A Lifestyle and Cost Decision In House Building
Because you’re building a house yourself to save money, you should give serious consideration to building a two-story house.
A two-story house is much cheaper to build than a one-story of comparable square footage.
My experience has been that savings of ten thousand dollars are possible on a 4000 square foot house. The savings accrue in primarily two areas: foundation and roofing.Â
The perfect cost-saving two-story design is commonly called a “box.”
This type of design has exterior walls that, in most cases, rise straight from ground to roof level with few or no offsets or corners that aren’t necessary.
Such a design is by far the most cost-efficient. It allows one square foot of foundation to serve two square feet of living space, with the same being true for roofing.
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A box design doesn’t need to look “boxy”.
This attractive design is a house I built that is a virtually perfect example of the “two-for-one” principle.
The lifestyle question is primarily about stairs. Some people just don’t like
them.That issue can be dealt with to some extent by placing the master bedroom downstairs. I look at stairs as aerobic exercise I should be doing anyway.
I don’t advocate one over the other. It’s strictly an individual choice.