Looking for an online site with basic ideas of single family house plans.
Just need the floor plan for ideas.
Gonna build a pole barn and convert it.
But, I need a floor plan idea.
4 bedroom 2 1/2 bath about 32 x 64.
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From building boxes and fitting face frames to installing doors and drawers, these techniques could be used for lots of cabinet projects.
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I'd just google house plans and adapt from what you find...
Pole barn - let us know how that works out - be sure to put radiant tubes in the slab! Use attic trusses & gain some storage.
Most rancher plans would convert - LR/DR/Kit toward one end/corner middle hallway with bedrooms in the other end.
Put your living areas where the sun is, and your bedroom in the east to wake up to sunshine...
Best wishes.
I did that for an aunt. They had built a pole barn for a sawmill a few years earlier, and put VB under the slab.
Later, I designed her a cool handicapped-accessible house from it. Toilet and tub ends went into a tiny bumpout off the slab; all other plumbing in the walls.
It's in Franklin, NC, still owrks well for her.
Forrest
We are doing this so we can take our time.
Going to have the shell built by a barn builder. Then I can take my time and frame the inside. It will look like a pole barn on the outside, not just framed like one.
I think we will be ok all in all. Not sure if I am saving money or not, not even sure about the taxes.
The loan is my other question. Will they loan a house price for a pole barn?
Wife saw this done locally, she really wants it.
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Edited 12/31/2006 4:30 pm by bstcrpntr
I'd be surprised if the bank would loan money like that... Maybe some kind of "alternative" financing... Or maybe if you just borrow money to build a barn and pay for the conversion yourself... Or, maybe 1 loan for the barn, and then a remodeling loan later - it would require some serious collateral though - like paid for land at a minimum. Maybe banks are different where you live...
Banks dislike anything non-typical, and you mention stretching the timeline. Construction loans usually have a finite end point. People have lost homes by ignoring that date. Where my caution flags went up was in thinking you might be trying to get a permit for a barn but sneak a house in past the AHJ. That would really be shooting yourself in the foot, big time!
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Don't even need a permit for the barn, or a house for that matter.
I know I have five years to report improvements, that would save on taxes for a bit.
I think no matter what the savings, or lack there of, this is what we are doing because DW likes the idea.Friends help you move.
Real friends help you move bodies!
All she has to do is convince the banker then.;)
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Fly over the USA at about 30,000 feet, and the big metroplexes like Chicagoland look insignificant in area, when compared to the vastness of the rest.
And it is in that "rest" that the business of plans review, codes, building permits and inspection, really doesn't exist.
It does, of course, for commercial and industrial projects, public work, and the like, but for someone building themself a house, barn, shop, or anything else, permits and inspectors just aren't part of the picture. The big work gets reviewed at either state or county levels.
I get a kick out of the "that'll never pass inspection" remarks here on this forum, when as so often is the case, there ain't any.
Maybe SYS OP should change things so profile completion is a prerequisite to posting, and the questions, "are permits required where you operate" and "does inspection take place" require answers.
Where I am right now, the answers are YES and NO. Before coming here, in NE Indiana, it was YES and YES. But 15 miles N or 15 miles E, across into MI and OH, the answers would be NO and NO.
Geographicly, the area in which permits and inspections are required probably is larger than the area in which they are not.But in terms of numbers, more homes require those tjhan not.
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Piffin,
Why do people try to reinvent the wheel when they build a house. Every contractor that I know will try to build their houses and cheap and efficient as possible. But I always run into people who will try a hair-brained idea just because uncle joe says that it will work better and that we don't know what in the world we are doing
Kyle
I spent two hours in a meeting yesterday with a client like that. I had already soved a lot of problems on a design they thought was good because they came up with it.Then they wanted to change half the stuff in the design I had presented, all creepy ideas that were unsafe or unbuildable, as well as being in poor taste.I came right to the point of being rude in explaining that they were paying for my expertise and that they were about to waste their money...
So we are on a fresh footing this AM on the phone and going forward my way with them understanding and agreeing that I am to listen to their priorites, but to work out the detailing myself.I was ready to walk otherwise. Never had to say so, but it was there in my head.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
There is a reason for real estate apparisers setting the lifespan of a polebarn to 20-30 years is that the poles rot off and the building sinks into the ground.
If you want a house to live in that has a short start-up cost but a truncated life expectancy then a polebarn house is perfect.
Local banks shy away from such loans.
Your choice.............Iron Helix
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Sounds good but why not build what you want to start with? If funds are that short, go with a dried in shell with the good old Typar siding :-) That probably wouldn't work with the bank though.
