Our House: Design I Build: Post 7: Hit with a Little Reality

A.K.A. Fun Time is Over :)

In the last post we left off with the early times working through our schematic designs, playing with our vision, and otherwise not dealing with the real world a whole lot. Well, we had to do something about that so decided to schedule our first meeting with the City of Richmond.

I've gone over some of the difficulties we were facing....a building lot that had no access other than on paper, no utilities to speak of, a heavily used park trail on the right of way access, and was completely forested. Since so much of that needed City input we held our first meeting with a bunch of the relevant players...people from zoning, building and inspections, parks and rec, department of utilities, water resources, etc. This is not something that's needed on most projects, and in fact many residential projects require no prior meeting with the City before submitting drawings. If this project was for a client, I would suggest they bring me into the meeting to help review the project with the city reps and iron out the issues early on. So, given all of our issues, we figured let's get ahead of things and see what we're up against.

During and after the meeting it became apparent that all of our problems could be solved by drumroll..... A.) time and B). money!

• Since the driveway would go on the right of way, the hiking trail first needed to be moved by parks and rec.

• And since that driveway, which would only access our two lots, would sit on a public right of way it really couldn't be a driveway. It had to be a full-blown public road, built to much $tricter $tandards.

• Given the lots' proximity to a creek it was subject to the Chesapeake Bay Act and its many regulations.

• We also had to consult with the fire chief, to determine fire apparatus access and if the fire hydrant nearby was adequate.

At this point it was just incredibly useful to have all the needed people in the same room, all giving us this guidance, even if it meant a lot of homework. In my personal experience, and as many of you can probably relate, an in-person meeting is typically a friendlier and more productive environment than trying to do it over many emails or zoom meetings.

My biggest piece of advice for meetings like this to take detailed notes, indicate who was at the meeting, their position with the city, and to distribute those notes to all participants afterwards. Inevitably, especially on a multi-year project, people will change jobs, or forget what was approved, and these notes become invaluable for reference and to avoid rehashing old subjects.

In the Meantime,

The next few weeks began with hiring a civil engineer to guide us through the necessary sitework drawings. Since this project required a road, the extension of utilities, and dealt with land disturbance in a Chesapeake management area, we knew hiring a civil engineer was absolutely required. It can be tempting to think you can work things out yourself, but it will inevitably save time and money in the long run to hire a professional. I need to practice what I preach, after all. This was our first big expense for the project, well, maybe the second, since we first needed to get the five lots surveyed, and then consolidated into two.

While the civil engineer was getting started, we consulted with a Richmond fire captain who was one of the most helpful people along the way. He explained the weight and dimensional requirements of the trucks that would come in the event of a fire, and even gave us the great news that the existing fire hydrant down the road was close enough to service our house. No new hydrant needed = a savings of $16,000!

Also in the meantime, we were refining the floor plans to something more modest. After what began as a sprawling floor plan, with the kids' and parents' sleeping areas separated by a huge, glass-enclosed living space (see below), we were given a dose of reality after speaking with a few contractors. BTW, call me if you have a piece of land and want to build this one!

So, refine we did, and honestly, this can be fun too...challenging yes, but fun. It requires trying to attain the same feel, aesthetic, and utility of a space within a smaller footprint. Spaces become more flexible, perhaps serving two uses, dimensions more efficient, materials more modest, etc. If done incorrectly the house just shrinks, and built with inferior materials, a.k.a. cheapened! If done properly, however, while the house often becomes smaller, it still retains the vision of the original design, just in an optimized version with perhaps a little more creativity along the way.

Below is what the refined floor plan looked like. We moved the bedrooms to a second level which eliminates expensive foundation work (this is why builders love colonials), but by and large we have the same program: 3 bedrooms with a future 4th, an office, and a large living/ dining/ kitchen space with ample views to the outdoors.

Now, I would like to say the design started with the first floor plan and quickly morphed to the second, but that would be stretching the truth. What happens when you have an architect and interior designer team is the curse of endless ideas! Since there was no need to watch our hours, we didn't, and spent many exploring seemingly every configuration possible to arrive at the same program but something we thought we could afford.

Let's Talk Money

Well, I've skirted around the issue long enough, so we might as well talk about dollars and cents for a bit. The cost of building a custom home varies with many things, but can generally be distilled down to scope (size), quality, and geographic location. There are several subsets under these big three, but for the most part these are the big drivers into the project cost. How did ours break down?

Size

Our size was a little below the national average, which currently is about 2,400 SF.

Quality

This includes many things, but generally equates to the quality (or more specifically cost) of finishes, amount of built-ins (think window seats, custom cabinets, etc), windows, exterior finishes, etc.

Geographic Location

Location does matter. Common sense and hard data will tell you it's more expensive to build in Los Angeles, CA than say somewhere in the Mid-West. It's labor, time to permitting, red tape, sitework costs, taxes, all of it. Richmond, VA falls somewhere between these two extremes.

There's another less-considered factor in project cost, and that's timing. Different than time (project duration) timing can either have little to no impact or a huge impact. Think things like periods of rapidly-rising interest rates, or when Covid severely affected supply chains from 2020-2022. So it's not necessarily one of the big three, but lives somewhere amongst all of them...and can bring either positive or negative outcomes.

...So back to Cost

Looking at cost, considering the factors above, below is a rough estimate for what you can expect in building a new home (in Richmond that is!). And these costs generally do not include the cost of land.

$150/ SF - For this you'll get a two-story home on a crawl space foundation, with builder-grade finishes and windows. Insulation will meet but likely not exceed code, a garage likely not in the equation, and the plans might be prepared by a draftsman vs. an architect (another topic!). Think 75% of the homes out there and probably what most of us grew up in...serviceable, liveable homes....not splashy or winning design awards but nevertheless serving an important function.

$200 - $250 / SF - The next level up and generally what most people consider an upgraded home. It's likely two-stories, might have a brick front facade, a garage and/or basement, some upgraded finishes like tile in the bathrooms, and upgraded windows. Insulation is still likely only code minimum, and perhaps a few basic built-ins.

$300 - $400 / SF - This is where a house truly starts to take on a custom feel and character. Materials become more deliberate, durable, and not just tacked onto a front facade (you mean you can see a house from different angles?!), living spaces become larger and usually more open and free-flowing, windows might be larger and better quality, and built-ins become a possibility. Hopefully at this budget a skilled residential architect has been hired to prepare the plans in close consultation with the owners who will actually live there (a novel concept!). Landscaping is not an afterthought, but hopefully brought into the overall design concept, or planned for in the future as budget allows. Architectural moments should be created in this range, no excuses.

$400+ - A fully custom home, designed by an architect for a specific client, with exceptional design, materials, windows, views, and landscaping. All of it or nothing.

The dose of reality we were hit with, was, after submitting our plans to a few reputable contractors, was our design was coming in around the $400/ SF range, ouch! Part of this was attributable to the skyrocketing materials costs during Covid, especially with lumber, but it was also because we were just designing too much into the home. Too much above-code insulation, a custom floating stair, expensive windows, and the list went on. This was coupled with the fact that our site work costs were going to add another huge sum to the bottom line. We were right where most of my clients end up at some point...wanting that shiny new Lexus for the price of a used Kia, and so we needed to sharpen our pencils if we were ever going to make this a reality.