The design-build process has begun for a rental house that I will be putting on Willow Lane this summer. The house will be the first phase of what I hope will be a two phase project. Phase one entails cleaning up the property, site work, landscaping and a rental house. Phase two will entail more landscaping, addition of a coi pond and fountain, and the construction of a straw bail house.

I created a floor plan that was a mashup of two models from Bar Vista Homes. Of course, I made some tweaks. Pre-fabs are meant for that, dammit! Bar Vista is a front-range factory home builder. I found them last summer after interviewing a number of pre-fab companies and, most importantly, talking with some builders who had studied the field for clients.

These pre-fabs are built in a controlled environment using stick-built practices. They assemble the walls into boxes using a manufacturing line model. Shear walls are put up everywhere ’cause these boxes have to travel at 65 MPH. Try that with your custom built house! I’m trying to utilize their efficiencies and do as much work in the factory as possible. The less site work the less additional or higher cost. Labor and materials in the Roaring Fork Valley are substantial.

The thing about a pre-fab is that there are certain design elements that when studied, scream “modular!” or “mobile home!” or “cheap housing!” An attempt to subdue those qualities may fool the viewer into believing this was a stick-built custom home.

Who knows, I may actually achieve my goal of building a house for a reasonable square foot cost. I’m shooting for $150/sq.ft. in an area that is double and triple that cost depending on the finish. The devil is in the details and I’m workin’ those details!!

Here is a link to the most current elevations where the window placement went from shite to improved. The factory designer appears to be fairly lazy and didn’t put the windows on the elevations where the floor plans had indicated. Additionally, the roof won’t have bird-box fascia and eave endings. Also, the roof pitch is 7:12, not the displayed 5:12.

Tomorrow the manufacturer will send back my initial numbers. I’ll post those… just because I can… and someone actually may benefit from my research and work.

More later…