The fact is that building a house isn't a "no money down" kind of deal. In my experience, you really gotta have your (financial) "ducks in a row" to build a home. IMO, for people who are short on liquid assets but have the income, buying an existing house is the way to go... Either that, or get on the pay as you go plan, but your family has got to be OK with the reality of living in a partially finished house for a number of years.
Another option would be to build the pole barn a little long and pull a camper in one end (later to be the garage) - live in the camper and finish at your leasure. Pole barn shells are amazingly cheap, as are used campers, and you have somewhere to store your stuff now.
Treat every person you meet like you will know them the rest of your life - you just might!
Funds are not low, in my opinion.
We own the land outright, and can pay cash for the 40x80 pole barn with concrete floor. Can do the rough in floor stuff for heat and drains as well.
Just can't build the whole thing.
Camper in the end is the plan already, guess I should of posted my checkbook, and savings balance before startingthis thread.
Maybe I should wait a few years and build the whole damn thing with cash, but that will cost even more then, ohh the delima. Now what?
I know, just buy a $6,000.00 5 br fixxer upper and move my family into absolute trash until I am done remodeling it.
We have a dream of what we want, we can acheive it, why is there always someone who wants to rain on a parade and assume that I am trying to do this with no money down. How we live and where we shop are no indicators at all of where the money is or isn't.
Guess I ain't mad at you, but your post was about teh exact same thing my parents and others said. They told me I had no money, wtf do they know.Friends help you move.
Real friends help you move bodies!
It's a fairly common structure here in flyover country as Gene alluded to.Many polebarns now are built on curbs on the slab, becasue of rotting posts, but just like in fine homebuilding, there are propely sited and drained polebarns that are 50 years old or more. I happen to be looking out my window at one.
There is nothing wrong with your plan. If you have the funds to complete the shell, do it. Pole barns are an adaptation of post and beam, and that type of building has been around far longer than stick framing. With the right skirt/trim/flashing details, they can be attractive and rodent proof.
I did something similar in 1998, and came away with a garage with an apartment above on an acre for $47K. I added the house a few years later. Then I sold it at a decent profit. That was my "break". I used the equity to build the exact house my family wanted on a bigger piece of land.
My only caution is to make certain your family (wife) is in on the dream. This type of thing can be hard on some folks.
Banks may take issue, but you may not need a bank. Build it with the interest payments you don't have to pay.
Treat every person you meet like you will know them the rest of your life - you just might!
It is her dream.
I am just her make-a wish foundation.
Since she ain't crippled.
Friends help you move.
Real friends help you move bodies!
I've been through the process and just figured I'd share a little of what I had learned by doing it. None the less having the land paid for is a big plus as that is likely one of the first things the bank will ask you about - the land. Sounds like you do have your financial ducks in a row, but there is still a little game you have to play with the bank to make them happy if you do want a loan. They will likely want to have a complete project estimate and then set up a draw schedule based on work completed. In addition there are "alternative" financing sources at somewhat higher interest rates that are less restrictive. When I built the house for my wife and I, people gave me some of the same negative feedback. In the end we got a standard construction to perm loan from a big bank that worked out great. Some of the negative feedback I got I actually think made me more determined to succeed.
Sorry, but I tend to be conservative when it comes to home building and investing large sums of money. I'm also the poster child for no big risk, no big reward. Likewise I see a lot of ideas for alternative building here at BT that I have a hard time with.
Regarding your initial question, there are tons of plans outfits on the internet. Just do a Google.
This pole barn conversion doesn't tickle my fancy either, but it is probably least risky amoung the things I have heard of for banks to consider.Having a partially completed alternative home is one of the worst things a bank can get stuck with.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
No offence and I'm not trying to sound like a poodle azz but I drive past a lot of unfinished projects in a very rural area of Northern Maine where I have a home away from home. All had great intentions at the start I'm sure. Not having a full plan and funding from the start is not a good start. I can't tell you about all the detached garages w/o even a shingle on the roof, just plywood. They even have stuff stored in it but no car. There is one that only has the trusses after more than 6 years! Not going to be a lot of strength in those fasteners is there.
In the fire service that I also work for there is a motto....
Start right, finish right.
between potatoe famine, AF base closing, chickens going to Arkansas, and paper mills gone or going, northern Maine is full of empty pockets, and they never were that big on finishing things off up there. Siding on front of the house with tarppaer around back was a chosen lifestyle to keep real estate txes lower. Now, they say the most popular siding material in northern Maine is Tyvek
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Here in the Adirondacks, we refer to a type of architecture, commonly seen, as "early Tyvek vernacular."
My favorite unfinished detail is the front door three feet in the air...ran out of money for the porch or steps....
Most of the Amish houses I saw when we lived in NE Indiana had that detail, the front door way up with no stoop under it.
I always thought it facilitated getting into the buggy.
high dollar architectural shingles on the front and 3 tab on the back...
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