred to as "Fort Hubbard". I have 10' tall, 10" thick poured in place concrete walls with a double layer of steel reinforcement, all sitting on belled, steel reinforced, concrete piers sunk 20' below the basement lower level. All of this sits on a concrete floor slab criss-crossed with 3' concrete beams. Since a tornado shelter was one of our "care abouts", it sits in one of the basement corners(under the garage) and is completely encased by reinforced steel to concrete per FEMA standards. The first quote from my concrete sub was for over $100K just for the basement alone. At this point I am certain I should have paid for the dirt. We started pushing dirt in October 2010, and it took until January 2011 to complete the basement(due to several weather related delays). I eventually worked with my concrete sub to get the price down based on some creative win-win negotiations and aggressive bid shopping. I decided early on in the construction process, given how much dirt work we planned and that I would be acting as the general contractor, to purchase a used skidsteer loader. My wife and father in law thought I was nuts, but I initially justified it in that we could always sell it for basically what we paid. It has proven to be invaluable and it has paid for itself at least twice so far. I have also found an interesting and effective owner builder tool. It's called craigslist.com. I typically post what I need, and am flooded by responses. I interview the more promising, check references, and cut a deal. I have also used it to source building supplies. Of all the subs I have hired so far, the framing sub proved to be the "best". My framer came to me via craigslist. He was relatively young, had two sizeable crews, and was building for several of the major custom home builders in the greater area. He was responsive, polite, and clearly knowledgeable. He was also looking to start building around the lake where my lot was located. We worked out a deal and set a start date. He was typically paid 45-60 days after completion by the major custom home builders, and I agreed to pay cash upon completion. My framer and his crew showed up bright and early on the start date and knocked out the whole house in three days. I couldn't believe it and was more than happy to hand over his payment upon completion. On the third day, he had both his crews show up to insure that he completed on time. I've seen lots of operations in various industries, but I have never seen one as efficient as this framing crew. Half way through the second day I realized that the job site was relatively quiet, except for the almost constant pneumatic nailing. I then noticed that the crew was working in pairs, one guy measured/nailed, the other guy cut and kept material flowing to the one nailing. I then noticed that the crew was all using what looked like sign language to communicate! If you ever seen bond traders flash hand signals in the trading pits to convey purchase prices, this is exactly what this looked like. But this crew had created their own sign language to convey measurements so that they didn't have to shout over the constant nailing. I commented at the end of the day to my framer how impressed I was, and he related this story to me. He had hired a deaf/mute on one of his crews about a year earlier. They had created, through trial and error, a way to provide him instructions on the site using hand signals. He realized that the deaf mute got more done than some of his other seasoned crew members, and that it was because he never had to repeat instructions. So he started making all of his crew use hand signs, and their productivity went up! Needless to say It was very humbling to see that through my home building efforts, I was able to employ a farmer who employed a deaf mute, who in all likelihood would have not had a job. Since I blew my construction budget almost from the beginning, I have had to resort to very creative ways to control costs. Craigslist has proven to very useful for this as well. My best materials deal was for my stone veneer. I found someone on craigslist that had 5 pallets of brand new stone veneer in almost the exact color and style I wanted. Better yet, they wanted 10% of the retail price. The veneer was overruns from a local manufacturer. The only kicker was you had to come pick it up from their home. I loaded up my skidsteer and within 30 minutes I had all five pallets loaded. That one trip netted me almost $4000 in savings and paid for nearly half of the skidsteer. My house is now dried in and most of the rough electrical, plumbing, and mechanical are completed. I still have a lot of work remaining, but it's predominantly subs from this point forward. Things like drywall, insulation, and septic system will go relatively quickly. The basement has inflated the original construction budget by almost 50% and delayed my completion date by almost 6 months. In the end I think it was worth it. All of my family is anxiously awaiting completion so that we can start enjoying the lake. It looks like we will miss this summer, but there is always next and many more after that. We appreciate the guys at this company for helping us to make our dream home a reality, and we'd definately recommend you to all of our friends and family looking for new house plans..

Mathew H.
Coppell, Texas

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This is our retirement home and the Lord willing, we will never move again!

We had decided to put a For Sale sign in our old front yard to see what would happen. Our home of 1597 sq. ft. sold in two days and we received exactly what we were asking for it. After searching through Cape Cod style homes and trying to make my husband happy, I knew we had not found the right house plan. One night, it was late and I could not sleep, I went to the computer and typed in the search box “House Plans.” A web site came up that I had never seen before. When I clicked on it and searched the features I was looking for, the house plan of my dreams came up. I knew right away that it was the house plan for us and that God had answered my prayers. The fact that all the rooms were on the main floor, the bedrooms were split, and my children would not have to share a bathroom were the main perks. I thanked God over and over again. In addition, when I showed my husband he could not believe how it had everything we prayed about. This is our retirement home and the Lord willing, we will never move again!

