Building Your Home w/o A Mortgage

[Elwar]

That's pretty nifty--wish they had pictures of what the houses look like though.

They had pictures on the main page.

[Elwar]

Also from their site: "Note that doors and windows are provided by customer".

From the looks of it, they provide the frame and the siding. This is about the cheapest part of a house even though it appears to be a large part of a house. You can put up one wall with about $100 worth of material.

The big money comes in the form of the finishing touches. The windows, plumbing, electric, etc.

You also have to factor in the foundation and getting permits.

And when you go to sell the house, it is questionable whether you could list it as a modular, a prefabricated home or a construction built home. The price for the former on a resale is usually much lower.

[Icymudpuppy]

Polished Concrete is virtually impervious to the weather. If you do polished concrete, you can expect your structure to outlast you by multiple generations. You've seen it at some athletic buildings in the locker rooms, probably. That glass-smooth shiny concrete that is slippery as hell when it gets wet. These days with modern concrete dyes, they can be made to look nice, too.

[roho76]

That's pretty nifty--wish they had pictures of what the houses look like though.

This one: MacArthur » 1080 sq ft, at $18,790 is affordable enough to buy as an in-law suite and plunk down on your property.

I know, right? I was just amazed at how little you could pick up a 3,000Sq/Ft house.

[roho76]

Polished Concrete is virtually impervious to the weather. If you do polished concrete, you can expect your structure to outlast you by multiple generations. You've seen it at some athletic buildings in the locker rooms, probably. That glass-smooth shiny concrete that is slippery as hell when it gets wet. These days with modern concrete dyes, they can be made to look nice, too.

This is what I plan on doing (with the floor at least). I would really like to use concrete for the walls. I'm just wondering what the options and cost are for making it look decent as a living structure. Basically I don't want it to look like I live in a basement. I know there are molds that you put inside the forms to give it a styled look but I have to look into it a little more.

[roho76]

Passive vs. Active solar architecture.

http://mhathwar.tripod.com/thesis/so...chitecture.htm




Shipping container home ideas:

http://residentialshippingcontainerp...%20You%20Start

[helmuth_hubener]

http://www.budgethomekits.com/plans

Found this earlier while poking around the net. The largest unit they make is the Texan (of course, right?) 3,000sq/ft $39,000.

But really, that's not all that "budget" when you can buy used mobile homes.

Buy 3 14X70s for $10,000 each and put them together. There's your 3,000 feet, for $30,000. And you don't have to do all the work and have all the trouble of essentially being your own general contractor putting together one of these kits. No construction know-how necessary.

And if you do have construction know-how, then instead just buy the trailers that need work for $5,000 or less.

This is not as romantic as the other ideas on this thread, I know, but it's far more practical.

[kuckfeynes]

This stuff is so interesting and definitely a pet project I'd like to pursue at some point.

A good buddy from NOLA with no construction experience bought, gutted, and rebuilt a shotgun by himself after Katrina. Really left an impression on me.

Are there any good forums dedicated to this kind of thing? I've done a bit of Googling but haven't found any that active.

[Kelly.]

Are there any good forums dedicated to this kind of thing? I've done a bit of Googling but haven't found any that active.

http://countryplans.com/smf/index.ph...0&action=forum

[Elwar]

This is what I plan on doing (with the floor at least). I would really like to use concrete for the walls. I'm just wondering what the options and cost are for making it look decent as a living structure. Basically I don't want it to look like I live in a basement. I know there are molds that you put inside the forms to give it a styled look but I have to look into it a little more.

My floor in my bedroom is polished concrete. The former owner was a contractor so he did it himself.

Basically the floor is just the poured concrete on the foundation. He then painted the floor a dark brown and then cut large grooves with some sort of saw to make it look like the floor was just a bunch of 3' tiles.

It looks pretty good but my wife complains constantly (for good reason) about keeping the floor clean. I have 3 dogs and she has to first use a vacuum to pick up the big stuff then go over it again to get the dog hair, then mop it. Then from there she still has not figured out how to get the shine to come back right other than buying lacquer and redoing the floors every once in a while. The best way that the shine could be done would be with one of those buffers you see at the grocery store. We do not have one of those. It literally takes her about 3 hours to do the 600 sqft floor.