Sonya H.
Rock Hill, South Carolina

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Our builder says he had more compliments on this home than any home he has ever contracted!

My name is Sylvia, my husband is Larry. We live in Griffin, Georgia. We built our home two years ago this June. We love it. I’ll try to explain some of the things about the house along with pictures. I LOVE MY HOUSE. My husband and I are living in our sixth new home. When deciding to build this house we were looking for something that would fit our needs, without getting into a large home, because it’s just the two of us. We like the look of the craftsman style, although we made a few changes on the plans inside and on the outside. Changing these fit our need a little better. We opened the flex room, adding five large posts instead of keeping the walls. This space, now open, flows into the great room/den. We put the fireplace/gas logs on the wall area backing the hall, also adding bookcases next to the fireplace. We then put windows where the fireplace was shown on the plans. This makes a great view across our covered screened porch, deck, and yard and woods. In the kitchen, we kept the bar on the same level as the counter top; this opens up into the breakfast room. We added large windows in the breakfast room where it called for a door to the covered porch. We put the door in the great room on a wall along the side of two large windows. The master bedroom is great. We painted it a beautiful suede leather brown with white trim, this color flows into the master bath where we have a large walk-in shower. Pictures will hopefully show you the changes. Several reasons for choosing this floor plan were so we could make a few changes, making it our own. We looked at book after book, and plan after plan before choosing. But, this was the right choice for us. Our builder says he had more compliments on this home than any home he has ever contracted. Come for a visit. I’ll be happy to show you our home.

Sylvia & Larry P.
Griffin, Georgia

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The house plan was perfect! ...Great for entertainment and to enjoy after a long day at work...

The house plan was perfect... Its really hard to just name a few features that I like about this home design, but my favorites are: the tray ceiling in the Dining and Master Bedroom; the porch in the back; the bedrooms being completely on the other side of the house from the master bedroom; and the large oversized garage with the workshop area. When we purchased the plans, we wanted to find a contractor that would actually build the plans "to the letter" of the actual working drawings, so we asked the local building inspector for recommendations. We found a contractor from that recommendation, and the ball started rolling from there. We made a few modifications to home, onsite, including moving the fireplace to better allow for the placement of a full video/audio center cabinet. We also screened-in the porch and made the fourth bedroom a little larger so as to serve as my wife's scrap room. However, the largest modification was made on the bonus room, where we stick-built the roof to add an additional 1,500 sq ft which will include a full bath with a ~ 500 sq ft game room, 300 sq ft computer/media room, and a 700 sq ft home theater. This upper level is under construction as we speak and I can't wait to get in there! The porch was screen-in and the 4th bedroom was made larger to the wife's scrap room. Bathroom was removed to add space. Also window was added to wall where no window appeared in plan to add sunlight. However the largest modification was done to the Bonus Room. The roof was was stick built to add an additional 1500 sq ft. that will include a full bath with a 500 s/f game room, 300 s/f computer/media room and a 700 sq ft Home theater. This upper level is a home project under construction as I write. The home is great and a great layout. Great for entertainment and to enjoy after a long day at work.

Ray M.
Statesville, North Carolina

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We are so incredibly happy with our home and wouldn't have changed a thing!

I would guess that my husband and I looked at about 50 different house plan books over the course of two years, and could never quite find what we was looking for. We were looking for something that was open and didn't have ANY wasted space. I was briefly searching the internet one day and I just happened to come across a house plan that was absolutely perfect. It was actually the first house plan that I had ever seen that I didn't have to make changes on. It had the open living room and kitchen that we were looking for and wasn't full of hall ways, which is wasted space for us. We are so incredibly happy with our home and wouldn't have changed a thing! Thank you!

Shay M.
Madill, Oklahoma

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We constantly receive compliments about how beautiful the home is...

I went online and found your house plans and loved them! We were looking to build something a little smaller, than the house we previously had, as we were moving from the gulf coast up to north Mississippi. When I found this plan, it was perfect for us. We constantly receive compliments about how beautiful the home is and how the floorplan is so well laid-out and utilizes every square inch of space. I really enjoyed building the home, and would recommend this designer, wholeheartedly, to anyone looking for a beautiful, well-designed, and affordable home design...

Lottie B.
Eupora, Mississippi

BILOXIHP-2769-1 - The Breckenridge Lane